Balatro

Origins of the game name

In ancient Rome, a balatro was a professional jester or buffoon. Balatrones were paid for their jests, and the tables of the wealthy were generally open to them for the sake of the amusement they afforded.

Worth to know shortcuts

R key

Pressing R for a couple of seconds will restart the game, placing you at the beginning of a new run (ante 1 of 8). I found it better than having to get back to the main menu in order to do the same.

RMB

Pressing the right mouse button will put all cards initially selected to be played (or discarded) back down to your hand. I found it better than having to do it manually, one card at a time.

Tips for winning a run

The first Balatro run I won in my life!

Now, contrary to many YouTubers I’ve watched playing Balatro, all of them making it seem soooo simple to beat a run, I haven’t won a run myself yet I have actually been able to beat my first Balatro run, as I recount in these weeknotes — the above screenshot is from that run I beat. But I have to say that I trust these tips, which I have found in some different places over the internet, to be the way to conquer that achievement:

User pawbs on Reddit has some tips that apply not only to Balatro, but to deck building roguelikes in general:

Get the MOST out of every round. If you buy a joker that has “do X in the round and you’ll get Y permenantly” make sure you do it as much as you can. Win in as few hands as possible so that you get more money.

Sometimes, the best thing to buy is nothing. If there’s a joker that doesn’t synergize well with your current build, it’s often a good idea to save the money and collect interest on it.

Focus on solving all gaps in your deck. This game has 4: get reliable blue ships per hand, get reliable + multipliers per hand, get reliable X multipliers per hand, get reliable hands. To beat ante 8, you need to solve all four by the final boss. If for example, you only have X multipliers, but no blue chip +, you’re much better off investing in filling that gap even if you see an x multipliers card that’s really good.

User 3lbFlax, also on Reddit, shares these additional strategies:

Most of my wins revolve around, or at least start with, flushes - with tarot and card packs you can usually start a flush strategy in the first level, and then look out for compatible jokers. I’ll never pass up a tarot pack and will prioritise them when I have to choose. Wild cards are obviously good for flushes, and steel cards and purple seals are great for any card outside your suit (or destroy them, but this risks disaster if the wrong boss comes up).

I also try to save powerful tarot cards until I can open a pack - something like a ‘left card becomes a copy of right’ combined with a ‘create two copies’ can shoot you straight into the big time. Similarly, saving the ‘create a copy of the last tarot used’ can pay off in silver dollars. Extra discards are also a must-buy - I’ve had a few games where I’ve ended up with multiples of a very powerful card, and it’s just been a case of needing to get them together. In these cases each additional discard is like an extra life.

I’d also say learn to check your score before playing, as you ideally want to finish in as few hands as possible, for the extra cash. You don’t get any bonus for going over your target score, so watch out for hands that can end the round despite not fitting your strategy - don’t chase a high-scoring flush if a two pair will do the job. If you know you have a winning hand in place, use every discard to see if you can turn up a purple seal or gold card before playing.

Think mults - chip boosts are great early on, but later you need to be multiplying your mults. Remember to arrange your cards and your jokers to maximise their advantage - always put multipliers on the right, and if you have the ‘first face card adds x2’ joker, put your face cards to the right. +4 +10 x3 is much better than x3 +4 +10, for example.

But I think the most useful tip I can offer is the tarot one - they can very quickly shape and cement your strategy. You will need the right jokers, but I usually let my tarot cards shape my joker selection. Of course if you get a great joker early on then you can do the opposite and let that lead your choices - but I think tarot cards will still be the key to success.

Resources for (hopefully) beating the first run(s)

A New Player’s Primer to Balatro

A Joker guide for crushing the first difficulty

#english