5 Overlooked Tips For Scoring Big In Balatro

If the poker-based rogue-like Balatro isn’t in your game rotation yet, we here at Inverse implore you to fix that immediately. The award-winning game and solo debut from independent developer LocalThunk is one of 2024’s deepest and most interesting titles. Its mobile port, which makes card selection and quick strategizing easier than ever, is also my personal game of the year.

For those late to the Balatro train, the game’s earliest hours are also its most important. Players will spend most of that time unraveling its many subtleties. While the game does an excellent job onboarding new players by making sure its rules are always accessible (including the differences between all of the possible hands in Poker), there are less obvious tricks that become clearer with each subsequent run. Luckily, with hundreds of hours under our belts, we can help teach new players some of the simpler but more essential tricks to scoring big quicker than the game will.

Here are five tips for new players just starting their Balatro journey.

Tip #1 - The order of your Jokers matters

While it’s easy to ignore in the early going, there’s a reason why Balatro lets players move their Jokers around in their inventory after purchase. Jokers are triggered from left to right, so how one places their Jokers matters big time. The most common mistake among new players is placing Jokers that add a flat number to their multiplier after Jokers that increase multipliers by a certain factor.

As a quick example, let’s say your played hand gives you a base score of five mult, and have one Joker that doubles that mult and another that adds 16 to that mult. If the plus 16 mult Joker triggers first (5+16=21) then doubles your mult, you’ll get a final mult of 42. If the Joker that doubles your original mult triggers first (5x2=10), then adds 16, you’ll get a final mult of 26. As this simple model shows, not placing jokers correctly can prevent maximizing your final scores and payouts.

As a run wages on, the placement of Jokers becomes even more important. Jokers that retrigger certain effects, for example, should be placed after ones that help bolster specific hands or playstyles.

Tip #2 - Get outside your comfort zone

It may be easy to find a particular strategy or hand you like and stick with it in subsequent runs. But in Balatro, doing so will limit you severely. Any time a new Joker appears in the shop early on in your run, give it a whirl. At worst, you’ll find that it didn’t work to your advantage and will have to sell it. At best, you’ll discover an entirely new strategy you’ve never considered because you were too busy trying to replicate what victory looks like in your mind.

Your willingness to experiment will be rewarded in the long run. Using all of the game’s jokers will fill out the game’s Joker Index, allowing you to better identify and plan game-winning strategies when you become a Balatro master.

Tip #3 - Play Useless Cards To Avoid Using Discards

Like regular Poker, patiently waiting for the right hand is a big part of strategizing in Balatro. It’s why discards are so precious. While players get three discards by default (plus one more if they’re using the Red Deck), there are ways to toss out cards you don’t need without dipping into your discards at all.

When playing any hand, players can also play any number of useless cards along with it. When playing a pair, for example, players can add up to three cards alongside it. The cards that aren’t part of that pair won’t add to the score, but they will be thrown out of hand all the same. This is especially useful when either out of discards or when trying to save discards.

Tip #4 - Planet Cards Necessary For Victory

Balatro has a lot of moving parts. There are Jokers that can help you build specific playstyles during a run. Tarot cards that modify playing cards before and during play. Booster packs that can add new cards to your deck. Enhancements like foil and seals that change the scoring conditions of specific cards. The more you play, you’ll unlock newer factors like modified and limited edition cards if all types that add further depth to how you play.

For newcomers grasping all of these elements, it’s easy to lose track of the cards that impact your score in less flashy ways. Planet cards aren’t played during rounds and, as a result, may seem like they have less of an impact on your runs. In reality, Planet cards are probably the most important card type for executing a good run, as they increase the base chip and mult value of respective hands. In a few rounds, you can make low-scoring hands like Pairs or even High Cards worth more than other, more elaborate hands.

As Blinds get tougher, ensuring your hands also increase in value is super important to the end game. Purchase and use Planet cards that fit your play style and deck as often as possible.

Tip #5 - Destroy what you don’t need

The option to increase the number of cards in your deck is constantly presented to players between rounds thanks to booster packs. But don’t sleep on the option to reduce the number of cards in your deck by destroying them. Creating multiples of certain high-scoring cards increases your chances of drawing particular hands. But so does minimizing the cards available to you.

The next time you’re leaning on a particular hand to carry you to victory, consider cutting cards outside of that criteria from your deck entirely. Going for an all-face cards and aces run? Try destroying as many lower-rank cards as possible. Building a deck around the Fibonacci or Hack Jokers? Increase the odds of drawing an Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8 by destroying cards that won’t activate their effects.

Drawing the cards, ranks, and suits you need is all about improving those odds. And sometimes, a smaller deck is the best way to do it.