Balatro

For new players the easiest deck to use will be checkered deck as it is easy to unlock and straightforward to play. You unlock it by beating white stake with black deck. That will be trivial compared to winning gold stake. Checkered deck starts with only spades and hearts so it makes it trivial to create flushes. Flushes do not scale well in this game, but they will give you more flat chips and multi than high card or pair for the same hand level so it's still a good strategy when using this deck. Because flushes use 5 scoring cards they also provide an excellent flat chip score meaning you don't need to run a chip-based joker through ante 8.

----------

Gold stake adds a new element called rental jokers to the game, but the real run killer is the aggressive blind scaling.

By this I mean how quickly the points for each blind increase as you climb the antes. By the end of Ante 8 you will require 400k chips to beat the boss blind (1.2 million for Violet Vessel). To get the points required you need a combination of three things: Good flat chips (the blue number), at least one scaling source of flat multi (modifiers that + the red number), and multiple consecutive multi multipliers (modifiers that x the red number). I know that phrasing is confusing, but if you've played the game it should make sense. Scaling here means that the joker's buff can be increased over time.

To keep searching for good jokers and buffing your deck you'll need to establish a good economy. I usually aim to hit the interest cap ($25 for +$5 per round) by the end of ante 4. I also like to buy a few things that boost number of hands per round by this point as each unplayed hand is +$1 per round.

----------

For simplicity I consider this game as having two parts on gold stake: Early game and late game. In early game your goal is to find a single good joker that can carry you through to the end of ante 4 so you can focus on building your economy and searching for late game jokers. In late game your only goal is to complete your joker roster and then pump your scaling jokers as much as possible and pump your deck with enhanced cards.

----------

The scaling on gold stake is brutal so you need to be way more picky about jokers than other stakes. Generally I'd say this for each category of joker:

* Utility jokers: These are jokers which make the game easier in some way. Like only needing 4 cards for a straight, or giving +1 had size. Do not use these on gold stake. They simply don't provide enough value. Every joker slot is precious on this difficulty and none of the utility jokers in the game are good enough.

* Economy jokers: These are any jokers that provide you money, consumables, or buff your deck. These are usually average to excellent jokers to take early game. Consider if you'll make back your investment be having that joker in your roster for a few rounds and selling it later. Early game your should have empty joker slots on gold stake because you are being picky about your jokers. Late game they should be skipped unless they provide a buff like polychrome or uncommon+baseball. Be wary of taking them if they have the eternal tag (prevents selling them). You will want to replace them late game with another source of flat-multi or multi-multi.

Some of these are a cut above the rest and can win a run:
- Cloud 9: minimum $4 per round
- Golden Joker
- Certificate: you'll be getting +2 or more to you hand level every round in late game and an endless supply of tarot cards
- Cartomancer

* Flat chip bonuses: These are not required when running flushes and if you are building your economy well, but can be used to fill a gap if you have no high chip cards in your deck and don't have a decent Flush hand level. I'd ignore anything giving less than 80 chips per hand. Minimum 100 chips per hand should be your target. Something like Arrowhead easily gives you 250 chips per hand with this deck so +80 chips is negligible value late game. Definitely be wary to invest in any eternal or rental jokers here. You are usually better off investing in some Tarot cards to create Bonus Cards in your deck for flat chips or Planet cards to boost the flat chip value of Flush hands.

* Flat multi bonuses: This is going to be a core part of most engines. You can get this from pure hand level if you have an engine to generate Planet Cards every round like Certificate, but in most cases you will want one joker slot dedicated to scaling flat multi. Early game a good non-scaling mult between 15-25 is excellent and will carry you through ante 4. This allows you to relax and focus on building econ and finding late game jokers. For late game you really want something that scales or something with 25+ flat mult. Holographic is not really important as +10 mult won't get you far on gold stake, but if it is applied on top of a joker already giving at least +15 flat multi then it can be decent.

For this category I'd consider these some of the best:
- Swashbuckler: often 25 or higher mult on gold stake
- Green Joker: scales fast and effectively for free with checkered deck
- Abstract Joker: minimum +15 multi
- Gros Michel: great early game for flat +15 multi. required in order to spawn Cavendish for late game
- Fibonacci: gives one of the highest per-card flat mult bonuses in the game
- Bootstraps: it is utter trash early game, but late game you will often have excess money once you are having with your joker roster and not spending on rerolls
- Flash Card: you'll be rerolling a lot anyway and synergies well with econ jokers and vouchers
- Fortune Teller: wouldn't take it alone, but insane synergy with something like Certificate

Don't take Red Card, Ride The Bus, or Supernova. They are traps that simply do not scale fast enough for gold stake. Half Joker is top tier, but doesn't really work in a flush build.

* Multi-multi bonuses: This is your bread and butter for gold stake. You want as many of these as possible. At least 3. Preferably 4 or 5 with at least one you can scale.

Some of the best are:
- Steel Joker: you want steel cards in your deck anyway and this is one of the easier jokers to scale using tarot cards
- Blackboard: easy to proc with checkered deck and x3 is huge
- Cavendish: you need Gros Michael to go extinct first, but an S tier gimme if you see this
- Card Sharp: just a better version of Acrobat
- Hologram: If you see this early game then it scales insanely fast. It isn't great late game, but can be a source of x1.5 pretty easily if you have a few rounds left before the final boss.
- Baron
- Baseball Card: so many great uncommons to synergize with
- Ramen: free x2 and should hold value through to final boss when playing checkered deck
- Throwback: If seen early then you can skip small blinds which give no $ reward on this stake. Don't overdo it and kill your economy though.
- The Duo: it is fairly easy to include a pair in your flush
- The Tribe: free x2 for this deck
- Driver's License: fairly easy to activate if your current joker roster can carry you for a couple of antes
- Yorick: easy to scale once you've got him
- Blueprint: This is simply a copy of your best joker. Therefore the best joker in the game. Note that you can move the order of this joker while playing so you can benefit from a joker like Certificate at the start of the round and then move this over beside your Cavendish for the rest of the round.
- Brainstorm: Also incredibly powerful. Only trivially worse as being to the right means sometimes it doesn't fit in your order or operations as easily.

Beware of any Jokers that say "when scored" as this applies the effect early and can be suboptimal if you flat mult is coming from another joker. Be wary of jokers like Constellation and Vampire as they don't scale very fast and can kill your economy. An early game Constellation can be a good addition to your late game roster, but the run may die before you get there unless you have another powerful joker to keep your pace up. Situational jokers like Acrobat can help pad out your combo, but they often leave you high and dry on gold stake. I've lost many runs with Acrobat because it only pops off on the last hand where you could easily get screwed by a bad draw.

Note: You always want any bonuses which multi mults to apply after ones that add to mults.

Note: If you see negative jokers for sale or in packs they are almost always worth taking. Only avoid jokers which eat your other jokers or economy like Ceremonial Dagger. Expensive trash jokers might be worth skipping, but even those can save you in the end if you get Verdant Leaf.

Note: For reference you can look at the list of jokers here: https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Jokers
I am not using their categories though as I don't really agree with them. Something like Chaos the Clown is really an Economy joker as the free reroll is effectively $5 every round. On gold stake you will need to reroll to search for late game jokers.

I'm more or less following the categories discussed in this video: In my opinion it's a great starting point if you aren't really up to speed on which jokers are good and which are bad. I generally agree with most of the rankings with a few exceptions here or there. For example I consider Baseball Card S tier as I've never lost a run where I got it.

----------

Next we should talk about skipping blinds. In general you want to play every blind possible as you get interest on $ held and any other economy cards will get the chance to proc. Every blind played also give you more chances at useful jokers in the shop. The only time blinds are worth skipping is when you have Throwback (x0.25 added per skipped blind) or when the tag for small blind will give you more value than your currently built economy. I've tried runs where I skip for negative jokers and 90% of the time it is not worth it because the negative joker ends up being garbage. Skipping blinds on ante 1 can be worth it if you see the tags Negative, Rare, Polychrome, Investment, Coupon, or Buffoon. Investment is almost always worth it, but the others are very RNG. Polychrome can be great for your late game joker roster, but if it's on a trash joker it may be worth just restarting the run. Full list of tags can be referenced here: https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Tags

----------

Regarding Vouchers, most of them are absolutely excellent. Some are situational. The cost is high so consider your economy and if it is worth the $10 investment. The only one worth pointing out in this guide is Paint Brush because it has a synergy with checkered deck. At 9 hand size you are guaranteed a flush every draw as long as you have not added any clubs or diamonds to your deck. Paint Brush + Green Joker is a very good combo.

----------

Finally we need to talk about the Finisher Boss Blinds:

They can be referenced here: https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Blinds_and_Antes#Boss_Bl...

Amber Acorn: This is a freebe. Simply turn down game speed in your settings. Watch the animations on screen and you can see which type of joker each flipped card is. Then resort them.

Verdant Leaf: Probably the second worst one to get on gold stake. It can completely kill your joker roster if you don't have a random freebe negative joker to sacrifice or a build which can hit the blind at partial strength. I'd recommend consulting a balatro spreadsheet or calculator to figure out which joker is optimal to remove from your build. A quick google search gives a few options such as: https://efhiii.github.io/balatro-calculator/

Violet Vessel: It does sound hard and has killed a few of my runs, but to be honest those runs were not great anyway. A good gold stake run is easily hitting 1 million points per hand by ante 8.

Crimson Heart: Just a worse Verdant Leaf because you can't choose which joker is debuffed. You are at the mercy of RNG. Depends on your build, but usually on gold stake every joker is critical and the debuff is out of your control.

Cerulean Bell: This is another freebe because checkered deck doesn't really care about cards. Should be 50:50 on your flush without a discard if you've picked up Paint Brush voucher for +1 hand size.

----------

One extra tip: If you ever make a mistake when playing a hand or buying stuff in the shops, quickly press start and return to the main menu. Then choose Play and Continue. This will set you back to the last autosave which often acts as a quick Undo.

----------

That's all the advice I can really give. The game is RNG and you have to be flexible to work with what you draft. Impossible to created a reproducible step by step guide. The best builds will be pretty unusual and creative. The first time I beat gold stake on the Steam release I had an engine of Certificate generating 3 Jupiter cards every round, Cartomancer had blinged out my entire deck by ante 7, and I got a late Negative Baseball Card which I built into a stack of 5 consecutive x1.5 multi bonuses.

I'll try me best to keep this guide updated as they nerf/buff jokers in updates. Just leave me a comment if I've missed anything major. Also feel free to leave your own tips in the comments! Thanks and good luck!

I found this was best achieved by using the checkered deck (unlocked by wining a run at black stake) you start with only hearts and spades in your deck, then focusing on only flush runs, and using joker/tarot cards that buff flushes or heart/spade cards.

For new players the easiest deck to use will be checkered deck as it is easy to unlock and straightforward to play. You unlock it by beating white stake with black deck. That will be trivial compared to winning gold stake. Checkered deck starts with only spades and hearts so it makes it trivial to create flushes. Flushes do not scale well in this game, but they will give you more flat chips and multi than high card or pair for the same hand level so it's still a good strategy when using this deck. Because flushes use 5 scoring cards they also provide an excellent flat chip score meaning you don't need to run a chip-based joker through ante 8.

----------

Gold stake adds a new element called rental jokers to the game, but the real run killer is the aggressive blind scaling.

By this I mean how quickly the points for each blind increase as you climb the antes. By the end of Ante 8 you will require 400k chips to beat the boss blind (1.2 million for Violet Vessel). To get the points required you need a combination of three things: Good flat chips (the blue number), at least one scaling source of flat multi (modifiers that + the red number), and multiple consecutive multi multipliers (modifiers that x the red number). I know that phrasing is confusing, but if you've played the game it should make sense. Scaling here means that the joker's buff can be increased over time.

To keep searching for good jokers and buffing your deck you'll need to establish a good economy. I usually aim to hit the interest cap ($25 for +$5 per round) by the end of ante 4. I also like to buy a few things that boost number of hands per round by this point as each unplayed hand is +$1 per round.

----------

For simplicity I consider this game as having two parts on gold stake: Early game and late game. In early game your goal is to find a single good joker that can carry you through to the end of ante 4 so you can focus on building your economy and searching for late game jokers. In late game your only goal is to complete your joker roster and then pump your scaling jokers as much as possible and pump your deck with enhanced cards.

----------

The scaling on gold stake is brutal so you need to be way more picky about jokers than other stakes. Generally I'd say this for each category of joker:

* Utility jokers: These are jokers which make the game easier in some way. Like only needing 4 cards for a straight, or giving +1 had size. Do not use these on gold stake. They simply don't provide enough value. Every joker slot is precious on this difficulty and none of the utility jokers in the game are good enough.

* Economy jokers: These are any jokers that provide you money, consumables, or buff your deck. These are usually average to excellent jokers to take early game. Consider if you'll make back your investment be having that joker in your roster for a few rounds and selling it later. Early game your should have empty joker slots on gold stake because you are being picky about your jokers. Late game they should be skipped unless they provide a buff like polychrome or uncommon+baseball. Be wary of taking them if they have the eternal tag (prevents selling them). You will want to replace them late game with another source of flat-multi or multi-multi.

Some of these are a cut above the rest and can win a run:
- Cloud 9: minimum $4 per round
- Golden Joker
- Certificate: you'll be getting +2 or more to you hand level every round in late game and an endless supply of tarot cards
- Cartomancer

* Flat chip bonuses: These are not required when running flushes and if you are building your economy well, but can be used to fill a gap if you have no high chip cards in your deck and don't have a decent Flush hand level. I'd ignore anything giving less than 80 chips per hand. Minimum 100 chips per hand should be your target. Something like Arrowhead easily gives you 250 chips per hand with this deck so +80 chips is negligible value late game. Definitely be wary to invest in any eternal or rental jokers here. You are usually better off investing in some Tarot cards to create Bonus Cards in your deck for flat chips or Planet cards to boost the flat chip value of Flush hands.

* Flat multi bonuses: This is going to be a core part of most engines. You can get this from pure hand level if you have an engine to generate Planet Cards every round like Certificate, but in most cases you will want one joker slot dedicated to scaling flat multi. Early game a good non-scaling mult between 15-25 is excellent and will carry you through ante 4. This allows you to relax and focus on building econ and finding late game jokers. For late game you really want something that scales or something with 25+ flat mult. Holographic is not really important as +10 mult won't get you far on gold stake, but if it is applied on top of a joker already giving at least +15 flat multi then it can be decent.

For this category I'd consider these some of the best:
- Swashbuckler: often 25 or higher mult on gold stake
- Green Joker: scales fast and effectively for free with checkered deck
- Abstract Joker: minimum +15 multi
- Gros Michel: great early game for flat +15 multi. required in order to spawn Cavendish for late game
- Fibonacci: gives one of the highest per-card flat mult bonuses in the game
- Bootstraps: it is utter trash early game, but late game you will often have excess money once you are having with your joker roster and not spending on rerolls
- Flash Card: you'll be rerolling a lot anyway and synergies well with econ jokers and vouchers
- Fortune Teller: wouldn't take it alone, but insane synergy with something like Certificate

Don't take Red Card, Ride The Bus, or Supernova. They are traps that simply do not scale fast enough for gold stake. Half Joker is top tier, but doesn't really work in a flush build.

* Multi-multi bonuses: This is your bread and butter for gold stake. You want as many of these as possible. At least 3. Preferably 4 or 5 with at least one you can scale.

Some of the best are:
- Steel Joker: you want steel cards in your deck anyway and this is one of the easier jokers to scale using tarot cards
- Blackboard: easy to proc with checkered deck and x3 is huge
- Cavendish: you need Gros Michael to go extinct first, but an S tier gimme if you see this
- Card Sharp: just a better version of Acrobat
- Hologram: If you see this early game then it scales insanely fast. It isn't great late game, but can be a source of x1.5 pretty easily if you have a few rounds left before the final boss.
- Baron
- Baseball Card: so many great uncommons to synergize with
- Ramen: free x2 and should hold value through to final boss when playing checkered deck
- Throwback: If seen early then you can skip small blinds which give no $ reward on this stake. Don't overdo it and kill your economy though.
- The Duo: it is fairly easy to include a pair in your flush
- The Tribe: free x2 for this deck
- Driver's License: fairly easy to activate if your current joker roster can carry you for a couple of antes
- Yorick: easy to scale once you've got him
- Blueprint: This is simply a copy of your best joker. Therefore the best joker in the game. Note that you can move the order of this joker while playing so you can benefit from a joker like Certificate at the start of the round and then move this over beside your Cavendish for the rest of the round.
- Brainstorm: Also incredibly powerful. Only trivially worse as being to the right means sometimes it doesn't fit in your order or operations as easily.

Beware of any Jokers that say "when scored" as this applies the effect early and can be suboptimal if you flat mult is coming from another joker. Be wary of jokers like Constellation and Vampire as they don't scale very fast and can kill your economy. An early game Constellation can be a good addition to your late game roster, but the run may die before you get there unless you have another powerful joker to keep your pace up. Situational jokers like Acrobat can help pad out your combo, but they often leave you high and dry on gold stake. I've lost many runs with Acrobat because it only pops off on the last hand where you could easily get screwed by a bad draw.

Note: You always want any bonuses which multi mults to apply after ones that add to mults.

Note: If you see negative jokers for sale or in packs they are almost always worth taking. Only avoid jokers which eat your other jokers or economy like Ceremonial Dagger. Expensive trash jokers might be worth skipping, but even those can save you in the end if you get Verdant Leaf.

Note: For reference you can look at the list of jokers here: https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Jokers
I am not using their categories though as I don't really agree with them. Something like Chaos the Clown is really an Economy joker as the free reroll is effectively $5 every round. On gold stake you will need to reroll to search for late game jokers.

I'm more or less following the categories discussed in this video: In my opinion it's a great starting point if you aren't really up to speed on which jokers are good and which are bad. I generally agree with most of the rankings with a few exceptions here or there. For example I consider Baseball Card S tier as I've never lost a run where I got it.

----------

Next we should talk about skipping blinds. In general you want to play every blind possible as you get interest on $ held and any other economy cards will get the chance to proc. Every blind played also give you more chances at useful jokers in the shop. The only time blinds are worth skipping is when you have Throwback (x0.25 added per skipped blind) or when the tag for small blind will give you more value than your currently built economy. I've tried runs where I skip for negative jokers and 90% of the time it is not worth it because the negative joker ends up being garbage. Skipping blinds on ante 1 can be worth it if you see the tags Negative, Rare, Polychrome, Investment, Coupon, or Buffoon. Investment is almost always worth it, but the others are very RNG. Polychrome can be great for your late game joker roster, but if it's on a trash joker it may be worth just restarting the run. Full list of tags can be referenced here: https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Tags

----------

Regarding Vouchers, most of them are absolutely excellent. Some are situational. The cost is high so consider your economy and if it is worth the $10 investment. The only one worth pointing out in this guide is Paint Brush because it has a synergy with checkered deck. At 9 hand size you are guaranteed a flush every draw as long as you have not added any clubs or diamonds to your deck. Paint Brush + Green Joker is a very good combo.

----------

Finally we need to talk about the Finisher Boss Blinds:

They can be referenced here: https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Blinds_and_Antes#Boss_Bl...

Amber Acorn: This is a freebe. Simply turn down game speed in your settings. Watch the animations on screen and you can see which type of joker each flipped card is. Then resort them.

Verdant Leaf: Probably the second worst one to get on gold stake. It can completely kill your joker roster if you don't have a random freebe negative joker to sacrifice or a build which can hit the blind at partial strength. I'd recommend consulting a balatro spreadsheet or calculator to figure out which joker is optimal to remove from your build. A quick google search gives a few options such as: https://efhiii.github.io/balatro-calculator/

Violet Vessel: It does sound hard and has killed a few of my runs, but to be honest those runs were not great anyway. A good gold stake run is easily hitting 1 million points per hand by ante 8.

Crimson Heart: Just a worse Verdant Leaf because you can't choose which joker is debuffed. You are at the mercy of RNG. Depends on your build, but usually on gold stake every joker is critical and the debuff is out of your control.

Cerulean Bell: This is another freebe because checkered deck doesn't really care about cards. Should be 50:50 on your flush without a discard if you've picked up Paint Brush voucher for +1 hand size.

----------

One extra tip: If you ever make a mistake when playing a hand or buying stuff in the shops, quickly press start and return to the main menu. Then choose Play and Continue. This will set you back to the last autosave which often acts as a quick Undo.

----------

That's all the advice I can really give. The game is RNG and you have to be flexible to work with what you draft. Impossible to created a reproducible step by step guide. The best builds will be pretty unusual and creative. The first time I beat gold stake on the Steam release I had an engine of Certificate generating 3 Jupiter cards every round, Cartomancer had blinged out my entire deck by ante 7, and I got a late Negative Baseball Card which I built into a stack of 5 consecutive x1.5 multi bonuses.

I'll try me best to keep this guide updated as they nerf/buff jokers in updates. Just leave me a comment if I've missed anything major. Also feel free to leave your own tips in the comments! Thanks and good luck!