All Jokers Tier List (Uncommons)

Commons: • All Jokers Tier List (...
Rares: • All Jokers Tier List (...
Broadcasted live on Twitch (Sat, 15/6/2024) -- / drspectred
ko-fi.com/drsp...
Office Hours Playlist: • Office Hours (Twitch S...
We rank all 150 Jokers. Here, we move on to the Uncommons.
Music by Dom Palombi! • Balatro Main Theme - F...
(Version 1.0.1f)

[@robbert-janmerk6783]

I would have much, much preferred that for every card he first explains what the card does. Not everybody has every Balatro joker's mechanisms on the top of their mind.

[@drspectred]

Not every video is aimed at the same audience. If you're newer to the game or just /genuinely/ interested in learning to play less bad, I recommend the three video series Balatro Basics 1, 2, and 3.

[@p3rp351]

I’m only like 6 hours in and I know what these jokers do, I just don’t know them all by name. But I’m terrible with names

[@ripcitygamer]

Opened wiki in another window. I could read during the meme-jabbering quicker than it would take for him to describe. So I'm happy with the way it is.

[@brainmaxxing1]

I feel like if you are that new to the game you shouldn't be watching tier lists/spoiling the joker mechanics

[@DeathEatsCurry]

@@drspectred I realize it's a lot more editing work, but it could be possible to put the actual joker's tooltip on screen while you're discussing them?

[@Lockerus]

When the endlesspilled mimecel says something so JJphobic you have to hit them with the ante 8 stare.

[@Antd17]

+2 Mult

[@harley-zh3jk]

my brain just crashed

[@da3m0nic_79]

I’m crashing out

[@askmeagain43]

"Hey neighbour! Where's your xmult joker?" "We didn't take the xmult joker. We took the reroll. Hop in."

[@Green9544]

the easiest way to get to the professors heart is to tell him how much money youll make him in a round

[@Adenine12]

donating to stonewall, actually so based

[@bwax3135]

Based as hell. On this blessed June we are all queer

[@Adenine12]

@@ZYXAXSA i have no idea how you can watch balatro university and be homophobic.

[@Adenine12]

he plays with a mod that turns straights into gays, and makes the spectal packs and cards trans themed

[@Adenine12]

​@@ZYXAXSA clearly isn't pandering, hes donating money. and do you dislike him donating to stonewall because you think its pandering or because you are homophobic?

[@rachelthesheep]

Why were the first 7 jokers cut off from ranking?

[@FriendlyKillbot]

Cut that, cut that.

[@1AlasBabylon]

Punch Card would feel nicer as an economy joker rather than an XMult joker. Something like... every six items you buy from the shop gives you a Discount tag, maybe? Make it so that you have to actually spend money on the items so you can't chain the tags, but it would feel better regardless.

[@sterlingbuck967]

I got marble Joker from the uncommon tag after the first round on the Plasma Deck so I bit and built my build around it. I eventually got a Stone Joker part way through and wound up with the Stone Joker around 1000 chips

[@dannydevito7755]

living my dream smh, I wish there was more stone synergies. like retrigger on stones would go crazy

[@wesnohathas1993]

For decks running

[@ZeusAMH]

A goat is a goat, but a mystery box can be anything....

[@kayla5978]

I want to hear how you chose the first 6 cards - I’m shocked about dagger and the others tbh

[@syrusalder7795]

Same I thought I'd somehow skipped ahead

[@aliveisuppose]

Tbf dagger does do the group project by itself (Sometimes), but it gets there by making sure whoever is doing their best and doing most of the work doesn't show up for the class

[@Ragnell123]

Dagger can kind of solo carry, so even though you have to sacrifice jokers, it provides so much mult on its own that you can focus on econ for the rest of your slots. And then when it's big enough you can just stop feeding it to pick up that 5th joker and eventually pivot off of it.

[@DoomerSlice]

Have you seen any of this man’s videos where he uses dagger he’s a madman All must be sacrificed in the name of BIG MULT

[@AxeofdeathXP]

He had a run where he dagger'd a blueprint so I feel like he values it more than most people do

[@havesomefudge9752]

I think a update to Cola Joker or re work to something like Rocket, where it goes “ gain 1 random tag after each boss defeated when Sold “ would be a neat way to intrude stacked tags like we have for money and it forces you to think about your decision of wether to buy and hold cola or pass vs just buy sell for effective $3 after rebate if you have a empty slot

[@htspencer9084]

I like paradoilia as a stop gap for a lack of deck fixing in the mid game, and then dropping it around 6/7 for something else once my deck is more tuned.

[@binathiessen4920]

Trading card and constellation are my most played uncommon jokers. 9th and 10th overall.

[@tysrihari-zz6yc]

bean better graduate with honors or else

[@nutellapancakes3244]

Bloodstone below showman, mr bones, ceremonial dagger, matador, merry andy? what were you thinking?

[@rizalfadil5430]

Bloodstone broke my heart on the daily

[@AdeptusForge]

Not exactly conventional but here's a fun chip-based plasma seed I found on my first time piloting plasma:9SUW78WN triple hanging chad off of showman with arrowhead, brainstorm, and a very late hiker. Took it to ante 12, but I think it can be taken further with better decision-making

[@edgeman1135]

I'm sad that we missed the feeners vs shortcut rankings. I always thought feeners were better because it allowed the wacky straight flushes, but I haven't used either a ton.

[@drspectred]

The hardest part of a Straight Flush is getting the ranks to work out. Assuming starting deck, Shortcut actually makes Straight Flushes more easily than Feeners.

[@Frigidevil]

​​@@drspectredand with their powers combined, they create straight flushes out of thin air!

[@IkEisawesome7]

Rocket is graduating with honors. Love that guy

[@yzm2065]

Bloodstone with Oops all 6's goes absolutely bonkers.

[@SyRose901]

Literally 1.5^5 with a heart Flush, so yeah, it does. Either that or I choose Mime and a few Steel Cards and not get bound to fixing heart cards.

[@xchomphk.9788]

14:00 one time i had the first 5 hands in the run (or maybe 4 im pretty sure 5 tho) be straights that were upgraded by spaceman

[@Inquisitribble]

Since this was on stream, did anyone catch his reasoning for where he ranked stencil? I’ve had a lot of success with it while going for completionist+ since it’s unconditional xmult that you can easily pivot to or away from.

[@drspectred]

Stencil is /great/ for the /early/ game, but if it's in your "final five," that's a sign of struggle. It takes two slots to get an x2 and three slots to get an x3. It can definitely get the job done if you've got nothing else going for you, but it really begs the question "why didn't you have anything else?" There are a lot of sources of xMult at Uncommon (with reasonable activation conditions), and every shop Joker has a 25% chance to be Uncommon. An extra Joker slot can be an extra 5 to 10 dollars per round. I find myself pivoting off of Stencil by the end of Ante 3.

[@Inquisitribble]

@@drspectred That's a totally reasonable judgment, thanks for the response!

[@p3rp351]

Punchcard can save a run where your plan didn’t fully come together if you pick it up ante 6 or 7. It’s hard to compare that value with all of these other jokers that are viable to build around.

[@scuggs]

pants is SSS+ tier no ifs, ands or butts about it

[@syrusalder7795]

What happened with the beginning? We missed a bunch of explanation for the first cards, especially mah main boi stencil

[@drspectred]

It was cut because of wonky audio. But I wrote about Stencil on another comment.

[@syrusalder7795]

@@drspectred fair, and the logic makes sense. I'm just addicted to doing multi-polystencils

[@DeathEatsCurry]

Loyalty card's pretty fun is you can get your played hands up to 5. It's basically a free multiplier at that point, as long as you sandbag the first X hands to get it online. Once you're there, you will always be able to get it online within a single blind. It's not a good joker, but if you're already at that point (like with a voucher), you might as well take it as the highest "consistent" xMult you can get on a joker. Hologram is kind of niche, but it snowballs completely out of control if you can commit to a junk high card strategy. Doesn't really matter how many cards you add, if you're just gonna slam any card to be carried by your joker combination (which usually need a good xMult to cap out). It's a lot like Vampiric Joker in the sense that you're sacrificing deck quality for raw points, and in the sense that it snowballs completely out of control with the right synergies (Midas Mask for Vampiric, Certificate/Marble for Hologram). The biggest difference is that Hologram kind of kills any attempt to go Endless, while Vampiric is still usable.

[@CocoTheTortie]

Nice music 👌

[@austingoodrich1468]

"It only takes one hung man"

[@KevinTimpone]

Sock & Buskin is S Tier through and through

[@acantilado]

Nice list - agree with almost everything! My big gripe is putting Sock & Buskin back to back with Hack. Sock is way more practical. While it’s true their value is pretty close early in runs, in practice when you get to antes 6-8, Sock is much more likely to be useful than Hack, as a lot of 2-5s are likely to be thinned out with more emphasis on Face Cards. For this reason alone I think Sock should be 1 tier higher than Hack

[@byrne1807]

I usually end up focusing on hack a lot more honestly. Synergy with Fib + Wee, having more cards than sock and buskin to start with (12 face cards vs 16 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s), and the biggest thing for me is having 0 boss blinds aimed at you vs 2 at sock and buskin. Obviously there are advantages to sock and buskin like having common jokers like smiley face and scary face aimed at face cards as well as some higher end stuff like triboulet, but I like having a fib be enough to carry me to the end and not having boss blinds aimed at me (or even something like walkie-talkie 4s, plus just having more hackable cards than face cards for consistency in scoring. The higher chip values of face cards early don’t matter for long, and what you’re saying with thinning the lower end of the deck is only applicable if you play that way, since thinning your face cards is just easier

[@roytheshort]

Hey one thing I don't get is why Certificate is so low. Seals are really really powerful, and Certificate is Planet Scaling, Tarot Scaling and Econ all in one. Is it just the deck dilution thats the issue? I'd like to hear more, as i know you have some of the best records in this game so I'm probably missing some things here

[@drspectred]

Deck dilution is the real deal, yeah. At minimum, the highest scoring hands (which are therefore safest for winning even without Jokers) care about the ranks of your cards, examples such as Straights, Four of a Kind, and Flush Houses. Additionally, a typical build will include at least one Joker which cares about the ranks or suits or both. What's the point of having Blue Seals if you can't actually draw them (over the other cards you've bloated your deck with)? Even if you do draw your Blue Seals, you still have to draw the hand you want to level. Either way, you still need to draw some hand which is going to win you the round. If you're only going for Flushes, adding random suits to your deck doesn't necessarily hurt you that much. But then you're playing Flushes (rather than Flush Houses) and run the risk of not having enough material to score enough points in the endgame (because the scaling numbers on Jupiter Cards are so low, relative to other hands). Certificate is probably at its strongest when you're able to win with only High Card and Pairs, which requires you to get a narrow combination of Jokers which enable this. Even then, you're not going to be drawing your Tarot-Enhanced cards less often, such as Gold cards. I think it's fine to hold on to Certificate for a few rounds, but you shouldn't add more than 4 total cards to your deck in /any/ run. Also, each individual card in a Standard Pack has a 20% chance of having a Seal (independent of Tarot Enhancements). This means each Standard Pack has a better than 50% chance to contain at least one Seal, overall. Seals aren't really that rare, and Standard Packs already do what Certificate does but way more safely.

[@roytheshort]

@@drspectred that's really comprehensive! Thanks. I often find I have very large decks and this may be a major hindrance in my winrate. If you have time, I'd love to see how you'd compare Certificate to Vagabond. I'd previously seen them as occupying a similar purpose of accelerating deckfixing. I take it you get a lot of your deckfixing stuff from Standard and Tarot packs and try to ignore the gimmicky jokers, but correct me if I'm wrong

[@drspectred]

@@roytheshort Vagabond pulls a lot of weight. It's not free, but it is worth it. One thing it allows you to do is play Four of a Kind or Flush Houses without any risk, alongside Glass and Steel cards. Those hands allow you to win without Jokers, so you can fill your Jokers slots with other value generators. You can further mitigate the drawback of Vagabond by making several Gold cards, enabling you to get interest, too. All of these things snowball. Death cards to copy your Purple Seals to make more Death cards... If you want to experience godlike power, Vagabond is a slam dunk. From a balance perspective, I don't love how "game warping" Vagabond is. Once you pick it up, everything else you were doing goes out the window.

[@synpai4539]

@drspectred I see this a lot from you but I think you severely overestimate how bad deck dilution is. With Straights, and in jokerless, it is as bad as you say - these are hands you only need to hit once, and often need enhancements as means of burst scoring, which means you do want to draw something specific. Also with straights, random ranks are particularly bad since you don't want to hit the same rank multiple times, which is what having a large deck causes. The Justification I've seen is that you lose by not hitting the hand you want, which is true, but is much more true if you only need to hit something specific once and is less useful if you want to hit it multiple times (still good, just not as essential). But even putting aside the question of whether these are actually the most consistent lines (I'd argue what you need for Flush House is more RNG intensive then hitting a +Mult and an xMult for pairs for example), in the other lines like pair or 3oak (keep in mind that 3oak benefits off adding cards and can dig for blue seals very efficiently), the 4 cards rule is completely false. These are hand types that don't rely on drawing enhancements (you brought up gold cards but I'd strongly argue that the 1/4 chance of gold seals a round gives more money then the decreased gold card odds, and that's putting aside the value gen of blue and purple seals), and aren't as significantly affected (or even benefit) by adding cards to deck. Having more blue and purple seals only increases the odds of hitting them - the second blue seal will just double the expected number of your blue seals per round, while gold and even red are better than random cards in your deck by a long shot. Adding cards isn't so bad when you're not relying on drawing something kinda specific and the cards you add are better value gen then the average value cards you don't draw because you added cards. I think you can very easily take certificate long term or even eternal with pair or 3oak and win the run because of it.

[@Kavukamari]

i would expel pareidolia, it seems fun but every single time ive picked it up ive lost the run, it's just not worth it on synergies alone, you need at least 3 face card themed jokers to score well and you're not likely to find them even if you take parei

[@RogertheGS]

Really these ratings depend on what stage of the game you're playing. Vampire for example is great to get through ante 8 but blocks the repeat-based strategies you'll need to excel in Endless.

[@byrne1807]

There is absolutely no world where throwback is better than hack

[@birdofterror6628]

In what UNIVERSE is Bloodstone not god tier? It's an absolute take on any post-hearts boss blind game and you can build around it so easily for massive consistent and astronomical inconsistent value. Below Bootstraps? Below Mr Bones? Below Knife? Absolutely not.

[@wesnohathas1993]

I won't stand for this Sixth Sense slander. So many of the spectral cards have their drawbacks mitigated by the ability to hold them in your inventory. Find a Strength Tarot? It'll remove your 5s too! Death Tarot? Any other card you want to get rid of. Out of 6s? This joker's done its job and can be on its way, and you get to keep all the value it offered while you held it.

[@sm00thtrooper]

what is the time signature of the balatro music

[@anthonydang4221]

It’s in 7/4

[@sm00thtrooper]

​@@anthonydang4221listening to it after you say that i feel like it's more like 14/4 but that might be felt more in the funk version

[@eestileib9980]

9.99(repeating) is another name for 10.00(repeating). Exact same value.

[@zadowcloud]

Idol this low should be a war crime…

[@descendency]

If this were anyone else, I would call that madness ranking a skill issue...

[@ethandavis7310]

I think all the enabler jokers are complete bait (Shortcut, Paredolia, Splash, Smear, Feeners). I think it's easy enough to play the hands you want to play without sacrificing a joker slot. If the game were harder I'd be more inclined to take them. Feeners and Shortcut are the best of the bunch, but past ante 4 you likely don't need them.

[@synpai4539]

I don't think this is true with harder hands in the first place (Strush for example is just not something you can play without fingers, smeared or shortcut outside of extreme circumstances), but with something like Shortcut, you have to remember how many times you're playing the hand a round. Without Shortcut, you'll only get a straight once a round reliably (can get more, but minimum reliable is the way to think about it). With Shortcut, that goes up to 3. In a way, this can be seen as a x3 Multiplier (worse burst potential, and different against bosses like Water, Needle or notably Eye, but still analogous) to straights. Shortcut isn't good because it allows you to play straights, Shortcut is good because it allows you to play more straights.

[@ethandavis7310]

@@synpai4539 I don't disagree, but using tarot also enables the rarer hands and starts to devalue the enabler joker. You don't usually need to play three straights until antes at which you could probably play three straights through other means. I'll admit I was being a little hyperbolic in my first comment though.

[@pavjoe2]

I don't understand why you say idol is for flush and has chance for x2.

[@IkEisawesome7]

I LOVE BALATRO UNIVERSITY!!

[@kayla5978]

Yessss I’ve been looking forward to this

[@tross5100]

Is Jepsi okay?

[@mometimme]

Great tier list except Matador should have been expelled. I can never get it to work when I think it should

[@misirtere9836]

Matador doesn't proc on The Tooth, somehow. My hand is triggering the boss blind. I am losing money by playing cards. Activate you idiot.

[@pyritepanx]

True it needs to work on more bosses!

[@farkler4785]

Yeah but when it occasionally does work you can make a ton of money

[@descendency]

Matador has one purpose: get money early and ditch it. It basically gets you to your full interest really fast. It's highly situational.

[@wesnohathas1993]

Matador would almost be a respectable econ joker if it actually did as the description says.

[@askmeagain43]

For my midas mask and dr. acula are only good together, so definitely don't belong in 'solo' tier

[@inordirectional]

you can pick up Midas for 2-3 rounds and get 10-12 gold cards out of it. pretty great value even without the vamp

[@conz2078]

ramen better than acrobat?

[@nathanieljones8043]

I no longer respect you you think Dagger can be used.

[@KudoShinichii1412]

this is such a weird list what ???

[@PhucPhan922]

Seance is the most useless Joker of all time