Balatro Basics 1: Early Ante strategies and tips for higher winrate

[@EwwHandles]

When I lose it´s a terrible seed that no mortal man could beat, but when I win I am god´s gift to Balatro and no other could do it how I can :)

[@drspectred]

same

[@LucasOliveira-zy6fj]

@@drspectred LOL do you even lose at this point?

[@htspencer9084]

​@@LucasOliveira-zy6fjNo joke, there really are some cursed seeds 😂 Thankfully they are few and far between but they do exist!

[@Yukino-014]

Now that Balatro is out on mobile, I'm happy to finally enroll in Balatro University. Having great fun with the game so far!

[@Yukino-014]

November 2nd update: So far I've won Gold Stake runs with Red Deck, Black Deck and Erratic Deck just now. Learned a lot from classes (read: videos) and practice. Thanks teach!

[@Ptcar2009]

I love your pacing and your patience to explain decisions, as well as your willingness to admit that some decisions are mostly based on "feel". It's clear that you have a deep understanding of the game and its nitty details. I've been grinding getting all seals on all decks and your videos have been instrumental in my steps toward being able to complete those runs. Thanks for the immense effort and the consistency in uploading. GO BULLS!

[@drspectred]

Comments like this are what keep me going! I felt we were getting a little in the weeds with the High Stakes runs. For educational purposes, I felt there could be some value going back to the beginning and breaking it all down in a more focused way.

[@ThatNerdGuy0]

Even during his tutorials he just randomly pulls a brainstorm

[@fkingyeet3725]

my strategy specially for higher stakes is holding R 💀

[@jeezuhskriste5759]

I didn’t know you could do that, ty

[@Dharengo]

For me that's just the button to buy stuff in the shop. What does your R normally do?

[@fkingyeet3725]

@@Dharengoreset the run

[@Dharengo]

@@fkingyeet3725 Does pressing it normally do anything?

[@someaccount5200]

i have a switch, I can't reset the ante

[@twinkiebeyond]

This is an absolutely amazing tutorial. One thing I definitely suggest is watch out for tunnel-visioning on the hand that you want. There were multiple times that flushes were banked on when viable full houses were already achieved.

[@Ali-lm7uw]

Yeah, but it depends on jokers and planet cards. If you have two pair mults and two pair planet upgrades then that's all you can play or you lose

[@Towney]

huge appreciation for all the insanely info-filled videos you’ve been making. it’s been a huge help in becoming a better player with all the thorough thought and execution explanations. i’ve been going through the balatro daily series slowly and have been really enjoying it.

[@jack.hodkinson]

Really neat idea replaying different sections of the game to show different scenarios

[@sickened7328]

this helped a ton! i was rushing through the early game without knowing how to get a good start but after watching this my runs have been loads better :)

[@onetruevortex]

This was hands down one the best guids and tutorials I've watched. Everything explained in detail and at very good pace. Awesome stuff mate great work

[@MatthewPatrick1989]

Totally agree 💯

[@Chunes3]

This helped me understand why stacking lots of +mult doesn't seem to help much and why the first few are critical. Thanks.

[@angelitocastro3297]

i dont even play the game but i still love watching your balatro vids, great content man keep it up 🔥🙌💯

[@leftovernoise]

You should probably play it! It's amazing!

[@awesomeguysuncle]

you gotta play it bro

[@MatthewPatrick1989]

Game is so fun and super addicting Definitely give it a try if ya can.

[@bloodykenshiro8218]

Your tutorials are great and a huge help for new or struggling players (like me), so thanks for making them!

[@wellincolin]

After seeing how much econ is worth and how much you value each single hand, I'm feeling weird that Green Joker is my favorite joker, to the point I could be dominating a run by ante 3-4 and still consider taking it just cause I love the hand played jokers. My golden stake win had square and green jokers and I kept purposefully rearranging my jokers to play as many hands as possible. This game never ceases to surprise me on how crazy it can get, while remaining both challenging, yet extremely fair. Localthunk pulled a crazy balance between randomness, skill, variety and depth.

[@JoeTheis]

This is an excellent video! And all 2+ hours is filled with good stuff. Really like how you explain your thought process.

[@gearsighted]

I just beat my first run, this video series was a huge help. Keep up the great work!

[@PrimeTerrific]

Exactly what I've been waiting for!!!!

[@zackkurs9134]

Best channel for this game so happy your videos exist

[@rivershadix2781]

I don't always agree with every play, but my win rate has skyrocketed since watching even the first half hour of this series. This man knows the game well

[@drspectred]

Playing on higher stakes is, of course, different than playing on the starter difficulty. Scoring requirements are higher, and Joker quality is lower. Among other differences, you typically need to spend more in the first few Rounds to make sure you have enough material for Antes 2 and 3. If you get an early scaler like Ride the Bus, you should try to stack it immediately with strategically "non-scoring" hands. It'll take you longer to reach the $25 in the bank for interest, but you will have some insulation against "low rolls" in future shops.

[@rivershadix2781]

@drspectred I'm having a lot of fun developing my own strategies and coming back to this series occasionally for ideas I didn't think of. Thanks for giving me some of the advice I wouldn't come across until later in advance! Your enthusiasm for the game has inspired me to play more and your knowledgeability helped me go from a long losing streak to clearing my first gold stakes.

[@cwh77]

Straights, in texas hold-em, are easier, but harder than flushes in Balatro - so while the base scoring is representative of poker hands, when upgrading hands straights are favoured. Straights need a buff I think.

[@EldronGah]

Are they really easier? it's still 8 vs 9 if you have a draw, or are you saying that it's easier to get a straight draw?

[@htspencer9084]

Straights are already buffed via better planet scaling

[@crazyhans]

In a standard deck, there are about 2x as many possible straights as flushes in 5-card poker hands. Increasing the number of "seen" cards narrows the gap, but there will always be more straights available. Straights should always be more common than flushes, but discarding optimally in order to make straights is much harder than for flushes.

[@AverageJohanson]

Finally something a bit more my speed 😅

[@Scrumdawgrizzillionaire]

Thanks so much man your knowledge is greatly appreciated and you are a great teacher!

[@TheMagicFellow]

Big thanks for this, I look forward to seeing more from you!

[@bobbcorr]

The perfect video for a beginner like me. Thank you.

[@beardedwolf628]

My strategy is flush face card deck every single time. Usually easy enough to get your deck down to just two suits, face cards have a lot of good jokers if you're lucky. Highest score ever unseeded was a flush five king deck, all holo glass red seal cards and an ungodly amount of retriggers and some x mult jokers. Also started as a flush build.

[@Darng1]

I feel like whenever I win, I get godly synergy’s and awesome cards, but when I lose it’s usually on an early ante with 0 good cards seen or been able to afford.

[@yle_coyote4178]

Ante 1 is pretty formulaic. Small Blind needs to be won in a single hand to ensure $6 winnings, bringing total to $10. Small Shop should be saved unless there's a very good joker (the voucher should 99% not be bought in the small shop) Going into Big Blind with $10 ensures 2$ interest, winning in 2 hands will bring total money to $18. In Big Shop I try to maintain Atleast 10$, so I can spend $8 on two basic blister packs or some jokers. My early goal is to get my money to $25 asap to Max interest. So one of my pickups in the big shop is something to boost economy (gold card, gold seal, $ generating joker). My other pickup will be something that helps with scoring, a decent basic joker or a good tarot or planet. My hope is that the ante 1 voucher is a crappy one so I can skip it, but if it's decent I'll make the investment and focus harder on boosting eco. By ante 2 the rng of the game is coming into play and you have to roll with the punches. But generally I aim to get 1 eco joker, 3 scoring joker, and 1 scaling joker.

[@Will-qq8oz]

“Let me offer you… the banana” is so funny lmao great video!

[@Ashley-sd5xn]

This is the BEST Balatro series!!

[@vi_pravi]

One thing I always try to do is to close the first blind (ideally the first two ones) in a single hand. I restart the run if i can't.

[@bluupadoop]

Sounds like a boring strategy; sometimes you learn more by losing. To each his own, but I think it's important to remember how boring a game you always win is.

[@htspencer9084]

I do like flush and to a lesser extent straight early on, but around ante 2ish I do try to move towards either strengthening the easier hands or sculpting my deck towards higher hands. I do feel like they fall off (flush more than straights imo).

[@SomeGalNamedEve]

To answer the "Luck or Skill? question on the thumbnail - It's both LOL Skill obviously matters, but you can still get screwed by a bad seed no matter how good you are

[@linguinelabs]

Holy shit you can rearrange cards in your deck view 😭 how did I not know

[@Bodoczky]

Thank you, super useful

[@julienclaveau6129]

I think I heard somewhere that when wheel hits it will hit either your oldest or newest joker at 50% chance each, but I can't find where I heard this. Can anyone confirm this, and if this is also the case for other cards such as ankh or madness?

[@drspectred]

I believe this used to be a thing for one of the demo versions of the game, and I commented on it in one of my Balatro Daily videos. However, I can confirm this is no longer a thing.

[@Shindo9Kyu]

I wish this video had chapters :( Great video still!

[@ayyylmao9022]

how did you change to color of your suits?

[@ayyylmao9022]

oh high contrast cards lol my bad

[@mystwerks]

For orange stake Ive just been reseting till I get free shop/+15 boes and reseting after anti 2 if I dont have good jokers

[@jirkakote]

Same, but it gets tiring fast 😅

[@j45002]

What are boes?

[@hugoleboo1579]

To have the golden stake chip on Joker, do you have to win with it in your jokers or you just need to buy it once during the run ?

[@drspectred]

Unfortunately, it needs to be in your "final 5" and survive until after the boss. This means things like Banana and Mr. Bones don't give you the sticker if they expire.

[@hugoleboo1579]

@@drspectredok thx you. For now i'm trying to unlock every joker before doing the stakes. (Still not done a single red stakes xD). I struggle a lot with winning in less that 12 rounds and doing 100M chips. I'm such a bad player

[@permeus2nd]

My biggest downfall is always bad luck on jokers like a run earlier tonight I got fantastic early luck with my first 2 jokers so I was able to hit 5k blinds with a single card but by the time I was into the 40 and 50k blinds all I was getting was trash (well stuff that was no use to the build ied currently got) it finally fell over on a 57k (it may have been the 50k and I was short 3k)when I was 3k short. This was also a round that killed a quarter of my deck and the lady must have been mad at me as all I was pulling was then dead cards.

[@abdulazizmohammed8797]

Yes more balatro

[@TheSiddhiDesai]

Immensely helpful video! Thank you so much 💗

[@JustinStevens42]

Do you play any other games besides Balatro? Love the way you explain concepts man!

[@skeltaldelegate5408]

I'm finding that unlocking new jokers via milestones its really dampening the experience due to a now inflated rng table. This a consisrent problem for me in most roguelikes, where the first few runs are fun but later on, it becomes unreasonably rare to come across basic drops that are necessary to survive in the first few antes.

[@drspectred]

When the shop decides on what Joker to give you, it decides on a rarity first and then gives you a Joker of that rarity. Most of the unlocks are Rare or Uncommon, so this does not impact the ability to find the early game Common Jokers which help get your run off the ground. The unlockable Jokers are largely xMult Jokers, then making it easier to score more with less components.

[@skeltaldelegate5408]

@@drspectred i figured that was the case as well, maybe I'm just getting dead seeds, but even after clearing stakes for 3 of the later decks, when I when back to the first 2, I was really struggling to get anything usable

[@Tekjunkie6502]

been play 30 hours still haven'r got passed ante 8

[@spencers5514]

balatrology

[@leilasj-q6e]

Not me just finding out that you could discard multiple cards at a time and it counts as one discard.................. .......

[@someaccount5200]

Im pretty sure Flower pot counts wild cards as all 4 suits

[@ruisotas177]

amazing vedio realy help me out

[@momby557]

My girlfriend sent me this channel so I can finally get good :>

[@bigboss-qv7pe]

Why did you not play the ace when you showed a straight hand at 6:20? Thank you for the vids.

[@broomybroomybroomy]

My guess is to demonstrate that it would be enough even without it

[@adelholzenerbier]

At 14:09 I would have taken the faceless joker thinking that it could potentiall pay of after just one round + temperance later on. Is it too hard to pull off or why wouldn't you take it?

[@chrisbarnes3660]

100% should’ve taken that

[@RatPyromaniac]

I found out how to mod Balatro so now I have reverse tarot cards >:)

[@abdulazizmohammed8797]

They exist in the game already

[@RatPyromaniac]

@@abdulazizmohammed8797 bro what are you on about

[@pepaigea]

@@abdulazizmohammed8797 Nope!

[@DiggOlive]

My Balatro journey 😭

[@jcrio9014]

I don’t understand this chasing strategy. High probability doesn’t guarantee to give you the cards you want. And if you run out of discard you end up with a small pair or even worst a high card. Everytime I try this strategy of chasing the combination I want, there will always be an unlucky round when the right card doesn’t drop.

[@lilyvaldis]

Not gonna lie, while I loved the vid, skipping that negative card made me cringe a little 😅 Keep it up! ...the video. not the negative skipping 😂

[@stupxd]

Skipped for educational purposes, obviously. It is a very good early pick, even if it wasn't negative, though you won't see negatives that often, so not showing it off makes sense.

[@HakanaiVR]

You know what would really kick ass is a mod which simulates a million draws to show the odds of each outcome

[@RuiOliveira-zm1ro]

Is Ace a face card?

[@colinlynch6491]

No, it doesnt have a face

[@amazingalex1623]

50:24

[@jabbawookeez01]

watching this channel cause i fucking suck so far even if im getting scores. 😂

[@Szechoable]

Honestly, you get better by just playing higher stakes. Though it could be a trap since you might only play when the shops are good and leave you with very bad habits. But when you try to play it out and don't just restart every shop, you'll know what to prioritize very quick.

[@drspectred]

Any skill takes practice, but telling folks "just play more; you'll figure it out eventually" seems unnecessarily callous and not at all constructive.

[@broomybroomybroomy]

It's really nice to have the mathematical breakdown. I have tried to work it out on my own, but it helps hearing it in this format. Currently stuck on purple. I agree that it has made white stakes much easier, but the jokers that become good (insanity) and the ones that become bad (most that rely on discards) kind of switch around

[@broomybroomybroomy]

Er, and I realize now it's called Madness, not Insanity

[@yami7805]

41:24 I always make this mistake xddd

[@kingmeverse5861]

7:28 minutes in picked up the game last night love indie rouguelikes cool gonna b a great time but FUCK it’s so much math!!!

[@kingmeverse5861]

do u play with a calculator open? or r u just sick like that?

[@chuckmaddox6725]

Who else absolutely can NOT stand the Balatro music? Makes this awesome tutorial series very hard to watch.

[@lerkington]

nice vid (Also first)

[@TheSeeker225]

Is there a reason the game can't display the score for the hand before it's submitted, or is it just a bad design choice ?

[@FloorFourteen]

There are plenty of things that use chance such as lucky cards or bloodstone that can drastically alter your score based on whether or not they activate.

[@thetechnovoid]

it isnt necessarily a bad design choice, as it can help the feel of the game or bring some fun to it. i personally like how it doesnt display the score the hand gives before playing it

[@phantomdergwulf]

It's an intentional game design, the developer wants the excitement of seeing the number go up and calculate everything individually as you play. It's fun to watch

[@ybouzl2191]

Yeah, I love balatro keeping it hidden

[@jhassert05]

why is this 8 hours of videos?

[@Skelnaj]

It's a vibe

[@squidge903]

You have a 'basics' video that's 2+ hours... Wtf man. You don't need to tell people how to play the game - they're watching this because they already play and want to get better...

[@ausmiku]

You forgot to say it's a crap lottery game. Winning requires luck getting good jokers. No skill needed.

[@Coopek4]

Nope

[@sammoon7897]

"Any game that requires even a tiny bit of luck is a bad game" Is this really the argument you're going with? Do you realise how stupid that is? 😂

[@LucasOliveira-zy6fj]

Definitely no. The peope who complain about it's being too RNG are the one that doesn't know the game well. He has a win streak gold stake series to prove that it's like real life poker: It's much more about skill than luck

[@HeathcliffeMcHarris]

t e c h n o l o g y