How to Play a High Card Build in Balatro: Is it Viable?

[@ZainoTVLive]

What build do you guys want a video on next?!

[@andrewelkins6734]

I've been trying to get a straight build going for a while and I never draw what I need! How do I know what to keep and what to toss in a straight build?

[@ZainoTVLive]

@@andrewelkins6734 This is going to be the toughest one to do, as I rarely get them online. However, I'll look into what is most optimal for the straight build!

[@Thush007]

It would be great to get a video on the best joker combinations please.

[@askthepizzaguy]

four of a kind, which of course, is really asking about five of a kind at some point but you cant start off building five of a kind.

[@gsofficial]

Honestly, you are titling these videos as if they were guides, but they're just you giving a cursory summary of the topic and then the rest is just you playing a run.

[@ManuBeker2]

Splash is also a FANTASTIC card for this build. You get high card but every card scores in a 5 card hand

[@HavidadGaibey]

Cant believe I never thought to use that in this context.

[@jeang6588]

One thing very specific to this video is that Blueprint can actually copy Burglar! So if before selecting Blind you move blueprint around, you actually get +6 hands. Great for economy, or supernova.

[@jrzee]

I spent multiple hours yesterday trying to get away from 5 played card builds (flush, flush 5, flush house) and couldn't really get anything going. I'll be keeping this as reference for today!

[@tarriochu95]

If you are lucky enough to find Double pair pants, you are in for a ride, i got that as my first card early and the run was insane. 4 card build basically

[@CrashGordon94]

Very interesting. I've read a bunch about High Card builds but I never really put it together. Seeing it in action helps a lot.

[@expsharevideogames]

Burnt Joker is ideal for a high card build imo. It is absolutely insane

[@ZainoTVLive]

100% another good point that I should have mentioned.

[@benjaminjameskreger]

That's how I did my first gold run except with pairs instead of high card. I still ran green joker because the one discard is still a net positive but searching for pairs with limited resources did lock me out of the bus and stuntman; wouldn't suggest it without hunting down square joker for chips.

[@slmjkdbtl]

burnt + blueprint + brainstorm

[@Permafrost1]

Which is why it got bumped up to rare

[@Wollemby]

true i recently won a gold stake (blue deck) with burnt joker, playing only high card

[@gkcook81]

I'm new to the game and your channel. I've seen a few other Balatro channels that are long winded, poorly edited, and assume the viewer knows what every joker does without an explanation. Your run is clear, fast, and gets straight to the point while explaining everything! Subscribed!

[@Dookstone]

Love me a good build guide! What Jokers and what consumables to look for to craft your deck are super helpful to keep in mind when you're learning a specific build type.

[@RC_723]

Your balatro videos are so good, I like that you give a good summary first, then play a run together with the viewer and explain everything. True couch coop vibes. Thank you for your content Zaino

[@ZainoTVLive]

Thank you for the kind words, its the exact feel Im going for :)

[@Nayson]

High Card builds can also be thought of as letting the Jokers score all the points. You can get it so that it’s possible to score tens of thousands if you only play debuffed cards on a boss round.

[@seth009eg]

Thanks for this video, I won my first ever high card run after watching it. The jokers I used were all different from yours (except for supernove), but I liked the idea of having jokers for different functions and I tried and managed to do that. Shows how versatile the game is

[@ZainoTVLive]

Awesome! What jokers did you end up with?

[@seth009eg]

@@ZainoTVLive Perkeo, Marble joker, Raised fist, Supernova, Steel joker and blackboard with telescope and observatory. Many negative copies of pluto = profit

[@HanDeHanDieHanHeet]

been stuck at some of the higher blinds due to the difficulty of hitting large hands, really didnt stop to give high card a honest chance due to closemindedness. thanks for clearing up the clouds, you helped me see the light. value is everywhere if u know where to look

[@doublehh1674]

One key strength of the high card strats is that you dont need consumables. Meaning that you can skip planet and arcana packs giving more money too look for jokers

[@ZainoTVLive]

100% I mean I still think grabbing Plutos are worth it, but other than that you can focus on just getting the needed joker set up

[@doublehh1674]

It depends Pluto's from the main shop are a definite grab, but 9$ pack Pluto's are not that worth as it's only around 1.5 square joker procs of chips and a single hand played of mult, assuming you use buss/green etc

[@jessevandendoren]

@@ZainoTVLive What about steel cards? Especially with Baron isn't it nice to make steel kings?

[@nicholaspaton6834]

I know this is an older vid (3w old at time of commenting) but I want you to know you're the best content creator when it comes to Balatro right now. I got the game 2 nights ago and I've been HOOKED. Your tips have been a great help. Keep on, bro. Much love.

[@ZainoTVLive]

Appreciate the kind words!

[@ZaneDidIt]

I’ve been trying to make some high card builds for gold stakes so this video is perfect man! Thanks dude

[@LouisZephyr]

good info it really helps out, as a newer player i don't know half the cards/jokers you're talking about at the beginning, could you put an image or something on screen when you mention them? keep it up

[@rampdavidson6397]

I only had about an hour of time with this game before I won my first run, kinda accidentally. I pulled a Splash and Green joker and just kinda stumbled into a high card build

[@Ghost.girI.]

I like that high card is viable and strong but I think it might be too strong. I do think that if high card was ever the most viable strategy it means that something's wrong with the game because it takes a lot of the skill, and decision making out of the game and it ends up revolving around only the jokers you get at that point.

[@ZainoTVLive]

I don't disagree with this, and I often have a rule on my streams that for high stakes run, I only do high card after x-attempts because its frankly kinda boring and a crutch. We will see what this massive patch changes in the game, I'm excited for it.

[@doublehh1674]

its not that high card is strong per se its that all other builds are inconsistent, you get way more easy value out of a 5oak build same with straights etc.. its just that high card is the most consistent, and probably will always be as not needing to draw specific hands means that bad rng will never kill you, its also most resistant to all boss variants

[@andrewg3196]

Yeah difficulty in this game is done completely backwards. Every restriction as you get to higher stakes takes away your ability to make decisions. I think instead they should give you more hands, more rerolls etc but raise the point thresholds a lot to make things more difficult. This way the difficulty goes up but you compensate for it by understanding the game better and making better decisions.

[@ThaFritz]

It depends how you play, high card doesnt last long in endless, i enjoy trying to make the pivot happen at the right time with the right pace while using high card to secure enough points. Having said that, with baron and mime it is one of the strongest builds out there and i do hope for some change to the flow while leaving high card useful in some way

[@andrewg3196]

@@ThaFritz lol at "high card doesn't last long in endless". High card Mime Baron is the best endless build.

[@saltysnake8523]

Wish I had that much luck with my Jokers on my runs. You killed it though, great guide.

[@ZainoTVLive]

Yeah it was kinda a silly good run with jokers.

[@davidsass4859]

Gotta remember these guys have hundreds of hours and have played thousands of runs. Sometimes you just get everything you need and sometimes you don’t get crap

[@terrydactyl2077]

Defs gonna be interesting now with blue seals buff!

[@samuelgoodall8577]

Largely agree with this - ideally probably play even a little slower to get a bit more mult on supernova. I skip on celestial packs more when I am doing high card, saving my money for rerolls and jokers. Telescope makes it a bit better but wouldn’t use it if it took me under interest cap.

[@Rikolus8383]

I had to laugh, in two weeks of playing I have tried Wheel of Fortune at least half dozen times. Each time: NOPE. Nice to know it can work.....

[@idemiik574]

Good video my man!

[@nephel6158]

I personally think that early on, Square Joker is also Stuntman-tier for high card base chips, because usually by Ante 8 in Gold stakes, my Square Joker is more than 300 chips. If anything, I prefer Square to Stuntman because Stuntman makes me too strong when taken early, which gives my +mult jokers less hands to scale with. By contrast, Square's chip scaling is *just* perfectly matched with 1 +mult scaling joker to scale both at least 3 times per round all the way up to Ante 8(remembering to place your xMult jokers on the left until the final hands needed to win). Of course, this is only for up to ante 2. Anything after, Stuntman is obviously better.

[@ZainoTVLive]

I see your point, I wish square joker scaled a tad faster though.

[@terrydactyl2077]

Thanks for making this! I was just asking you for it and here it is! It just for me wasn’t it? Coz I’m so special and cool?! Right?!?!

[@ZainoTVLive]

Very special and cool 😎

[@kenz6502]

Love you man

[@Clinkzies]

I heard that Wheel of Fortune hitting Supernova (earliest card purchased) is a 50/50.

[@markfowlermusic]

Honestly if you get burnt joker fairly early there’s no reason to go with anything but high card. I’ve played almost 200 hours of balatro on ps5, I started out just doing flush runs and straight runs and mainly full houses as I found them fun, now after lots of experience and getting high stakes on all decks, black deck was pure RNG and luck on higher stakes though, I can easily say the game is almost 100% winnable with just concentrating on high card only. There’s no real reason to pick any other hands to concentrate on, I feel the game maybe needs an update to sort this out, for experienced players picking anything other than high card seems pointless to me, simply won’t be as effective, your tier list video also proves this.

[@klaytontichenor7412]

9:10 Best Part 😩

[@ZainoTVLive]

+2

[@g-man8190]

Grabbing Uranus was definitely the best play.

[@NubTactics]

One of the things that also empowers high card builds is, perhaps counterintuitively, the lack of initial scoring power. A lot of scaling jokers require you to play hands to get the full benefit (square joker, the ones you mentioned in video). The weakness to that, naturally, is that if youre winning rounds in a minimal number of hands, you only scale those jokers by 1 per round. So a sort of hidden strength to high card build is that youre spending hands (1 dollar, you could say) as a resource to buff your scaling jokers by 1 mult at a time, which is very easy to do consistenly when high card doesnt score much and thus allows you to win in 3-4 hands as opposed to just 1

[@ZainoTVLive]

Very well articulated, I should have mentioned that in the video but you put it together really well.

[@benjaminjameskreger]

I think the opposite is true of high card.. if you're square, riding the bus, green, etc, you need to find more challenging hands every play to avoid winning in one hand. In contrast, if you build around one pair, you get to use high card, two pairs and trips as flat mult engines without worrying too much about telescope changing targets.

[@ConradParadox]

Great video! Thx!

[@PaulWon]

stuntman joker for that +300 chips and -2 hand size kinda crazy with high card build

[@ZainoTVLive]

Its one of the goat high card, cards

[@armedjoy3045]

Not sure i go baron on ante 6 with 64 card deck and no extra kings, but i get it being worth it for the video

[@Kingcob7]

I was surprised you took stone joker. I thought it was strictly garbaaage :D

[@ZainoTVLive]

If I'm playing high card just to win a run and have an open joker slot, im all for it, just gives me more chips and can beef up the other stone joker if we get it!

[@RogueBones3]

You can copy the extra hands from burglar with blueprint or brainstorm

[@ZainoTVLive]

You can?!

[@Lost.Gaijin]

You forgot to link Balatro University. 5:08

[@ZainoTVLive]

www.youtube.com/@drspectred

[@joelh2286]

What kind of Tarot cars are you looking for in Arcana packs? How do you whittle down your deck in high card?

[@ZainoTVLive]

It depends on what the end goal is, just winning the run or is super high score with baron or mime. Highscores I'm building everything into kings. Just winning, I'm looking for money, gold, hermit, temperance, stone, bonus cards. Maybe some chariots and lucky.

[@geoffthomas5811]

You passed on the Hieroglyph on Ante 5. Do you think it's worth going Hiero/Petro-glyph with these scaling jokers or is the -1 hand/discard too much of a cost?

[@ZainoTVLive]

I think -1 hand is too much of a cost for this run. Its situational, if it was getting desperate and I also needed to see more shops to get another Joker, then maybe. It could help save a high card build if you know a boss blind is going to be too many points, i.e. like we almost faced with The Wall.

[@Therisktaker3]

Seriously, it seems that’s every card that you needed just happened to drop. In my runs I get the most odd jokers that are the opposite of what I need, planet cards or tarots dropping costing me rerolls. I love these tutorials, but I swear they play like seeded runs. 😊

[@ZainoTVLive]

Yeah it felt lucky, but part of it is the benefit of this build and these Jokers being common

[@JeffWhartenby]

When you play your high card with extra cards I assume you're milling for more stone/enhanced cards for the next hand, but why do you choose those? On ante 4 you play an A with a K, J, & 4 - are those random?

[@ZainoTVLive]

Probably just random, want to make sure I don't accidentally play a pair

[@Scio_]

I'm still stuck on Purple with the Checkered Deck, and just can't get far trying to do High Card. I have to play Flush to survive, and still die before I get any synergy for High Cards 😢

[@ZainoTVLive]

Yeah, you're not always going to get the jokers needed, it took me 5-6 attempts to finally get a run going on checkered gold. Gold is hard.

[@Scio_]

Only six!! 😱

[@Joeynator3000]

Ugh, maybe I should try this...then again it seems like this game hates me 90% of the time. lol

[@wesnohathas1993]

I hate playing high card builds. I get they can be viable, but it feels so wrong. Really if I'm going the smaller hand direction I prefer pairs. Naturally better chip scaling, very nearly the same level of consistency, and more early-game joker compatibilities. Really the only thing high card has over pair is its high-end potential when held in hand effects come into play.

[@prodbyANT]

High card build with a few stone cards and some insane multipliers got me my first win, and now I wanna take it further. I'm not satisfied with beating the 100k boss, I need to score numbers no human being can even fathom.

[@terrydactyl2077]

🐦 “wubwub wubwubwub”

[@terrydactyl2077]

This was posted on the wrong channel haha sorry. This would’ve made no sense at all here haha

[@CaptGrout]

9:11