Ranking Every Deck in Balatro (Gold Stake)

[@kogn5338]

Another unmentioned benefit of abandoned deck is that the thinner deck size is essentially a buff to enhanced cards as they will get drawn more often.

[@kamilslup7743]

that part is good but there's also the negative of making erosion count for every card below 40 instead of the standard 52

[@SeisoYabai]

​@kamilslup7743That would only ever matter if you get your deck size lower than your hand size

[@Mate_Antal_Zoltan]

it also buffs Hack, Even Steven, Odd Todd, and Walkie Talkie (and probably a bunch more Jokers that I'm forgetting about which all require non-face cards)

[@ihavenoqualms]

​@@Mate_Antal_Zoltanfibonacci aswell!

[@miracle_wave1]

the real negative for me is that all of the face card jokers still show up in the shops and are totally useless. Obviously there's upside when you get a run off the ground but i remember having lots of runs die because early shops were just giving me stuff like smiley face or photograph

[@KaliAlkali]

I never needed the Balatro gold-stake tier list because just trying to finish a run on gold stake brings tears to my eyes.

[@crackersphdinwumbology2831]

Took me ~120 "New Runs" to get my first GS run complete

[@getsomebud]

brutal @@crackersphdinwumbology2831

[@itslexactually]

I’m still stuck on Green and Black Stake (depending on the starting deck) but it’s still fun to learn how to scale up enough. Just had an early-ante DNA run that was insane. Highly recommend trying it out!

[@nobodyatall9044]

very late but if you're really desperate for completion you should basically always try to force flush or high card builds

[@jomama7210]

​@nobodyatall9044 yea high card is OP, I first tried black and purple back to back with a high card build

[@entropete_]

For anaglyph you dont have to skip a lot, as you said, you only have to skip one time to cash in on the entire gimmick of the deck

[@carloslazcano98]

Yeah, I've gotten 24 hand size, $200 or 5 negative Jokers just from a single skip. I love it

[@sonikblade]

But the thing is that in gold stake the early game is the hardest, anaglyph is good for snowballing

[@charlesgaron8131]

​@@sonikblade nah

[@Frigidevil]

​@@sonikbladewell that and the fact that the prize jewel of anaglyph is a bounty of of negative jokers...which have a very good chance of being detrimental at gold deck with rentals and peroshables

[@fvw1187]

This is how I got the trophy for 400 the first time. Just stacked up skips and hit the 25 after defeating boss. It was hilarious.

[@nemesis041]

Being real here, I think your reasoning behind all of these is solid. My first gold stake win was actually with Checkered, and a warning for all to heed, it's harder than you think. That -1 hand size is absolutely brutal for making flushes.

[@mangouschase]

painter first shop saves the run?

[@555Soupy555]

that's right where i am right now its brutal

[@gosunov]

@@mangouschase I think buying voucher in first ante in generally bad idea, because it's ruining your economy a lot

[@mangouschase]

less money then, but bigger hand makes better hands which make more points which makes you use less hands which makes you money@@gosunov more cheese is less cheese

[@almscurium]

@@mangouschase you still have to play 10 rounds if you're saving a full hand every round to make your money back, which is not ideal

[@christosp.200]

I fully disagree with this tier list,not because anything is wrong with it but because it's a tier list and thus "I could had done a way better one".🤓

[@WooperButBetter]

and then you look and they have 2 hours of playtime on balatro

[@MrFox64057]

I don't even know what it is but obviously my opinion is more important than yours ​@@WooperButBetter

[@coRnflEks]

Wow, a comment that displays metacognition.. refreshing.

[@bangersandmashism]

​@@coRnflEks Metacognition 😂 aka a joke

[@leeperhapsbased.9057]

Amazing argument! Go drink hotdog water

[@draconis17]

As a newbie that just started a few days ago, I feel very vindicated seeing black deck in D tier lol. I wanted to beat all the "basic color" decks on white stake first but black deck is just kicking my ass, can barely get out of ante 1 most of the time and it makes me feel like I'm just fundamentally playing the game wrong

[@jameskeith6009]

As someone who also did this (and FINALLY beat white stake on the black deck after a few days of concentrated effort), I also found black to be the “what the heck am I doing wrong” setup and feel really vindicated by this list. I only made it after unlocking almost all the jokers, it was wild.

[@sonikblade]

lol me too, i found this tier list while searching if its possible to beat orange stake with the black deck. Now that i know that is possible, i also know that it is almost impossible hahahaha

[@theprimal2781]

damn. I thought black deck was really good because of the extra joker slot. first deck I beat blue stake on

[@0tterhead]

Did the same thing, I actually despise black because I feel the benefits only outweigh the cons under SUPER specific circumstances. Its a horrible deck.

[@Jenna_Talia]

I think black deck could be incredible but the -1 hand is far too punishing early game. Even if you do great, you're still losing money by virtue of having less hands. The + joker bonus also won't come into play for a decent while. It's not that good of a deck.

[@Mrmarch444]

Watches half of video, gets inspired to play again, dies to crimson heart by 1,000 because best joker got disabled on the last hand, cries, watches rest of video

[@Moonlight24123]

I could listen to Roffle tier list anything, both from the analytic side and just delivery of the information in an understandable way. Keep it up!

[@mixmaw]

on current patch, the Anaglyph (or "analgyph" lol) deck is easily the best deck in the game for gold staking in my opinion. Skip tags were buffed massively, allowing you to hoard negative jokers/polychrome jokers, get literally hundreds of dollars off of investments, and more. it's insane

[@friskydrinklunkybank1108]

Balatro really reminds me of vampire survivors where the gameplay loop is really nice. You dont really notice yourself playing again and again and again until it's 3 in the morning

[@AndreaForlani]

You won't believe it...

[@BaggyPop]

@@AndreaForlanigarlic!

[@davemeech]

Oh man, if this isn't one of the most real and relatable sentiments. I look at the time, it's 10:30, I tell myself I have time for another couple games. I blink, fart and then check the time again, and it's 3AM. This game is actively bad for my life because of how it shits on my sleep.

[@Professor_Utonium_]

Hey you'll never guess what I just finished doing

[@Nouxatar]

not surprised, both are absolutely games I'd consider genre defining and a big part of both is the big casino aesthetic and the use of the same psychological tricks as said casinos despite both being very anti-gambling in actual practice (with neither having the lootbox mechanics of many modern games)

[@Barl3000]

I am an Anaglyph enjoyer, but will admit it can be somewhat unreliable, but when it hits, it really hits. There is nothing quite like the dopamine hit of getting 10+ negative jokers.

[@hunnerboi8561]

It's the funnest deck to use imo

[@TheMirksta]

Pretty sure that with the way the shop generates things, Zodiac deck still makes you see more jokers on average than a 'normal' starter deck. If the wiki is correct Jokers go from 20/28 chance to 20/39.2, but you get 3 slots to roll for jokers instead of 2, which means normal decks see 40/28=1.429 jokers per shop on average and Zodiac sees 60/39.2=1.531 jokers per shop on average. That also ignores the fact that some planets & tarots (particularly hermit) are good even early game so seeing more of them is also beneficial. Unless you just mean having no 'tempo' from your deck is an early detriment which is fair.

[@BonnieBoestar]

Yeah I think you're right actually, he's really underestimating how good it is having Overstock to start with. Its definitely an A tier deck, because it just gives so much value, makes every reroll worth infinitely more.

[@kirbyjoe7484]

@@BonnieBoestar Yeah, although the way it helps you is subtle it is strong. It's easy just to chalk it up to getting lucky with your shop spawns but Zodiac makes getting lucky so much more consistent.

[@gabrieltwinwithulm7466]

I'm not familiar with your way of doing the math on average jokers seen - it seems like you have multiplied the probability of "one card in the shop being a joker" by the number of cards in the shop. Can you explain the math a bit more?

[@TheMirksta]

@@gabrieltwinwithulm7466 Yeah, that's all you have to do to find the expected outcome for a repeated number of trials like this. Flipping a coin 1000 times you would expect around 500 of each on average, which is just 1/2 of 1000. Assuming the balatro wiki is right (which seems pretty likely as the information is still the same as it was 6 months ago) then the average jokers per shop is marginally better with Zodiac. There it states that when the shop wants to generate a card, it checks weight values of each type of card it can generate, then randomly picks one. That should make the shop generation is unaffected by factors like rarity, or number of jokers in the shop / in your possession, meaning you can simply multiply the odds of any one shop slot being a joker by the number of shop slots. By default, jokers have a weight of 20, with tarots and planets having 4 & 4 each. That makes the default joker chance 20/28, then x2 for the default 2 slots for an average of 40/28 jokers.

[@gabrieltwinwithulm7466]

@@TheMirksta thanks for the thoughtful reply

[@obviouslyanonymous]

Checkered deck is a great deck almost exclusively because of how easy it makes Flush Houses. A single Sun or World and you're already set for the first half of the run alone basically.

[@TheStrangestLad]

I think Anaglyph should definitely be a lot higher even if you don't skip much. In fact, I think that Anaglyph sort of incentivizes not skipping much, because using 6+ double tags on a $40 skip or free negative skip is insanely satisfying, fun, and strong.

[@imGrisky]

Gold stakes on every deck is impressive. Im really struggling on only orange stakes for ghost deck. Cant imagine the grind for every deck already.

[@RoffleLite]

It took a lot of hours and numerous failed attempts. If you can beat the high scaling blinds on purple, you're very close to getting there on both orange and gold.

[@XxZeldaxXXxLinkxX]

I was probably one of the first people to gold stake ghost deck. It's pretty brutal and very RNG heavy. You can pretty much tell if the run is doomed right from the get go, getting the right tags for the blinds is critical

[@Swissalamander]

@@RoffleLite should I try to unlock cards, and jokers, and stuff, or try to rush a higher stake?

[@Zsaver3]

@@RoffleLiteInteresting thought. How does this tier list change, since it seems like the stake restrictions changed since this video? (Perishable and Rental Jokers)

[@kurtw6922]

I think you nailed the list. Erratic is my favorite...seems weird to say but it gives you direction early but still feels the most flexible. Getting my first gold stake win tonight, then on to the other decks!

[@1dingerr]

Anaglyph is A-tier for me. Its obviously dependent on the type of skip rewards you are offered, but when you get that negative joker skip with 3 double tags it can instantly win you the run.

[@bashfulpanda2596]

Live and die by negative an polychrime joker skip tags

[@gaminglol5492]

Yes It is good but B-tier is good to

[@gabrielladias420]

and then you hit 3 absolutely garbage no-synergy negatives POGCHAMP!!

[@RaceBandit]

So basically, Pop-off chance.

[@josephboyer5761]

ive been playing this deck the most recently. Im on purple stake difficulty right now. When you do come across the negative joker tag its really hard to lose. If you do it right you can easily get 5 or so extra random jokers and it just wins...

[@justrealbadideas]

Nice to see you enjoying this game so much!

[@leafsnail5612]

At the absolute worst blue deck is +1 money per round, which is already really good

[@tomekk.1889]

Blue deck and Red deck are the best decks in their own ways. Blue is obvious but Red is very good for these decks where you fish for a specific hand, or to look for more steel and gold cards

[@kamilslup7743]

good reason for anaglyph being low HOWEVER it is really good with throwback (+0.25x mult per skipped blind) everything can work with the right build (small thing but you can still buy seed money voucher in a green deck run)

[@DoDoBoBo4]

1:31 ???? what did he say ???? a what gif ?

[@NightShadeIcewing]

How mispronunciation can mess up a word- the good old analg-

[@tcdep]

i had to look for this comment

[@emersonchaves567]

Bro

[@theochreknight3469]

All very solid points - unfortunately, my greed does not permit me to play something other than black deck for that sweet-sweet +1 joker slot

[@lucaluckyguy5363]

i like black deck but other deck are fun too.

[@blackjacktrial]

After finally getting black-goldstake; that deck is miserable most of the time, because you never have enough something to get it to snowball. On low stakes, love it though.

[@Dylan03917]

I really appreciate a video like this. I have been trying to get better at the game and have been having trouble with different decks. Your explanation of each gave me more to think about that I hadn't considered as much before. Thanks for a great video as always Roffle!

[@Slateproc]

My absolute favorite decks are abandoned and erratic. Abandoned just makes the game so much simpler, even I have to play around lower scoring cards and I love the unpredictable chaos that comes with erraric

[@brutosgameshow3704]

1:34 Anaglyph deck 2:45 Black deck 4:09 Blue deck 5:00 Checkered deck 6:10 Erratic deck 7:10 Ghost deck 8:18 Green deck 9:16 Magic deck 10:17 Nebula deck 11:29 Painted deck 12:52 Plasma deck 13:55 Red deck 15:10 Yellow deck 16:20 Zodiac deck 17:31 Challenge deck

[@KiltyMonroe]

People are correctly calling out how Anaglyph should be A-tier but I think Zodiac deck is also being slept on, it makes the orange stake penalty (+$1 per ante for boosters) much more tolerable. Maybe it makes finding a joker in ante 1 a little tougher (though I feel like the free Overstock does a good job countering this), but also how big a deal is it to reset in ante 1 or 2? Plus sometimes you just get Hermit or Temperance in the shop, which is free money.

[@Akrostix]

1:32 The what now? 👀

[@omfgwallhax]

im crying laughing at "anal gyph"

[@AllineVayn]

I got my first gold stake on the checkered deck, using a flush build with burnt joker and a bunch of uncommons and baseball. You do really need good flush scaling with the checkered deck if you want to win with flush, but damn if i stop playing match the color

[@midniteburrito5814]

1:32 Bro the ANA-glyph, really important L placement lmao

[@sunlightswift]

naw in gold stake everything is anal

[@bin0t]

KZbin's auto-generated comments also caught that LMAO

[@gaminglol5492]

​@@bin0thow?

[@kmo6485]

Anal GIF

[@IkkezzUsedEmber]

​@@gaminglol5492he meant auto captions. The auto captions say "a**l GIF"

[@jacedddd]

Saw you mention this game in a hearthstone vid so I bought it and I cant even put into words how much fun it is lol

[@markfowlermusic]

Think maybe checkered should be considered S tier overall due to its ease for flushes and straight flushes and maybe easier for newer players because it’s simple to use and win with.

[@LucDaMan4]

Yeah but this is a gold stake tier list so beginners don't really apply

[@getlychops2]

Hello! Very cool video, but I want to add something about the ghost deck. You don't have to play Hex. You can simply sell it in the first round. this way we will get a starting economy and spectral cards in the shop

[@roses10k]

i love abandoned deck and spent a bunch of time with it, getting to orange stake so far. good to hear i probably wasn't wasting my time

[@kirbyjoe7484]

The Plasma deck really deserves to be in a tier of its own. It is on a completely different level from other decks. Also, I would not place the blue deck in top tier. It is surprisingly good for such an early game vanilla deck, but there is no way it is sitting side by side with the likes of Plasma and Erratic.

[@ratcatcher2048]

Ghost deck main here, I'd argue that ghost deck is way stronger than you're giving it credit for due to one single reason: you can sell the hex card. Selling the hex card puts you at $6 and if you oneshot the first ante small blind, you leave round 1 with $10, which breaks some immensely important thresholds: you get immediate access to the voucher, you can buy a jumbo pack and a regular pack, you can buy any regular joker, you can immediately buy the voucher, or you can forgo all of that and gain an extra $2 the next round to get even more powerful cards. Once you do that, you're basically just playing a regular deck that gets spectral cards in the shop, meaning you don't even have to spend money to see spectral cards, which is a powerful effect that literally only the ghost deck has. I would argue it's the second best if not the best deck in the game due to its sheer versatility, I'm not sure if it's beating blue deck, but being able to choose between early polychrome and starting with $10 is too powerful to understate.

[@ecstaticwooper368]

you said "you can immediately buy the voucher" twice

[@umbertorossin5977]

It's so nice hearing some actually good takes instead of some of the garbage I've heard/read about this game. Keep up the great work and congrats on getting gold stake on every deck!

[@chartypeplays2396]

1:32 Uh, that's not how you pronounce "anaglyph".

[@TheTundraTerror]

Of course it is! 🙂

[@le5478]

“the anal gif”

[@LTDextel]

The black deck is an affront to human nature. I understand challenges need to exist, but it feels demorilizing since it's necessary to beat to unlock a deck

[@chaosjoey123]

Green deck feels S tier to me. Its the only one I've been grinding up the difficulties with. Basically lets you get max interest rate worth's of money from the start, and you don't need to worry about saving money. Over all just feels like the highest econ deck

[@josh___something]

It really depends on how well you can finish fast with the green deck. If you're not optimizing your hands, you're not getting the ball rolling. Interest is more consistent when you run into bad luck, whereas if you end a blind at the last hand -- without an econ joker -- you're sh*t outta luck.

[@frostedbricks1828]

agreed but when I hit the stake that gave -1 discard felt a lot worse. still my highest steak deck for sure and consistent

[@ausiidnd]

Green deck helped me learn how to play optimally every hand to maximize income. Highly recommend for starting out, it teaches good habits

[@aurunemaru]

7:48 - there's also the spectrals on shop part, there's a lot of RNG there, but...

[@HLGmaniac1887]

I really enjoy this tier list, and i think you are definitely really knowledgable about the game in a way few people are. In gold stake runs, I am someone who frequently resets after tier 1 if i dont have a good joker to build off of. For that reason, i personally enjoy yellow deck, erratic deck, and green deck personally, but i recognize that they aren't the best for consistent good runs. Tbh ive only beaten gold stakes on green and yellow so far, but will definitely try abandoned and blue decks next based on your comments! Love the balatro content! Keep up the great work!

[@milessiegfield5323]

Black Deck feels like the least well designed because although having that extra joker slot can be nice it takes so much time to actually get enough jokers to fill the slots, which is tougher thanks to less income with the hand nerf which affects every blind you don't skip. +1 Slot for -1 Hand really feels like the most back-breaking deck early/mid game and just makes Black feel like the "reset simulator" to me; for ridiculously high ante I can see it putting in some work after you assembled exodia, but for a normal run it's practically zero benefit / "win more" since you need a strong start to get it moving anyways. Idk how I'd change it; maybe -1/2 handsize instead or something else.

[@ausiidnd]

I think it should just come with another upside, like +1 Joker slot and you start with the Tarot card that gives you a random Joker. The downside of -1 hand per round is fine imo even with the nerf to income

[@TomyLopex]

+1 joker slot, -2 consumables slots. Trade one for another.

[@JT-yl9yt]

The only time black deck feels good is when you get a very specific set of jokers early like the one that has a higher multiplier for reach empty joker slot or riff-raff. If you get 5 good jokers chances are you are winning the run anyway and the 6th one isn't making much of a difference.

[@akionlizard]

​@@ausiidndor just give a random joker at the start

[@Rurike]

As someone kinda early in the game, only a few red chip wins atm, this also served as kinda a nice overview of what high level play looks like

[@josemarioperozofuenmayor3475]

Ooh! This video has potential, if the algorithm likes it, it could really boost us up!

[@WVTarheel]

Thank you for keeping your videos to a reasonable length. I'm trying to learn bilatro at all. The videos are like bellatra. Basics for beginners 2 and 1/2 hours. Just footage of the guy playing incredibly slow. Appreciate you

[@nintendo22176]

It was a really interesting video about balatro and suddenly i felt overwhelmed by nostalgia when hearing some hearthstone ost x)

[@Katie-hj5eb]

Surprised about Ghost especially since the "whiff" is within the first few blinds so its easy enough to just start a new run until you get something good. With resets its one of my favorites.

[@jimothycool]

Enjoying your vids 😄 Did you play HS in the past? The name sounds familiar

[@Moorb0y52]

I think the giant HS logo behind him is a clue 😅

[@Baset_]

Anaglyph is one of my favourites. I like to save up all the tags and then skip for a whole bunch of negatives. It's probably not the safe strategy but I've had it go crazy a couple times.

[@sauceinmyface9302]

Disliking for mispronouncing anaglyph. Fr though, great video, I'm looking to pick up on some basic strategy and concepts so this is very instructional and concise

[@Kasaaz]

I think what you said about Erratic is perfect. It really sort of tells you where you're going with it.

[@manifes7o]

No game commentary (I'm pretty bad). Just commenting on a video for the first time in idk how long to shout out the Always Sunny reference at 4:42 🔥

[@thembosupremepizza1827]

roffle is so charismatic with tier lists, i have a feeling this will blo up

[@Naeddyr]

I wonder what the maths on the Zodiac deck actually are. Overstock means the selection is much bigger... Ok, I tried to figure it out using a dice calculator and the average number of Jokers rises with the Zodiac deck, from an average 1.43 jokers per shop without Zodiac to 1.53 jokers per shop with Zodiac.

[@ryanbarry34]

Always thought you were against review or tier list videos, but glad to see this, love these even when i disagree with some things always interesting 😅

[@placeholderblankspace]

Basically just a reverse how challenging each deck is on gold stake, so actually the lower tier decks are probably the ones that are the best made for challenging runs.

[@EntityVsEntityInteractions]

I love ghost deck. Like, a lot. It's probably my favorite deck to play, though I will say I'm a white stake enjoyer and like to go for long infinites, not necessarily for early-game challenge. Obviously it's RNG dependant for that first good Joker, but Hex is an incredibly valuble asset for turning a good joker into a GREAT joker. Splash? Guess I'm building High Card today! Riff Raff (or whatever that joker is called) - let's hope we run into dagger! All these run-defining jokers that start off weak are instantly justifiable with that 50% boost to mult. This deck is the ultimate ride of poisitve feedback, and if you brick the first shop? Just hold R!

[@dirtyjohngaming]

Im still learning and this was really helpful with the tips you added for each deck! Ty

[@daisychain3747]

God I loathe black deck on even the lower stakes but the completionist in me wants to do a run for every deck and every stake. This makes me feel validated with my deck preferences

[@DiamondTear]

Whoah, you weren't kidding about black deck. I've beaten many decks on gold stake but it took me hours to even beat green stake on black deck.

[@misterbuckethead]

Pretty funny to me how much black deck hate there is. Im fairly new to this game, just had my 1st million point hand last night. Ive watched a lot of balatro content (mostly northernlion and dangheesling) and i thought the extra joker slot was OP, but --2 hand size sounds like ass in a basket. Obviously i am not to gold stake yet, so i dont get it, but the video was interesting nonetheless. I have seen videos of people getting like e20 in one hand so i know im a noob, but the game is so fun that i dont really care if i ever get there.

[@GrapplingHookJones]

gasp! I didn't know Roffle was doing Balatro content!

[@alexanderhill3181]

Would love to see a voucher tier list next!

[@9871ish]

I'm a minute 30 into the video and roffle just drops analgyph without blinking

[@ingvarsuigin609]

Anal gift is my favoriite deck from the demo

[@TravTravRA]

*IM SORRY DID YOU MIX UP THE G AND L IN ANAGLYPH???*

[@maplebacon2724]

Personally, I would rate the Zodiac deck higher (or at least above the Nebula deck) because of the increased availability of tarots and Nebula's -1 consumable slot. A tarot card in hand can arguably do as well as a joker for getting out of the early antes by letting you create a better hand for your situation (Ex. Straight => Straight flush, 2-pair => Full house or Four of a kind, +8 mult, etc.) and can set your deck up for later; -1 consumable makes it harder to carry things and reduces the value of the Emperor tarot by *more* than half (assuming that it cannot create two of the same card, which would reduce the odds of getting money or a random joker). Well, it could also be that I just overvalue tarots, but those are my thoughts.

[@EvilLordCanas]

Strangely Plasma Deck was one of the hardest for me since I couldn't generate enough chips to beat the extremely high score requirements toward the end. It took me around 20 (!) days of attempts to finally clear it. Right now I'm only missing 2 gold stake wins and I'll be done with beating all 120 deck stakes. Those last two decks being Erratic Deck and... Black Deck. I can already tell that the last one is going to be truly and unfathomably miserable.

[@BenjyDale]

Most of my decks are only on base or black stake, but the blue deck is the one I play the most and managed to get it up to orange, so I'm working on gold now for that. When I'm playing more casually, I like to play ghost or anaglyph. Great channel and have watched a couple of your runs now :-)

[@electricVGC]

Congrats on getting through all 15 decks! Would love to see some Erratic Deck content!

[@gastonEGGS]

I watched this video when it came out and I’m back again because I have been trying to beat goldstake on anaglyph deck for 3 months. It makes me feel slightly better that it’s a c tier deck.

[@airhater]

Next do a tier list of every Enchantment in this game

[@bpro5848]

Glass is best

[@kamilczyzkowski1213]

*Glass brake sound* ^^

[@RaceBandit]

​@@kamilczyzkowski1213| IIRC that just thins the deck and buffs Glass Joker 😉

[@derrickhotard9926]

Haven't hit gold yet, but I still agree with this tier list pretty bigly. I might put yellow deck in S, but other than that it's pretty much exactly how I would place them

[@thetacog]

I have 40 hours in Balatro’s full version and the past 20 have been on Black deck trying to beat Gold Stakes… It hasn’t been a good time. Glad to know it’s not JUST a skill issue but that someone agrees that this deck STINKS!!

[@IRules2244]

I want to get this game, but the main reason I love rougelikes like this is for all the different characters you can start as. As someone who might be interested in buying this game, do the decks feel substantially different from each other, or do they all gravitate to the same builds?

[@landon8952]

Some of the decks don’t influence your build too much because they just give a generic benefit (like the +$10 one). While others heavily impact your build. I also find it’s difficult to force each run into a single preferred build. You have to be flexible based on the jokers you get.

[@vladvsplara]

I might be late, but you can compare it to HS battleground. It is not just about the hero/deck you pick, it is mostly about minions/jokers you get. Be flexible, adapt your gameplan, and enjoy. The game is designed so Ante 8 can be defeated with every kind of build. There is obviously a meta for later antes but the replayability is really great

[@Pseudopstupid]

Tierlists? What a time to be alive. Maybe some card review highlights next?

[@evanschannel611]

This was helpful - I would love to see a gold stake guide at some point

[@McBehrer]

man I'm still having trouble getting past Purple (with Abandoned Deck), Green with Plasma or Checkered, and Red with any of the other decks

[@henrysmith4907]

It’s just luck, you’ll get there!

[@charlesajones77]

Both of my highest scoring games were with Nebula. Not only can you rank up one hand to ridiculous levels, you can also get the Observatory early on, which gives you an extra 1.5x mult after everything else, for that hand type, assuming you can get the relevant planet card. My best game, I also got the extra consumable slot so I had another 1.5x on top of that.

[@hword5notsoofficial803]

Good list Boss blind difficulty tier list when

[@FireKing003]

We need this for the newer gold stake runs so it’s up to date

[@danielkrejcar9104]

I almost made my first golden stake on Checkered deck by relying on Madness and eternal jokers, getting a lot of value from the +4 for spade card. What final boss did I get? Debuff until you sell a joker. Which i physically could not do. Didnt play the game since and if it wasnt a borrowed laptop, it would probably have a fist sized hole in its screen.

[@nemesis041]

I've had many runs shattered like that, and not even by the final boss. The no repeat hand types boss screwed me a lot, and so did the final boss that forced a card to be selected, but it was actuallu that boss that I won against for my first gold stake clear ever, and on Checkered. Sometimes you can graze by, sometimes RNG cucks you over

[@mtaur4113]

Extra discard can run into a dilemma when you have three pair and you don't know which Full House to fish for, or if two pair is enough. Playing one or two pair, or having more handsize, both feel better with three pair.

[@11561tammys]

My first Black Deck run, i got a joker stencil and duplicated it in the same round. X36 mult carried me all the way.

[@tree2992]

I only took one deck past white stake, and it was the abandoned deck all the way up thru gold. Lucky choice!

[@Tropp-vd9sv]

I love painted deck so much it’s just so consistent

[@Denali-2]

Would you say an A20 heart run or a gold stake run is more difficult?

[@TheMirksta]

For me, if you count 'new run'ing at the start of balatro runs then gold stake by far. If you get past that with a good start on most decks in balatro I find winning the rest of the game is pretty okay. Basically, %wise I'd say balatro is much harder but Sts you are going to spend more time playing runs that die close to the end

[@PatPharmD]

Green deck was nightmare for me but I’m realizing now that I probably just had unreasonably poor luck. I can’t imagine another deck being worse than

[@galvanize790]

While Gold is fun to aim for, I feel it makes the game more RNG reliant than it should be with less gold. I do like the mechanic of Eternals though, so Black is personally my favorite. I've probably been skipping more than I should (for appealing small blind skips), probably why I'm having a lot of trouble finishing my first Gold

[@stagelights_]

i keep forgetting they changed gold stake in 1.01. like in my mind gold stake isn't that much harder than purple stake (blue and purple stake were a big difficulty spike for me that forced me to get good), but pre-patch its probably way more annoying, because that -1 hand size and packs becoming more expensive just sounds like a more unfun kind of difficulty

[@JoeJoel]

Checkered deck lets you focus on building 4oak/5oak early while flushing mindlessly

[@TheLukeskywalker2]

Can you redo this with the new orange and gold stake? Or is it basically the same?

[@Swissalamander]

As a newbie (I only have abandoned, black, blue, red, green, nebula, gold, and zodiac) I HATE the black and yellow decks while the green deck is my favorite. The arm is a death sentence early game. And I have yet to do anything with gold and black

[@HoboHomer]

I like green deck. And the best way to play it is to just roll a seed with credit card or the hobo joker in the first shop. This can make you steamroll the first couple of stakes!

[@DaAcorn]

Gotta be on that grind and make videos for all the other stakes now

[@WhiteKnuckleRide512]

Is the Red Deck not just a straight downgrade to the Blue Deck in most situations?

[@Cinnabar_Rhubarb]

yea, but bad Blue Deck is still better than a lot of other decks

[@Zer0Crow]

I don't know what any of this means, I'm just happy to be here

[@GeneraleR]

I think the spectral deck is at least bottom of A tier. Not finding a good joker in the first shops is a bed start, but at the same time you get the ability to pick and choose spectral cards from the shop, and being able to store an immolate or waiting for a good hand to put a red seal on, or just even having easier access to most of them can really clutch I run even if you miss the first shop joker

[@zanni8883]

think you might do a joker tier list?

[@nicdonald]

The checkered deck feels unbelievably easy to pilot in my opinion, I just hard reset for a good first 3 shops and lean on those the rest of the run with little to no leg work

[@masterofdoots5965]

A deck that is all of the decks at the same time