General gaming discussion

This was not what I expected

Manys a Balatro run that has been foiled by a Boss ability completely tanking your gameplan. I remember one where I felt I had a perfect combination of different Jokers that individually weren't great, but together just combined in the right way and gave me options for a lot of different types of hands to play. 8th Boss ante comes… All Jokers disabled until you sell one Joker. Even though I got rid of the weakest one, it was damn near cutting my scores by about a quarter of what I'd been getting and I just missed the target. Or of course there can be runs where the last Boss is "Very Large Blind" and the score is just too out of reach for what your current setup is capable of.

That said, 10k a hand is pretty low by the time you get to 8th Ante. You should probably be hitting at least 20k per hand by that stage. A few quick tips that it took me too long to figure out; remember to have Jokers/cards which add chips as well as adding multiplier. No point having a high multiplier if it's multiplying very little. And it's difficult to notice in the early stages, but while most Jokers give a +multiplier (eg. +20X therefore adding 20 to your multiplier), some might give a x multiplier (eg. x3X which multiplies your multiplier by 3 - usually shown in a red square in the description). So if you have say 15X multiplier, a +20X makes it 35X, but a x3X would make it 45X. The order of your Jokers can also matter, especially where you'd want those xMultipliers at the end.

So a good setup to try and aim for in terms of Jokers are a Joker or two which increases chips, a Joker or two which increases mult, and then a Joker which multiplies your mult (these ones are rarer and may require you to do something to increase its value, like it increases by 1 every time you've discarded 26 cards). But it's also the luck of the draw in terms of what cards/Jokers you get.

It only gets wilder and more complex once you do start completing runs, as you unlock newer cards, decks and requirements. That's why it's so addictive.

Sometimes you'll just be at the mercy of RNG. Try to make sure not to go into it with too much of a plan, and just try to adapt to what you're getting. I used to always hope for the Joker that gives you a huge multiplier if you play 3 cards or fewer, so I could rely on just a pair or even just a high card would still score big. But then a boss ability could be something like "Must play 5 cards", or I could start getting a lot of cards/jokers that would better suit a flush and I'd have boxed myself out of that strategy. Once you do start getting through more runs, you'll also start unlocking more Jokers and different strategies.

But yeah, don't neglect boosting your number of chips as well as your multipliers, and try get an x multiplier as well as your + multipliers.