Balatro Bros, I need your advanced tips.

TLDR, how do I clear Ante 1 on Gold Stake difficulty consistently without spending money?

And bonus question, what is the easiest deck to win Gold Stakes with if Im trying to farm stickers for my jokers?

For context, I have two more decks left to complete on Gold (Plasma and Erratic), and its mostly gone smooth, but Ive had some real trouble on some decks. Ive read online that most pro players clear the first ante without buying any jokers so they have a strong start on cash, but Im finding it to be a real crap shoot if I try that strategy - I need to land two or three big hands on the boss blind to clear the 600 points needed, and I cant do it all the time. Not sure if Im just shooting for the wrong hands at the wrong time, or if theres some other trick to it. Any tips?

Just reset every time you don't get Free Cards and Packs as the first Blind skip. Or something.

I would always recommend doing the Small Blind so that you have a chance to get a +mult Joker. Unless you find something else that's really good, you should probably reset.

Hypnospace posted...

Checkered

Plasma is also great assuming you get Stuntman.

Stuntman, Acrobat, Card Sharp. Just normal cards.

Garioshi posted...

I would always recommend doing the Small Blind so that you have a chance to get a +mult Joker. Unless you find something else that's really good, you should probably reset.

And that is the strategy thats gotten me through most of the other decks on Gold Stakes - lucking into an early good Joker on Ante 1 that doesnt have a detrimental tag on it like Rental, and praying to RNGsus that I get the rest in line. But thats spending money, and Im trying to figure out why and how a pro player can beat Ante 1 without spending consistently. Allegedly every seed can be cleared, but sometimes I get so ****ed over that I wonder how it can be possible.

AssultTank posted...

So this is probably the best playlist on early ante play.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdNGt-ihEAcEx0WnRNCrRH6Ur7jPHYWeZ

Tag, Ill check this out when I have a chance

For Erratic and Plasma you should be able to clear stake 1 without spending money pretty consistently. Like Erratic can pretty often "easily" get you multiple 4 or 5 of a kinds or Full Houses if you play toward it, and Plasma just wants lots of chips ASAP.

But realistically you should try to get a decent joker and just take the minor econ hit. Econ only matters if you live long enough to actually put it to use.

Also rentals are a lot more takeable than you probably think. You can buy one, use it to get close without winning the round, then sell it and go net-0. And in some cases rental jokers can be strong enough to be worth the tax every round, depending on how the run is going. The real worry for rentals is having multiple at once, -3 is painful but can be managed, -6 a round is run killing if your set up doesn't have a ton of econ generation and/or isn't already strong enough to clear the rest of the run.

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Man I'm doing runs to prove the point and I just got Smiley Face shop 1 with a ton of face cards in the erratic deck, T_T.

Erratic.

Run 1, ended with 20d going into ante 2. 1 hand first blind, 2 hands second blind, 3 hands boss blind. If I'd taken the smiley in the first shop I'd have easily been able to do each in 1 hand, "regaining" 3g and setting me up to do at least one or two more blinds in 1 hand, definitely 2.

Short term more money, but practically less money over the course of the game, especially because I would've had to buy a joker from the shop on 2-1 to be able to progress anyway.

Run 2. 2 hands first, 2 second, 2 boss. 22d total. Died on 2-1. I would've bought the Earth planet in the shop before in a real run.

Run 3. 1 hand first (royal straight). Died on second, lmao. Had a bunch of kings and aces and 8s and somehow only 2 of each was in the top half of the deck so I just faceplanted not getting a third for any. In restrospect straights or flushes would've been the move with what I had, but there's no way to know that ahead of time.

Run 4, 1 hand (full house), 2 hands, 2 hands, 23d total. Died on 2-1.

Run 5, 1 hand (full house), 2 hands, 2 hands, 23 total. Got a eternal holographic rocket in my after-boss shop, I'm taking this run all the way lmao. Dang, died on 6-2 greeding for more gold stickers.

KajeI posted...

For Erratic and Plasma you should be able to clear stake 1 without spending money pretty consistently. Like Erratic can pretty often "easily" get you multiple 4 or 5 of a kinds or Full Houses if you play toward it, and Plasma just wants lots of chips ASAP.

But realistically you should try to get a decent joker and just take the minor econ hit. Econ only matters if you live long enough to actually put it to use.

Also rentals are a lot more takable than you probably think. You can buy one, use it to get close without winning the round, then sell it and go net-0. And in some cases rental jokers can be strong enough to be worth the tax every round, depending on how the run is going. The real worry for rentals is having multiple at once, -3 is painful but can be managed, -6 a round is run killing if your set up doesn't have a ton of econ generation and/or isn't already strong enough to clear the rest of the run.

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Man I'm doing runs to prove the point and I just got Smiley Face shop 1 with a ton of face cards in the erratic deck, T_T.

Thanks, and yeah, my final two decks are definitely more early round friendly than most.

And Ill definitely take a good rental if I can pull a fast one mid-round or if its really good mid-game, but early game rental can really stall my runs out.

Cool, so based on those clips, I think my big takeaway is to just double down on hunting Flushes in Ante 1, since most straights fall short of hitting the ~300 pts you need for a good hand and Full Houses are too rare to discard for even if you have a two pair already. I always felt like two discards wasnt enough to consistently get two flushes, but maybe Im just over fixated on the fails when going for that strategy instead of trusting that statistically youre pretty likely to hit them both. Neat!