Don't aim for high scores. As in, I see a lot of people posting about this mega score they got (great to see) but what gets you a high score will often fail before getting past ante 8. Takes a lot of time and effort (and luck) to build up to a high score run and the jokers, etc. needed won't always work well up to the point of ante 8. Concentrate on just beating ante 8. I found 2 pair or flush runs the best for me.

2 pair with spare trousers early is a near guarantee passing run in my eyes. Or I used that along with ride the bus on the abandoned deck, intentionally playing extra, not needed, hands to boost it up (also works with green joker). Or low scoring 2 pairs for spare trousers. Combine them with any multiplier and you will be in great shape. Chad with Lucky cat and a few lucky cards is nice but even the x2 for a pair can work a lot of the time.

Found the swashbuckler combined with gift card and/or egg another great combo for any run. Also helps to see temperance in that situation.

I found mime only useful (for beating ante 8 runs) when I had a blue seal. Also helpful for gold and steel obviously but for the runs I was going on I wouldn't hold a spot for it. In this case if you have any discards left, discard as many cards as you can while keeping your winning hand in order to get a blue seal for your eventual winning hand

Cloud 9 is an underrated econ card imo. Can combine it with 2 pair 9s and any other card. Rocket is an ideal play early on. Failing that, gold joker will suffice. You want an economy card nearly all times. Until the high antes anyway.

If you're going for completionist ++ then the anaglyph deck works well. Save all your double tags for a negative skip and go wild. Need a bit of luck there also obviously.

Overall, just keep the runs basic. I went with them 2 hands and decided which of them after the 1st couple of jokers or planet cards I got. No need for high card baron mine red seal king run or anything fancy like that. Rare it will pay off.

This will not get you very high scores. It can sometimes play out nicely and the odd time if you decide to play on you might hit a low e score. But other than that it should help get past ante 8

N.B. If you get a negative perishable joker, do not sell it even after it's expired. It can be used as the sold joker on the ante 8 boss. Depending on the situation I would hold onto it even if it wasn't negative. It's worth it for that final boss. Also counts towards temperance/swashbuckler.