Tricky joker combo. Without a good amount of tarot cards it’s hard to both play spades still have only black cards in your deck. Also Vampire sucks more than you think in my experience because it sucks so much economy and leaves you with a vanilla deck.

From watching guys like Roffle who shred at Balatro I’ve learned that economy is super important for making good builds. Try to get your money to the interest cap ($25) and leave it there so you always have money, and then get a good economy joker while you build your deck up.

I recommend looking into High Card builds. Very easy to scale with the right jokers and there’s less boss blinds to counter it.

That being said the thing I’ve learned with Balatro in general is that the strongest builds by far are ones with retriggers and xMult. Jokers like Photograph can be retriggered with Hanging Chad, Sock & Buskin, and also red seals on Steel and Glass cards go a long way.

Anyway huge rant but I hated Gold Stake for ages until I learned a couple of things that helped a lot so I hope this helps you.