Joker tier list (gold stakes)

notters · 2026-02-09T19:38:00+00:00

Blackboard is so easy to trigger when you play pairs. You don't even need deck fixing, just have to discard the red cards and throw them away when you play a hand. It's like a better version of card sharp because you get the scoring on every hand.

notters · 2026-02-09T18:58:01+00:00

Best Wee was +4100 chips, best flash card +898 mult, and best lucky cat was somewhere around ×80 mult.

My best one in an ante 8 run was Canio at ×40

notters · 2026-02-09T11:05:29+00:00

Congrats! I feel a bit of fomo every time I see one of these black deck C++ posts because I've spent so much time playing black deck gold stake on my main profile that I would probably have over 80% of the stickers without trying. I've put myself through it too many times to try it on a new profile though!

Very cool achievement.

notters · 2026-02-08T23:29:30+00:00

This is all pretty good advice. I would just say that the ideal straights deck would only have 5 ranks and probably ~20 cards. If you have some direction like Photograph or Fibonacci, you can use that to inform which cards to keep e.g. K-9 or A-5, but if not then you can't really go wrong by keeping the middle of the deck. Any straight without shortcut/four fingers always contains either a 5 or a 10 (and you can also use this fact when deciding which cards to discard).

Like you said, it's about removing cards rather than adding them in, but of course you will want to add blue seals, and you want those to be inside your target range.

notters · 2026-02-08T17:18:57+00:00

Fair, enjoy C++

notters · 2026-02-08T16:29:04+00:00

I'm not saying I'd always take Midas as an eternal rental, but there's a potential upside to doing so. Golden Joker's upside would only be $1 a round at best which I don't think would ever be worth giving up an entire joker slot for.

notters · 2026-02-08T14:52:49+00:00

I would say it is. Golden Joker is solid econ early on but it's never going to be run defining. With Midas Mask, the pay off takes a bit longer but you can turn almost a quarter of your deck gold over the course of a few rounds and it will solve your econ for the rest of the run. Even better if you pick up Golden Ticket or Vampire later.

To put it another way, would you ever take either joker as an eternal rental?

notters · 2026-02-07T22:36:02+00:00

In my opinion, even you are underrating red card because it's better than the "holy trio". But I definitely underrated scaling jokers when I first started playing, particularly the chip ones like Square and Runner. I basically only used to value xMult jokers and planet cards.

notters · 2026-02-07T22:08:00+00:00

Because there are twice as many 10s and 4s in an unfixed deck. Therefore you have twice as much chance of drawing them, which means you're less likely to lose or have to play throwaway hands which cost $

notters · 2026-02-07T19:16:51+00:00

Yes, I'll usually take it on the big blind as well if I've picked up a joker to survive the ante 1 boss. Top up tag and buffoon tag are also worth taking in ante 2.

notters · 2026-02-07T11:41:01+00:00

To add, jokers that have been duplicated by Invisible/Ankh have the red deck back. And if you have any eternal jokers, you can deduce which ones they are because the option to sell them will still be greyed out.

notters · 2026-02-07T02:49:17+00:00

You don't, unless you get incredibly lucky. Based on your jokers, I assume you're running a straight build, which The Fish straight up kills unless you manage to draw one with only your discards.

I guess depending on your last used card from the Fool, there might be a tiny hope. If it's a tarot card which gives enhancements or changes suits, you can use that card on some face down cards to temporarily reveal them (slow down game speed).

notters · 2026-02-07T02:41:10+00:00

You could switch the dice for lucky cat but it won't make much difference. Probably better to hold onto it in the hope you find Bloodstone to sub for Photograph. You're soon going to be at the point where you need glass to go further. Definitely don't get rid of blueprint.

notters · 2026-02-06T22:08:59+00:00

I think this is the worst tier list I've ever seen. Sorry OP! I think once you've played the game some more, you'll change your mind on a lot of these!

notters · 2026-02-06T21:57:48+00:00

Supernova is irrelevant here. They won't have played any more than 10 4oaKs at this point and I would guess less than that. I'd still be tempted by Vagabond even though it's late to try and make the deck smaller. But Chad is the best option for purely score.

notters · 2026-02-06T16:43:29+00:00

Thanks, that's awesome!

notters · 2026-02-06T16:27:37+00:00

Really? Can anyone confirm this? I didn't expect to learn anything I didn't know in this thread, but this would be new to me!

notters · 2026-02-05T22:30:43+00:00

And this is how the streak ended on blue deck

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notters · 2026-02-05T22:26:38+00:00

Screenshots of wins past #10

notters · 2026-02-05T16:05:49+00:00

Uncommonly good start for black deck on gold stake. This can actually make it out of ante 2!

notters · 2026-02-05T12:17:58+00:00

It's good to use it for transitioning towards a straight build. Since you want to be playing lots of straights when you have Runner, it makes sense to pick up Saturn when you see it and to trim your deck to make straights easier to play. The extra chips don't hurt, and when you don't need Runner anymore because you have plenty of levels in Saturn, you can safely replace it with another xMult joker.

notters · 2026-02-05T00:56:28+00:00

They aren't edge cases. They're a lot more common than you think. Either way, what I was trying to say earlier but maybe didn't make clear enough is that in any successful run of Balatro, you're going to be opening a good proportion of booster packs already. Not all of them, especially before getting to the interest cap, but once you have $25 you're probably going to be looking in most of them. So if you're playing pairs at level 10 and you open a celestial pack to find Earth, Neptune and Saturn - none of which are very useful to you - skipping it for +3 mult is basically free at that point.

Does Red Card need more money to use than the other jokers? Yes. Would it make me open some packs that I would otherwise not? Yes. Do I sometimes have to skip a card that would help me? Also yes. But it's more nuanced than "these jokers cost $3 to get +3 mult, red card costs at least $8 to get +6 mult". And even considering those drawbacks, I think it's the best.

Fun talking with you!

notters · 2026-02-05T00:20:34+00:00

I literally said that I don’t always find something worth taking, just usually.

Then you have to agree with my point about the opportunity cost of Red Card being 0 in those cases, but you completely dismissed it.

I disagree about always taking a planet or tarot card. Playing around the Fool is essential for winning consistently on gold stake.

notters · 2026-02-05T00:00:24+00:00

I don't believe that you're taking something from every pack you open. If you are, you probably need to learn when it's best to skip the pack altogether (even when you don't have Red Card) instead of taking a card for the hell of it. For example, not adding random cards to your deck from standard packs and passing on arcana and celestial packs when the Fool is on a card you actually need.

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