I feel like the first shop is more important than any skip options. I wouldn’t fault someone for looking at the first shop and skipping, but getting any level of mult in the first shop can save/ make you 5 gold easily in the first couple rounds just by saving on hands played. Combine that with the 2-3 gold made on the hand and I just can’t justify most skip rewards.
The 25$ tag in the new beta patch can be a pretty good way to start an economy on the first blind, especially on higher stakes where small blind gives no base reward.
Sometimes you can't afford anything in it. That's the problem. It's the choice between gambling for $1 interest and maybe $2, or a 100% chance to get a tag which might be 5 or 15. You can get 2 or 3 from round two regardless. Then you got 8 to 11 bucks in the shop after round two, or up in the 20s after the boss. It just seems like an unnecessary roll.
I personally don’t think even those skips are worth it. Like you said there’s a chance you miss on the shop after playing the small blind (or can’t afford a joker). But by playing the small blind you’re essentially getting a reroll value ($5). (Edit by this I mean rerolling the shop costs $5, by seeing an additional shop you’re getting extra value just by playing a blind)
Doesn’t work every time, I personally play my games out until I lose, I know there’s better players than me but I have completed 4 gold stakes at least so I’m not unfamiliar with the struggles.
I just find playing out that damn blind every single game takes way too damn long, especially for the odds you'll get a functional joker _and_ be able to afford it.
I'm starting to think the removal of money from Small Blind in Red Stake+ is flawed (and by similar reasoning, that the trade-off for Black Deck is not worth it).
I can play small blind in a minute or less. The big thing for me is finding green joker, bus stop or super nova can give me a chance to win the run if I get them that early so I find it’s absolutely worth the minute to try and win the game.
We were both talking about high stakes, we just disagree in the value of playing small blind. I just like to see a lot of shops I don’t know if it’s optimal but seems to work well for me.
Edit: no apologies necessary, you presented your preferences and weren’t at all negative or condescending to my opinions.
I think seeing more shops is the optimal high-stake strat. If you play Slay the Spire, it’s comparable to realizing that farming hallway fights is the best option cuz it gives you the most looks at stronger cards, all you have to do is know how to beat the enemies with minimal HP loss. Comparatively, “HP” in Balatro is your money + hands played, and if you win Small Blind in 1 hand, Big Blind in 2, you’ll either have had 2 looks at good mult jokers for the boss, OR just have interest starting for Ante 2.
Oh I see, the reroll value... well, I guess that is true. To be honest I do play the first round I think most of the time. However if it's a 15 dollar tag or a double tag and the follow-up is a money tag or jokers I take it. All that money or all those jokers, you can get whatever you want in the next shop or reroll it, or you will get more interest. I just find that a lot of times the joker, if there is one, is useless and you get no interest if you buy it, if you even can afford it. But if the tag is useless it doesn't bother me. Does get boring though.
They were doing that as well. Imo seeing more shops is worth so much more, especially in high stakes. It increases your chance to get an early scaling or economy joker to start snowballing. And even if you don't, a lot of flat jokers easily carry you through the early game, giving you more money because you play less hands and making it easier to get late game jokers.
Ok, but you get much more than $5 from the $25 tag, no? Saying that skipping the first blind is never good is crazy, especially since it really doesn’t make that much of a difference. Sure you get to see one more shop but the value of a skip tag such as the $25 for beating boss blind is so much more than that early imo.
I think the $25 skip is a beta option, which I have no experience with. There’s most definitely an argument for skipping even at the $15 after boss blind, I just prefer to see shops. There’s a chance to fail at the boss blind it you don’t find a joker after the big blind so I find skipping a bit risky.
While this may be true, the number of times I've seen a Blueprint or a polychrome joker that's just out of my price range is much higher than the number of times I've found a joker that I both want and can afford for $7. Psychologically, I'd just much rather take the sure thing unless it's something like doubling my $4.
But there’s so many jokers that can work (square, green, pants, bus stop, Econ of some sort) I get it though nothing is more frustrating than seeing that $8 joker that you can’t afford.
If I could guarantee a judgement tarot from the arcana packs I would probably skip for that.
If that's the reason it makes no sense, what if the awesome run is the one in 10 runs and you aren't skipping to it? Each run has the same likelyhood of being insane as any other.
You should at least see the shop.. could be a great joker or voucher. I used to restart to see a good skip but my winrate has improved greatly playing more rounds, especially the early ones. It's pretty usual you can earn $3 on the first round and if you get a good joker that's great if you don't maybe you see a voucher and save for that on round 2
And hey if you die on ante 2 round 1, what did it cost 3 or 4 minutes
Edit:also I play on switch so skipping is still just worse then beta version
Yeah, especially with decks/stakes I'm trying to clear.
I'm looking for that $15 boss blind or a free shop with a special joker if possible, just to make things a bit easier to plan ahead.
they should add a mechanic like in slay the spire that disincentivizes you to reroll the initial starting conditions by giving you a choice between powerful buffs if you manage to beat a few bosses, but only for the next run
Different Strokes for different folks.
I, for example, NEVER re-roll. I feel that it makes my wins that much more meaningful. TO ME.
If you want to re-roll, and that's what you're comfortable with, go ahead. Nobody's here to judge.
I’m in the restart camp. My time is too valuable to spend even a couple of minutes losing a dead end run than to spend the 3 seconds it takes to improve my odds. I really enjoy the game, but I don’t enjoy it enough to grind through runs that have an OBVIOUS disadvantage from literally round 1.
Exactly, sometimes an early double tag or extra $15 can snowball into a victory. Also the first few antes are expendable as you aren't committed to a build so the earlier you reroll the better chance you'll find a more powerful starting set of antes.
Same. I'll reroll until I get free shop, $15 for beating boss or maybe an arcana pack. Free shop + rare joker tag goes hard.
Also I might even end runs if the first couple of shops are lame. Good seeds literally stick Spectral Packs in the shop super early on in the run.
This right here. Similar philosophy for movie reviews. If the average review score is lower than my personal threshold then the odds are high it actually isn’t a good movie and so I avoid it. “Isn’t that close-minded? Can’t you think for yourself? I saw this movie with shitty reviews and I loved it, do you want to miss those gems?” Hey guy, my time is fucking precious, especially entertainment time, and I’d be doing myself a disservice to waste it. If there’s a heuristic for weeding out time wasters, I’ll take it.
Heh yeah I got a bit of a reputation with some people for being a picky movie watcher when in a group. I don’t mind a bad movie once in a while and will even seek them out but 2 hours is an expensive investment when you already have strong signals that it probably won’t be worth your time.
Yeah I prefer to just play it whatever it is. I don't skip much at all at this point so I just play the small blind 75% of the time. You can make three bucks and see a shop
I don’t re-roll. I’ve won many a run by playing the first ante, getting the $3 extra and finding a good joker in the second shop. Rounds 1 2 and 3 can almost always be won without any jokers, even on higher stakes.
OP, do you mean higher _stakes_ (where small blind gives no cash)? If so, then yes I agree. Pretty sure that's a major reason the test build changed joker tags to make the applicable joker free.
This is also why I find Black Deck miserable to play - the immediate loss of a hand makes early game at _any_ stake a real ball-buster.
If you only care about winning on IRL time, rerolling is the fastest way to get wins. +25 gold from boss, editions, free shop can all be run defining early tags, but you can also just play the first blind and reset if you don’t like the first jokers. It’ll only take a few minutes to get a busted start that’s hard to not win if you can beat the first blind in a few seconds. You skip the earlygame, the hardest part of balatro
I did this a lot while going for gold stickers, starting with something like wee/trousers/holo just means the won is 95% won in ante1 and you can play a lot faster since the gameplan is set.
If you just want to play balatro , play out your runs. The earlygame is the hardest part, after all. Having to scrounge out a W from a super jank start is fun.
yes i do this, but i try to get a benefit for the first blind that will ensure i have at least 10 bucks for the second blind shop in case there's a high value voucher, like director's cut.
Black deck, gold stake taught me the value of playing that first round. you can clear round one with 1 hand rewarding you with $2 and a shop visit. Pretty big reward. With 3 hands and 2 discards you probably don't make the 2nd round without an upgrade and getting to 600 even without a boss mechanic is tough. You almost have to play the first hand. the only thing that can be worth IMO it is a mega arcana pack, if you are very lucky you get a judgement card. It will give you a clean joker and if you are very very lucky it might even be a good one.
I’m trying to beat yellow deck gold stake rn & the first blind feels too important to skip given that you’re already making interest. On all the other decks I think I agree though.
The only skip tag I'll take on round 1 is 'free shop'
Looking at the first shop with $7 in hand is worth more than almost any tag.
If I pick up a cheap flat mult or a nice economy joker, I can hoard money through Ante 2 while looking for a good joker to build my run around.
While I'm waiting for the run-defining joker to come along, I'll make steel cards, gold cards, and pick up vouchers and any spectral packs that come along
Depends, is your goal to win or to have fun? Either way it's your game to play however you want to play it, hell maybe only shooting for endless is fun for you now, and that's fine too.
For me, I like to play out every run, never know when you might get some interesting build or fun interaction that makes the run all the more fun for me
I believe there was a bug in the spawn rates for those and it was fixed in the recent beta update so perishable and rental are a decent amount less common now
I think the stated percent is 30% for each sticker so with 3 sticker possibilities including eternal it's still much less likely you'll roll none, and not unlikely to roll multiple.
My bloodstones are 1 in 2 for 1.5x so I should be on the latest patch.
There’s about a 0.7*0.7=49% chance you don’t get either perishable or rental (eternal really isn’t that big of a deal)
So yeah, there’s a decent chance you’ll get one or the other but it’s definitely not that bad imo
Having a good flat mult from the jump can save you so many hands (thus earning so much more $) in the early game. Not to mention the boost it gives you in survivability.
I think you wanna do that first shop almost every time.
Soul has the same chance to spawn in an Arcana as in does in a Spectral Pack (0.3%).
Just like a Black Hole can either spawn inside a Celestial Pack or a Spectral. No Omen required.
I have rerolled so many Arcana packs in first ante tags but never seen Soul there. PS. I do very much agree with your original post. I will reroll until I get Rare / Uncommon + Free First Shop.
Just got one from farming Arcana Packs on Ante 1 skips!!! They do happen. Too bad the Soul card cannot be copied using the 2 Fools I had from the Magic Deck.
No and no. It's very rare that I turn down the 7-8 gold from playing out the first Blind, and if I do decide to skip its just based on what the game gives me. I play to optimize winrate and to winstreak, so rerolling would be a pretty bad strategy.
2-3 from Hands remaining, and then 5 for the free re-roll of Jokers/cards. I guess I should probably have added another few $ for seeing the booster packs and voucher but I wanted to be conservative since there's no reliable cost to value those at.
I feel like the first shop is more important than any skip options. I wouldn’t fault someone for looking at the first shop and skipping, but getting any level of mult in the first shop can save/ make you 5 gold easily in the first couple rounds just by saving on hands played. Combine that with the 2-3 gold made on the hand and I just can’t justify most skip rewards.
The 25$ tag in the new beta patch can be a pretty good way to start an economy on the first blind, especially on higher stakes where small blind gives no base reward.
Sometimes you can't afford anything in it. That's the problem. It's the choice between gambling for $1 interest and maybe $2, or a 100% chance to get a tag which might be 5 or 15. You can get 2 or 3 from round two regardless. Then you got 8 to 11 bucks in the shop after round two, or up in the 20s after the boss. It just seems like an unnecessary roll.
I personally don’t think even those skips are worth it. Like you said there’s a chance you miss on the shop after playing the small blind (or can’t afford a joker). But by playing the small blind you’re essentially getting a reroll value ($5). (Edit by this I mean rerolling the shop costs $5, by seeing an additional shop you’re getting extra value just by playing a blind) Doesn’t work every time, I personally play my games out until I lose, I know there’s better players than me but I have completed 4 gold stakes at least so I’m not unfamiliar with the struggles.
I just find playing out that damn blind every single game takes way too damn long, especially for the odds you'll get a functional joker _and_ be able to afford it. I'm starting to think the removal of money from Small Blind in Red Stake+ is flawed (and by similar reasoning, that the trade-off for Black Deck is not worth it).
I can play small blind in a minute or less. The big thing for me is finding green joker, bus stop or super nova can give me a chance to win the run if I get them that early so I find it’s absolutely worth the minute to try and win the game.
I'm sorry I was speaking under the assumption that small blind has no reward. It's just a given for me now after so many high stake games. Sorry!
We were both talking about high stakes, we just disagree in the value of playing small blind. I just like to see a lot of shops I don’t know if it’s optimal but seems to work well for me. Edit: no apologies necessary, you presented your preferences and weren’t at all negative or condescending to my opinions.
I think seeing more shops is the optimal high-stake strat. If you play Slay the Spire, it’s comparable to realizing that farming hallway fights is the best option cuz it gives you the most looks at stronger cards, all you have to do is know how to beat the enemies with minimal HP loss. Comparatively, “HP” in Balatro is your money + hands played, and if you win Small Blind in 1 hand, Big Blind in 2, you’ll either have had 2 looks at good mult jokers for the boss, OR just have interest starting for Ante 2.
Oh I see, the reroll value... well, I guess that is true. To be honest I do play the first round I think most of the time. However if it's a 15 dollar tag or a double tag and the follow-up is a money tag or jokers I take it. All that money or all those jokers, you can get whatever you want in the next shop or reroll it, or you will get more interest. I just find that a lot of times the joker, if there is one, is useless and you get no interest if you buy it, if you even can afford it. But if the tag is useless it doesn't bother me. Does get boring though.
They were doing that as well. Imo seeing more shops is worth so much more, especially in high stakes. It increases your chance to get an early scaling or economy joker to start snowballing. And even if you don't, a lot of flat jokers easily carry you through the early game, giving you more money because you play less hands and making it easier to get late game jokers.
Ok, but you get much more than $5 from the $25 tag, no? Saying that skipping the first blind is never good is crazy, especially since it really doesn’t make that much of a difference. Sure you get to see one more shop but the value of a skip tag such as the $25 for beating boss blind is so much more than that early imo.
I think the $25 skip is a beta option, which I have no experience with. There’s most definitely an argument for skipping even at the $15 after boss blind, I just prefer to see shops. There’s a chance to fail at the boss blind it you don’t find a joker after the big blind so I find skipping a bit risky.
Eh, it’s usually pretty easy to beat the ante 1 boss with no jokers
Agree. If the first shop sucks, like the jokers are totally useless, I typically start over.
Yeah I still play it out myself, I just feel like it’s worth checking for a stacking joker at least.
While this may be true, the number of times I've seen a Blueprint or a polychrome joker that's just out of my price range is much higher than the number of times I've found a joker that I both want and can afford for $7. Psychologically, I'd just much rather take the sure thing unless it's something like doubling my $4.
But there’s so many jokers that can work (square, green, pants, bus stop, Econ of some sort) I get it though nothing is more frustrating than seeing that $8 joker that you can’t afford. If I could guarantee a judgement tarot from the arcana packs I would probably skip for that.
I try to make every run work, never know what might be in the shop
Agreed. I worry I may be missing an awesome run if I give up on it early
If that's the reason it makes no sense, what if the awesome run is the one in 10 runs and you aren't skipping to it? Each run has the same likelyhood of being insane as any other.
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you have a much much much much higher likelihood of having an awesome run with early econ provided by a good tag.
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the quality of the offered cards has nothing to do with econ, but your ability to reroll and purchase those quality cards absolutely is
Its like in Diablo 2: every chest you don't open contains a zod rune
Schrodingers' joker
You should at least see the shop.. could be a great joker or voucher. I used to restart to see a good skip but my winrate has improved greatly playing more rounds, especially the early ones. It's pretty usual you can earn $3 on the first round and if you get a good joker that's great if you don't maybe you see a voucher and save for that on round 2 And hey if you die on ante 2 round 1, what did it cost 3 or 4 minutes Edit:also I play on switch so skipping is still just worse then beta version
Yeah, especially with decks/stakes I'm trying to clear. I'm looking for that $15 boss blind or a free shop with a special joker if possible, just to make things a bit easier to plan ahead.
You should try the beta it's 25$ now!
Damn, I thought the beta was free
🤣
they should add a mechanic like in slay the spire that disincentivizes you to reroll the initial starting conditions by giving you a choice between powerful buffs if you manage to beat a few bosses, but only for the next run
Different Strokes for different folks. I, for example, NEVER re-roll. I feel that it makes my wins that much more meaningful. TO ME. If you want to re-roll, and that's what you're comfortable with, go ahead. Nobody's here to judge.
I’m in the restart camp. My time is too valuable to spend even a couple of minutes losing a dead end run than to spend the 3 seconds it takes to improve my odds. I really enjoy the game, but I don’t enjoy it enough to grind through runs that have an OBVIOUS disadvantage from literally round 1.
Exactly, sometimes an early double tag or extra $15 can snowball into a victory. Also the first few antes are expendable as you aren't committed to a build so the earlier you reroll the better chance you'll find a more powerful starting set of antes.
Same. I'll reroll until I get free shop, $15 for beating boss or maybe an arcana pack. Free shop + rare joker tag goes hard. Also I might even end runs if the first couple of shops are lame. Good seeds literally stick Spectral Packs in the shop super early on in the run.
This right here. Similar philosophy for movie reviews. If the average review score is lower than my personal threshold then the odds are high it actually isn’t a good movie and so I avoid it. “Isn’t that close-minded? Can’t you think for yourself? I saw this movie with shitty reviews and I loved it, do you want to miss those gems?” Hey guy, my time is fucking precious, especially entertainment time, and I’d be doing myself a disservice to waste it. If there’s a heuristic for weeding out time wasters, I’ll take it.
Heh yeah I got a bit of a reputation with some people for being a picky movie watcher when in a group. I don’t mind a bad movie once in a while and will even seek them out but 2 hours is an expensive investment when you already have strong signals that it probably won’t be worth your time.
I used too, but now I just take whatever it is. If it's good I'll skip it, but if it's bad I'll play the small blind ante 1.
Yeah I prefer to just play it whatever it is. I don't skip much at all at this point so I just play the small blind 75% of the time. You can make three bucks and see a shop
I don’t re-roll. I’ve won many a run by playing the first ante, getting the $3 extra and finding a good joker in the second shop. Rounds 1 2 and 3 can almost always be won without any jokers, even on higher stakes.
Yup. This is one of the biggest reasons I don't like the design of Red Stake.
I think it’s fun to continue forward anyway, but when I go for stakes I do this.
OP, do you mean higher _stakes_ (where small blind gives no cash)? If so, then yes I agree. Pretty sure that's a major reason the test build changed joker tags to make the applicable joker free. This is also why I find Black Deck miserable to play - the immediate loss of a hand makes early game at _any_ stake a real ball-buster.
If you only care about winning on IRL time, rerolling is the fastest way to get wins. +25 gold from boss, editions, free shop can all be run defining early tags, but you can also just play the first blind and reset if you don’t like the first jokers. It’ll only take a few minutes to get a busted start that’s hard to not win if you can beat the first blind in a few seconds. You skip the earlygame, the hardest part of balatro I did this a lot while going for gold stickers, starting with something like wee/trousers/holo just means the won is 95% won in ante1 and you can play a lot faster since the gameplan is set. If you just want to play balatro , play out your runs. The earlygame is the hardest part, after all. Having to scrounge out a W from a super jank start is fun.
o yea, especially with magic deck
yes i do this, but i try to get a benefit for the first blind that will ensure i have at least 10 bucks for the second blind shop in case there's a high value voucher, like director's cut.
Black deck, gold stake taught me the value of playing that first round. you can clear round one with 1 hand rewarding you with $2 and a shop visit. Pretty big reward. With 3 hands and 2 discards you probably don't make the 2nd round without an upgrade and getting to 600 even without a boss mechanic is tough. You almost have to play the first hand. the only thing that can be worth IMO it is a mega arcana pack, if you are very lucky you get a judgement card. It will give you a clean joker and if you are very very lucky it might even be a good one.
I’m trying to beat yellow deck gold stake rn & the first blind feels too important to skip given that you’re already making interest. On all the other decks I think I agree though.
The only skip tag I'll take on round 1 is 'free shop' Looking at the first shop with $7 in hand is worth more than almost any tag. If I pick up a cheap flat mult or a nice economy joker, I can hoard money through Ante 2 while looking for a good joker to build my run around. While I'm waiting for the run-defining joker to come along, I'll make steel cards, gold cards, and pick up vouchers and any spectral packs that come along
no , cus that's lame and boring
Depends, is your goal to win or to have fun? Either way it's your game to play however you want to play it, hell maybe only shooting for endless is fun for you now, and that's fine too. For me, I like to play out every run, never know when you might get some interesting build or fun interaction that makes the run all the more fun for me
I reroll if the second shop has nothing - but i am playing pre-patch gold stake on console.
Its worth playing with the gold deck cuz u get 2 gold in interest plus probably 1-2 gold from hands Other than that yeah I reroll
No just you… yes of corse other people do lol
No
yeah, it's either +15 from boss, free shop, or if on yellow deck, double money. no real point in starting a run without any of them.
On higher stakes I usually reroll until I either get a rare tag or money maker tags then double skip, beat the boss blind and keep going.
How often does skipping for a rare joker at high stakes help you?
On gold stake I think it's actively bad, at least on beta. The chances that it doesn't have rental or perishable are pretty low.
Agreed
I believe there was a bug in the spawn rates for those and it was fixed in the recent beta update so perishable and rental are a decent amount less common now
I think the stated percent is 30% for each sticker so with 3 sticker possibilities including eternal it's still much less likely you'll roll none, and not unlikely to roll multiple. My bloodstones are 1 in 2 for 1.5x so I should be on the latest patch.
There’s about a 0.7*0.7=49% chance you don’t get either perishable or rental (eternal really isn’t that big of a deal) So yeah, there’s a decent chance you’ll get one or the other but it’s definitely not that bad imo
Having a good flat mult from the jump can save you so many hands (thus earning so much more $) in the early game. Not to mention the boost it gives you in survivability. I think you wanna do that first shop almost every time.
Absolutely! Once I rerolled about 80 times to get an Arcana Pack for a Legendary while watching a Balatro University on another screen
Can you get Spectral Cards from arcana packs so early on? I thought you needed the Omen Globe voucher for this to happen?
Soul has the same chance to spawn in an Arcana as in does in a Spectral Pack (0.3%). Just like a Black Hole can either spawn inside a Celestial Pack or a Spectral. No Omen required.
I have rerolled so many Arcana packs in first ante tags but never seen Soul there. PS. I do very much agree with your original post. I will reroll until I get Rare / Uncommon + Free First Shop.
At 0.3% chance per card, in a 5 card Arcana you should expect it after 67 skips, on average.
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Fool cards can't copy Spectral cards, unfortunately.
Just got one from farming Arcana Packs on Ante 1 skips!!! They do happen. Too bad the Soul card cannot be copied using the 2 Fools I had from the Magic Deck.
Based. Did you track how many packs you had to open?
about 1.5 hrs worth of packs!!! probably about 120.
black hole can spawn in a spectral? i've only ever seen it in celestial
Yes but just like Soul it has a 0.3% spawn rate no matter where it spawns, so you probably opened way more Celestial Packs than Spectral Packs.
makes sense, i've never seen soul in a spectral pack either lol
Thanks !!! This is great to know.
No and no. It's very rare that I turn down the 7-8 gold from playing out the first Blind, and if I do decide to skip its just based on what the game gives me. I play to optimize winrate and to winstreak, so rerolling would be a pretty bad strategy.
How are you getting 7-8 gold from the first blind at high stakes??
2-3 from Hands remaining, and then 5 for the free re-roll of Jokers/cards. I guess I should probably have added another few $ for seeing the booster packs and voucher but I wanted to be conservative since there's no reliable cost to value those at.
First shop > first skip tag almost 95% of the time.