One of the best ways to make big upgrades to your build inBalatrois through obtaining Tags. Each Small and Large Blind has the ability to be skipped, granting the player a specificied Tag in return.
Balatro: 10 Tips and Tricks We Wish We Had Known
Rare pointers and strategies for newcomers to the ultimate poker roguelike, Balatro!
Some tags are better than others (looking at you, D6) and some tags are just objectively better than playing an actual round. There are ten tags you should always keep an eye out for during a run through Balatro.
Upgrades a specified random Poker Hand by three levels.
In the likely scenario that you’re running a game of Balatro focused on one or two hands, the Orbital Tag can be a thing of true beauty. Orbital instantly levels up a single hand type three times, equivalent to using three Planet cards on one hand type.
Adding three levels on the right hand can be a more powerful upgrade than several jokers, increasing the base Chips and Mult for that hand by several points each. There’s a high chance, however, that Orbital will offer you an upgrade for a hand that you have no intention of playing.
Immediately open a free Spectral Pack.
The Spectral cards in Balatro are highly powerful and extremely rare to come across (at times it seems like the easiest way to come across a Spectral pack is to find it via Tag). Getting one for free at the expense of skipping a blind is a reasonable trade.
The main issue here is that there’s the chance that your Spectral cards that you draw in the pack can negatively affect your build. If you’re going to grab one of the Joker-enhancing Spectral cards, we recommend grabbing one early on in your run in order to minimize the destruction of your other Jokers.
Immediately open a free Mega Buffoon Pack.
Another great early-game Tag choice is the Buffoon Tag, which allows you to immediately use a Mega Buffoon Pack (allowing you to choose 2 out of 5 random Jokers to add to your build). It’s possible to get uncommon and rare Jokers, as well as some great commons that can help you breeze through the first few antes.
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Of course, if you’re totally set on your Joker layout, this Tag becomes a lot less useful. There’s always the chance that you’ll find a more compatible card for your build or even a Negative!
The next base edition Joker you find in a Shop becomes Foil (+50 Chips) and free.
Getting a free Joker is always nice, especially if you can guarantee that it boosts your score. The Foil Tag grants you a free Joker, enhanced with the Foil variant to give you an extra 50 chips per hand.
Foil is probably the least powerful of the possible Joker enhancements (by late game, adding another 50 chips onto your base will feel insignificant), so we’re putting it at the bottom of the ehancement Tags on the list. But it’s still free points at the end of the day.
6Holographic
The next base edition Joker you find in a Shop becomes Holographic (+10 Mult) and free.
The Holographic Tag is the second of four Joker-enhancement Tags, granting the player a free Joker equipped with the Holographic enhancement at the next Shop they go to. The Holographic enhancement adds 10 Mult to every hand played, so don’t forget to keep it on the left of your multiplication Jokers!
Adding 10 Mult to every hand is already more powerful than a large number of common Jokers, so as long as it doesn’t ruin your flow, it’s worth grabbing. It also makes your Joker collection look shiny and pretty.
The next shop will have a free Uncommon Joker.
Uncommon Jokers are the stars of the show in many ways. They’re powerful enough that they are always worth your consideration, and they aren’t so specific that you have to get a perfect series of compatible Jokers and Tarots just to utilize them properly.
A free uncommon Joker from the Uncommon Tag is always a go-to pick for us. Some of our favorite possible cards that work with most builds are Throwback, Hiker and Card Sharp.
The next shop will have a free Rare Joker.
The only thing better than an Uncommon Joker is a Rare Joker (Legendary Jokers don’t count here). These babies get your deck to the hard-hitting combo-creators that you need to pass the eighth Ante, with high Mult modifiers, mechanic-changing abilities and even the ability to make other Jokers more powerful.
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These are most consistent Jokers in the game!
It’s always worth the risk to grab a Rare Tag in our opinion, seeing as the Joker you receive will, at the very least, be worth a good bit of cash for you to sell it for. We’re always on the lookout for Rare cards like Blueprint, Baseball Card and Brainstorm.
3Polychrome
The Polychrome Tag guarantees you a Joker that increases your Mult score by (at least) 50%, making it highly powerful in any situation. Parting with a Polychrome card that doesn’t fot your build can be so risky and painful that we often consider biting the bullet and keeping the outlier in our inventory.
Be sure to keep your Polychrome cards to the right of your Joker inventory, maximizing the sum of your Mult at the end of scoring. And, as always, be sure that card you choose doesn’t interfere with the build you’re running!
In the next shop, initial Jokers and Booster Packs are free ($0).
The Coupon tag is a great pick for any time of play, giving all booster packs and base cards in the Shop a $0 price tag. Early on, getting free Jokers and planets this way can be a good way to build up your savings for interest.
What makes the Coupon stand out is that it’s also highly effective late in the game. Being able to secure free Planet or Tarot Packs, as well as whatever random cards may pop up in the shop, can snag you the victory in your final Antes.
The next base edition Joker you find in a Shop becomes Negative (+1 joker slot) and free.
A wise man named Tim Heidecker once proclaimed “it’s free real estate.” While he may have said that about a decade or two before the game was released, we’re pretty sure he was talking about the Negative enhancement for Jokers in Balatro.
The Negative Tag grants you an extra Joker for free that doesn’t take up one of your Joker slots in the process. Quite simply, you get an extra Joker ability for free (and possibly boost your other Jokers that interact with each other like the Baseball Card).
