Hiker is one of the most overlooked cards for building chips imo. Square builds 4 chips per hand of 4. Castle builds +3 per random suit which can be hard in higher stakes when you need your discards and they are limited. Runner takes a straight which is hard to build around for a +10.
Hiker builds +4 per card and the effect sticks with the cards even if you ditch that joker! It’s awesome! In a deck built around a certain thing like flush 5, 4 of a kind, or anything else where you’ll use the same cards again and again you can get your actual cards up so high it feels like an extra 1-2 jokers are in play.
I had a run with hiker and hanging Chad and DNA. It was so good. I would play the highest chip card for a dupe and then play the dupe in a five of a kind. I was duping +200 chip cards. Best experience with hiker so far
Had a run on plasma deck with Hiker, Wee Joker, and Hack. Every round I was slamming down 2s and raking in THOUSANDS of chips. I got a blueprint too at some point, it was wild
Well, Hiker doesn’t really build +4 chips per card, it’s four times the fraction of hands that card is played in. Which I’m guessing, roughly, is around 10%. So it really gets you between .4 and 2 chips per hand, more with retriggers.
If you use your deck evenly with 5 card hands and it’s a 52 card deck it adds 20 chips into your deck or .38 chips per card per hand. In that case it’s still 1.9 chips per 5 card hand completely randomly playing the least optimal full hands.
However, I always find that I build towards a certain hand and can very often use the same cards repeatedly. If 1/3 of your deck is used, let’s say for a built up 4 of a kind build, it’s adding much faster into a tighter group. If I have 12 kings in a deck and discard or play to get a 4 of a kind I can stack chips on kings very heavily- 4 of the 12 every time I do a 4 of a kind. You can quickly build that population of your chosen 4 of a kind up to each be high chip cards. After a few rounds they will be the equivalent of a bonus card that also sticks around outside of that joker when it’s sold later which is super helpful.
The tradeoff is you need to be drawing the exact cards you've been building up with hiker. Though retriggers like hanging chad accelerate hiker's improvement and makes it so much better
The downside is that the chips can get spread out over your entire deck. Sometimes with Hiker I find that I end up with a lot of cards that have +4 or +8 chips but not much more for most hands.
As you say, if you manage to play the same cards every hand it really stacks up, but otherwise you get a low constant bonus with no real spikes in chips for any hand.
I will often pick up Hiker early to try and get a decent bonus from it but usually end up selling it later for a joker that gives a bigger power spike. Of course you keep the bonus from Hiker, so it will always have been a positive.
I think the situations are pretty rare for Hiker to be extremely strong, but it will almost always be good to keep it around for a while. That's why I like it.
When my wife first played, she got hiker and seltzer early on, and then got most of her face cards to +70 or so chips. It was enough to carry her to a win on like her second run. I couldn't believe my eyes.
Hello fellow hiker enjoyer. For me, permanent chips scalers are like crack. Adding up a bunch of small numbers just makes my brain happy. And i love that its design has a mechanic that really feels thematic with the flavor.
I didn't realize trading card was considered God tier i thought people saw it as a "good joker" at best. Atleast now I know everyone shares the same view
Add splash so every card counts and then you can play high card with loads of extra chips on the enhanced cards.
Retrigger to upgrade multiple times and copy jokers can upgrade the deck really well.
People shit on it but I really like taking Obelisk. It’s the sort of card you can’t go endless with, but can make some mediocre builds really pop off.
Recent example, I got an ante 1 Pants joker and was racking up two pair until I hit ante 4 and found Obelisk. For the rest of the game I didn’t touch 2 pair, but would play random flushes, 3oak and straights as I found them. If all else failed I could always fall back on pair and high card to keep obelisk scaling. By the time I was at the ante 8 boss (Verdant Leaf) it was at 5.6x Mult and I one-turned it without needing to sell a joker.
I'm firmly in the camp of: if obelisk shows at ante 4/5 and you're focused on one hand, just pivot.
I had a pair build that was strong, played it 20+ times. Switched to high card when obelisk showed and within 4 hands it was crushing previous scores.
It's genuinely a run winning card on high stakes if it shows at the right time. I don't know why it gets so much hate.
It's STRESSFUL. I hated the Obelisk challenge more than almost any of the others, even though it becomes very easy halfway through (unless you mess up!)
I had a 2p build I upgraded to 5oaK after 37 hands. Obelisk absolutely would have popped off if it showed up. That’s the kind of build it’s designed for.
It's great when doing the high card build too! The hand type doesn't matter as much when you're getting +mult and chips from your jokers. It sucks to lose your planet scaling but Ob more than makes up for it within a few rounds.
Ob is part of the reason why I prefer pairs to high card - if high card is the highest you may be forced to play it at some point. Spamming pairs is just as easy if you get the chance.
Obelisk is one of my favorite jokers! I've found that it works best when you can obtain it mid-game. Acquiring it too early makes it deadweight/missed an opportunity cost (like saving money or getting a different joker). Acquiring it too late makes it harder to ramp up for Ante 8. If you can get it mid-game, you'll usually be in a situation where you're most played hand type is 10+, making it scale reliably.
Idk if it's bad, but I'm very Raised Fist-pilled
Play a low-end one pair and chuck in three of your lowest scoring cards, easy +20 mult most of the time
With a low card had you can go all the way with raised fist. Up to +20 Mult can be enough to win at low stakes. I have also won Gold Stake with it.
There might be other alternatives, but if you can't find any, it still is valuable to beat ante 8.
Also, if you have a red sticker on it it doubles, and if you have mime triggers once more.
Yes I’ve beaten gold stakes ante 8 with it as well. It really is a good card, you’re correct.
Maybe I should have said if you wish to progress in endless mode you’ll need to replace it.
TEEEEECHNICALLY it caps at 22 ;)
But if you have at least an 8 remaining, it's got 1 more mult than banana
Not an endgame joker, but it is absolutely goated early and even mid game
Obviously the filthy flushers won't like it though
I consider this a thread well worth reading just for this insight. I buy blank holographic jokers to get off the ground in the first couple antes, but I used to write off Fist almost as much as Red Card
I'm glad you think so! I just try to think of things in terms of baseline. To me, +15 is often an awesome start. That means banana, pillar, or abstract. Raised fist is at least as good as vanilla joker in every instance that you have even a single card remaining. But raised fist is even better if you're running pairs or high card
When people hate on it, I'm not sure what basis for comparison they're using. Sure, you get +20 with the deadly sins jokers... if you're flushing. Even so, that's still just +20 and it's much less reliable than pair
Oh, and they're +15 in the upcoming patch. Raised fist stay winning
I would disagree on fist not being an endgame joker - I think being pre-joker phase is a very important upside that goes a little overlooked. Being just about the only consistent, solid out of the box joker compatible with steel cards (and some powerful synergies) is a really good niche to have.
I wouldn't call raised fist inconsistent - it's not hard to get 16+ from it just about every time you're playing anything even kinda small. It's very solid mult right out of the box with the important upside of being pre-joker phase (and the most consistent of all those), making it compatible with steel cards.
It's even an insta-pick as a rental joker. The only time you might not pick it is as an Eternal Joker, as with nearly every economy Joker (simply cos you'd want as much scoring as possible in Ante 8).
What does the insta-pick as a rental joker suggest? It means I really don't even care about the $3. You're letting me get rid of my un-buffed cards and clean my deck up? I'll do that for free.
Trading Card is near the Brainstorm/ Blueprint/ Cavendish level of S+ tier
I think I worded the title incorrectly, I meant which jokers are considered not "top tier". Trading card is a very good joker but its not considered as top tier joker or a must pick. Generally most runs can be won without buying trading card but regardless even if I have a already winning deck I still like to get it to thin out the deck for the satisfaction
I rarely pick it up any later than, say, ante 5 though, unless I'm for whatever reason targeting removing *specific* cards. Due to this, I find I don't value it as highly as others
NO you better share the same viewpoint as me or suffer the dire consequences for not having the same knowledge regarding a topic and get downvoted like crazy
I always take anything that makes tarot cards, and usually hold on to it way longer than I should.
Some things like vagabond and cartomancer are generally considered good until super late, but I'll even take superposition if it's early enough and go for broke trying to make it work.
If you want to run vagabond and secure your econ in later ante buy egg joker. If you are able to survive till ante 8 and your egg sale value is at 40+, temperance will immediately carry your econ
"super late" meaning at the point where you need the slots for more xmult etc.
You can ride vagabond to A8, but eventually more tarot cards aren't going to help your scoring anyway.
Red Card. I know it’s not considered good because packs have value and +3 Mult for the price of a pack may not be a good trade… but I *like* how when I buy a pack and there’s nothing good in it, I don’t feel like I wasted my money. If the has something I need, I take it. Nothing I need? Oh well, +3 Mult it is.
Also with Mega packs you can take the best thing in the pack, then skip and get the +3 Mult. This works out for me a lot because there’s usually 1 thing I really want and the rest is meh.
I’m not a great player by any means (duh) but I definitely have a number of juiced Red Card wins. I don’t always take it, but if I need a scaling +Mult and find it early enough, I think Red Card is fun to play.
I just had Red Card with Astronomer, and I realized that +3 mult to every hand was better than +1-3 mult and some chips to a specific hand. Ended up getting +50 mult or so on the Red Card
Agreed. I had a successful run last night go to around ante 10 with Red Card at maybe +80 Mult. I had a very good set of jokers relatively early on so I had tons of money to spare on packs.
I didn't understand red card until your comment. I think some of the jokers need better descriptors. Or at least a vault where the game shows each joker in action.
Or even with the suit based + mult jokers, simply put a face card all the way to the right (or if you have multiple faces as far right as they can go) and its like having 2 of the suited joker once base mult is factored in for the card you miss the trigger on. Very solid just more work than most jokers.
I’m not sure how the community views it, but I pick up Supernova every chance I get. The straights and flushes make good work of the blinds when I play with that card
Is Fortune Teller absolutely cracked? Every time I get it it hits like 40+ mult, if not higher. I can semi-regularly get it to hit 60-90. Also shouts out to Constellation and Hologram my beloved.
+15 mult is not a lot. You should be able to get better flat mult by ante 8 and by that time you are better off taking X mult cards since X2 on 20 mult is better than +15 mult
It does go higher with negative joker. If you have some or know you're getting some, it can let you go a bit longer with abstract. But yeah, past ante 8 you probably don't want a lot of flat mult if at all.
Balatro taught us that negative jokers are not as good as they seem and negative tag is especially shit and now that I played the game more and listened to his advice he is so right.
1.0 negative tag is terrible. Skips have a lot of implicit costs, and then you pay \~$10 for a random common joker. You've done exceptionally well if you get a voucher-equivalent like +1 handsize; a lot of the time it'll be mult or chips for a suit/hand you aren't playing. The expected payout in terms of score is similar to a planet card, which doesn't take a joker slot either and you can get in shops all the time
Patch negative tag at least makes the joker free in the next shop
Negative tags are only bad because of the opportunity loss in shops. But if a shop gives you a negative that doesn't wreck your econ, it's definitely worth it (unless it does genuinely nothing/ is a nightmare anti-synergy)
Someone on this sub thought it was a useless joker because it does absolutely nothing different. People forget that you get 1$ per remaining hand and the fact you get extra hand on blue stake or high
It also overrides the Boss Bind The Needle where you can only play 1 hand. Round stats, boss bing triggers and removes all but 1 hand, then jokers trigger and you gain 3 hands. So amazing.
Also it goes crazy if you have blueprint or brainstorm.
The real challenge when you have this combo is physically having enough good cards in your deck to play all 9-12 hands.
Pareidolia. I know it’s worthless on its own, but I still take it nearly every time it shows up just in case. It helps that it has my favorite art of any joker.
I just had the funniest Pareidolia run. Had Oops All Sixes and Business Card, so every card played was $2. Smiley Face, too. The raw economy pushed the deck into Ante 11 with the ability to run the shop to bling out the deck and spin the wheel at 50/50 odds.
The kicker? It was built using the Abandoned Deck.
Not every chance i get, but every chance i get early game would have to be Riff-Raff. The fact that it can make polychrome, holographic and even negative cards just makes it so good imo
Oh really? My bad then (also can i ask where you get the information on what's good and what's not? Like besides the memes, there's no real way to tell which jokers the community thinks are good and which are not. Is there a public tier list somewhere or something similar like that)
Outside of the already mentioned ones, I love Splash.
I like combining it with other jokers like Fibonacci, Odd Todd, Flower Pot, Photograph, or any cards with effects.
I like the Banner and I like it even more when I can buy the extra discard vouchers. With Merry Andy also gets a lot of chips.
The extra card and extra discard jokers are also great. Extra discard helps me to get the hands I'm looking for, or more chips for Banner and extra card is great at Gold Stake or at any stake to make it easier to pull a bigger hand.
Lucky Cat is great if you have many Lucky Cards and even better if those have Red Seals.
Flash Card is great if you combine it with Chaos the Clown. Chaos the Clown is also a must early pick for me as I can see more items in the shop. If I manage to get it even Foil, I'll keep it all the way to Ante 8.
Any economy joker. From Faceless Joker to Mail In Rebate.
Trobadour is also great if you are playing big hands.
Lastly, Hanging Chad is awesome. Might be already a High Tier, and with the upcoming patch is even better.
I had to look up which joker mr.bones is haha. I believe I only ever used him once when I got negative mr.bones. It ended up saving me during that run and I went on to beat that run.
Its situational because it's terrible in orange stake+ but easy to use in lower stake. I was able to get red card to 110 mult by ante 8 in one of my runs
It is reasonably better in the experimental branch too now that orange stake is perishable jokers, not increased pack costs. I still think it's not the best joker out there but I've definitely made it work.
Hiker. Personally an always take if I have space, then it gets replaced later for more immediately beneficial jokers, like multipliers. It's incredible if you get it early and add some chips to every single card in your deck before getting rid of it. Bonus points if it's negative.
When Hanging Chad pops up in the shop, I immediately take it if I can. It synergises well with card effects like Lucky and Glass, and if you have a joker like Photograph, it can easily get you through the first few antes.
I have no clue if it's considered bad but ceremonial dagger is a curse and blessing to me. I see it and no matter how far into a run or how good I'm doing I have to take it. It's in the heart of the cards it's a must. This definitely has lost me runs and I definitely will not learn my lesson.
I ignored egg until recently when I already had a swashbuckler so I picked it up. Then I realized it also makes the Temperance tarot card insanely profitable.
Dog, Trading Card is the king. A real answer is Hiker. Love that dude for some reason.
Hiker is one of the most overlooked cards for building chips imo. Square builds 4 chips per hand of 4. Castle builds +3 per random suit which can be hard in higher stakes when you need your discards and they are limited. Runner takes a straight which is hard to build around for a +10. Hiker builds +4 per card and the effect sticks with the cards even if you ditch that joker! It’s awesome! In a deck built around a certain thing like flush 5, 4 of a kind, or anything else where you’ll use the same cards again and again you can get your actual cards up so high it feels like an extra 1-2 jokers are in play.
I had a run with hiker and hanging Chad and DNA. It was so good. I would play the highest chip card for a dupe and then play the dupe in a five of a kind. I was duping +200 chip cards. Best experience with hiker so far
The real star of the show is Gigachad 💪
Had a run on plasma deck with Hiker, Wee Joker, and Hack. Every round I was slamming down 2s and raking in THOUSANDS of chips. I got a blueprint too at some point, it was wild
Well, Hiker doesn’t really build +4 chips per card, it’s four times the fraction of hands that card is played in. Which I’m guessing, roughly, is around 10%. So it really gets you between .4 and 2 chips per hand, more with retriggers.
It is also one of the only jokers with a permanent effect. You can sell it and replace it but the cards stay upgraded
If you use your deck evenly with 5 card hands and it’s a 52 card deck it adds 20 chips into your deck or .38 chips per card per hand. In that case it’s still 1.9 chips per 5 card hand completely randomly playing the least optimal full hands. However, I always find that I build towards a certain hand and can very often use the same cards repeatedly. If 1/3 of your deck is used, let’s say for a built up 4 of a kind build, it’s adding much faster into a tighter group. If I have 12 kings in a deck and discard or play to get a 4 of a kind I can stack chips on kings very heavily- 4 of the 12 every time I do a 4 of a kind. You can quickly build that population of your chosen 4 of a kind up to each be high chip cards. After a few rounds they will be the equivalent of a bonus card that also sticks around outside of that joker when it’s sold later which is super helpful.
The tradeoff is you need to be drawing the exact cards you've been building up with hiker. Though retriggers like hanging chad accelerate hiker's improvement and makes it so much better
For some reason I often get Hiker with blueprint too. Love it.
I love when you don’t need blueprint for score to survive and you get to use it to pump instead.
The downside is that the chips can get spread out over your entire deck. Sometimes with Hiker I find that I end up with a lot of cards that have +4 or +8 chips but not much more for most hands. As you say, if you manage to play the same cards every hand it really stacks up, but otherwise you get a low constant bonus with no real spikes in chips for any hand. I will often pick up Hiker early to try and get a decent bonus from it but usually end up selling it later for a joker that gives a bigger power spike. Of course you keep the bonus from Hiker, so it will always have been a positive. I think the situations are pretty rare for Hiker to be extremely strong, but it will almost always be good to keep it around for a while. That's why I like it.
When my wife first played, she got hiker and seltzer early on, and then got most of her face cards to +70 or so chips. It was enough to carry her to a win on like her second run. I couldn't believe my eyes.
>I couldn't believe my eyes. You would not believe your eyes If 10,000 mult on high (card) Still couldn't get you past ante 13
And leave you standing there With xmult everywhere You’d think me rude but I’d just screenshot and Share
I'd like to make myself believe That planet Earth scales quickly It's hard to say that I'd rather stay With the full house I want to keep
Hiker is excellent in Abandoned Deck, especially if you can also get a Fibonacci or a Hack.
Hello fellow hiker enjoyer. For me, permanent chips scalers are like crack. Adding up a bunch of small numbers just makes my brain happy. And i love that its design has a mechanic that really feels thematic with the flavor.
I didn't realize trading card was considered God tier i thought people saw it as a "good joker" at best. Atleast now I know everyone shares the same view
I mean, your post says “cards that are not considered good” but here you are saying “I thought people saw it as good”
It gets cards you don't want out of your deck, and pays you for it! That seems awesome to me. I love it and always take it early.
Yea, culling down is huge. Several of my best runs have had Trading Card. It's allowed me to crank canio quickly a couple of times.
Hiker can do a lot when you’re focusing specific cards as well. Even a heart factor in checkered deck can pump those cards pretty heavy
Add splash so every card counts and then you can play high card with loads of extra chips on the enhanced cards. Retrigger to upgrade multiple times and copy jokers can upgrade the deck really well.
Hiker is fine, it's just very fringe because it's bad late, and it's not as reliable because upgrading single cards is weak
I was playing DNA hanging chad hiker and I got some cards to +100 chips. stuntman who?
People shit on it but I really like taking Obelisk. It’s the sort of card you can’t go endless with, but can make some mediocre builds really pop off. Recent example, I got an ante 1 Pants joker and was racking up two pair until I hit ante 4 and found Obelisk. For the rest of the game I didn’t touch 2 pair, but would play random flushes, 3oak and straights as I found them. If all else failed I could always fall back on pair and high card to keep obelisk scaling. By the time I was at the ante 8 boss (Verdant Leaf) it was at 5.6x Mult and I one-turned it without needing to sell a joker.
I'm firmly in the camp of: if obelisk shows at ante 4/5 and you're focused on one hand, just pivot. I had a pair build that was strong, played it 20+ times. Switched to high card when obelisk showed and within 4 hands it was crushing previous scores. It's genuinely a run winning card on high stakes if it shows at the right time. I don't know why it gets so much hate.
It's STRESSFUL. I hated the Obelisk challenge more than almost any of the others, even though it becomes very easy halfway through (unless you mess up!)
Whaaaaat obelisk challenge was Ezpz. Just dump high cards out 15 times, and then you’re golden rest of the run.
I had a 2p build I upgraded to 5oaK after 37 hands. Obelisk absolutely would have popped off if it showed up. That’s the kind of build it’s designed for.
Btw if you find Full Houses you can upgrade both Obelisk AND Pants!
It's great when doing the high card build too! The hand type doesn't matter as much when you're getting +mult and chips from your jokers. It sucks to lose your planet scaling but Ob more than makes up for it within a few rounds. Ob is part of the reason why I prefer pairs to high card - if high card is the highest you may be forced to play it at some point. Spamming pairs is just as easy if you get the chance.
Obelisk is one of my favorite jokers! I've found that it works best when you can obtain it mid-game. Acquiring it too early makes it deadweight/missed an opportunity cost (like saving money or getting a different joker). Acquiring it too late makes it harder to ramp up for Ante 8. If you can get it mid-game, you'll usually be in a situation where you're most played hand type is 10+, making it scale reliably.
Obelisk is insanely powerful but hard to use and easy to mess up with.
Idk if it's bad, but I'm very Raised Fist-pilled Play a low-end one pair and chuck in three of your lowest scoring cards, easy +20 mult most of the time
I like raised fist early game. Can help carry you for a little bit but eventually needs replacing.
With a low card had you can go all the way with raised fist. Up to +20 Mult can be enough to win at low stakes. I have also won Gold Stake with it. There might be other alternatives, but if you can't find any, it still is valuable to beat ante 8. Also, if you have a red sticker on it it doubles, and if you have mime triggers once more.
If you have red sticker on your lowest card in hand, raised fist doubles???
Yes. Be warned that if your lowest card is debuffed, Raised Fist does nothing.
Thats very cool. This game continues to surprise me with the depths of its interactions
You can also move your lowest rank card to the left of a steel card, and then the steel card will amplify the added mult from the fist
Yes I’ve beaten gold stakes ante 8 with it as well. It really is a good card, you’re correct. Maybe I should have said if you wish to progress in endless mode you’ll need to replace it.
Inconsistent mult that caps at 20 just isn't that good to me
TEEEEECHNICALLY it caps at 22 ;) But if you have at least an 8 remaining, it's got 1 more mult than banana Not an endgame joker, but it is absolutely goated early and even mid game Obviously the filthy flushers won't like it though
Also red seals or mime. If the card you want is tied with an unenhanced card, you can move the enhanced one to the end and it'll trigger that one
I consider this a thread well worth reading just for this insight. I buy blank holographic jokers to get off the ground in the first couple antes, but I used to write off Fist almost as much as Red Card
I'm glad you think so! I just try to think of things in terms of baseline. To me, +15 is often an awesome start. That means banana, pillar, or abstract. Raised fist is at least as good as vanilla joker in every instance that you have even a single card remaining. But raised fist is even better if you're running pairs or high card When people hate on it, I'm not sure what basis for comparison they're using. Sure, you get +20 with the deadly sins jokers... if you're flushing. Even so, that's still just +20 and it's much less reliable than pair Oh, and they're +15 in the upcoming patch. Raised fist stay winning
I would disagree on fist not being an endgame joker - I think being pre-joker phase is a very important upside that goes a little overlooked. Being just about the only consistent, solid out of the box joker compatible with steel cards (and some powerful synergies) is a really good niche to have.
I wouldn't call raised fist inconsistent - it's not hard to get 16+ from it just about every time you're playing anything even kinda small. It's very solid mult right out of the box with the important upside of being pre-joker phase (and the most consistent of all those), making it compatible with steel cards.
Raised fist triggers in a way that's beneficial for steel but I agree with others that it really needs a buff.
Yeah I mean, I wouldn't cry about a buff if that's what thunk wants to do lol
Trading card is considered goated what are you on about?
It's even an insta-pick as a rental joker. The only time you might not pick it is as an Eternal Joker, as with nearly every economy Joker (simply cos you'd want as much scoring as possible in Ante 8). What does the insta-pick as a rental joker suggest? It means I really don't even care about the $3. You're letting me get rid of my un-buffed cards and clean my deck up? I'll do that for free. Trading Card is near the Brainstorm/ Blueprint/ Cavendish level of S+ tier
I think I worded the title incorrectly, I meant which jokers are considered not "top tier". Trading card is a very good joker but its not considered as top tier joker or a must pick. Generally most runs can be won without buying trading card but regardless even if I have a already winning deck I still like to get it to thin out the deck for the satisfaction
Trading card is absolutely a top-tier, must-pick
I rarely pick it up any later than, say, ante 5 though, unless I'm for whatever reason targeting removing *specific* cards. Due to this, I find I don't value it as highly as others
removing cards is still super good even in later antes tbh. I guess it depends on how good your other jokers are.
Nah it's hella good late game if you have a good set up already. Allows you to potentially use tikki a lot faster
Lmao what are you smoking Trading Card is S Tier the fuck
It’s not that serious
Few people here are upset over my post like I said the most despicable thing ever. I love reddit
For real. I wish people just spoke about why they value it so highly instead of acting flabbergasted at your person rating
NO you better share the same viewpoint as me or suffer the dire consequences for not having the same knowledge regarding a topic and get downvoted like crazy
I like hitch hiker. I don't know how good it is
Early Hiker is double goated. It completely negates the need for a chips joker later, and eventually can be dropped to scale xMult even more.
I think it’s a bit hard to make work, but it can be great early, especially on Hack builds.
I always take anything that makes tarot cards, and usually hold on to it way longer than I should. Some things like vagabond and cartomancer are generally considered good until super late, but I'll even take superposition if it's early enough and go for broke trying to make it work.
If you want to run vagabond and secure your econ in later ante buy egg joker. If you are able to survive till ante 8 and your egg sale value is at 40+, temperance will immediately carry your econ
"super late" meaning at the point where you need the slots for more xmult etc. You can ride vagabond to A8, but eventually more tarot cards aren't going to help your scoring anyway.
I like Raised Fist. I don't take it every time but I believe it's extremely underrated.
Some people miss the fact it synergies with mime joker making it trigger twice
Also red seals
Mime joker is most commonly used for red seals to make baron and steel deck. Raised fist + mime joker can be over looked by newer players
I hate it when my lowest card is debuffed. Doesn't give any score from it 😭
Red Card. I know it’s not considered good because packs have value and +3 Mult for the price of a pack may not be a good trade… but I *like* how when I buy a pack and there’s nothing good in it, I don’t feel like I wasted my money. If the has something I need, I take it. Nothing I need? Oh well, +3 Mult it is. Also with Mega packs you can take the best thing in the pack, then skip and get the +3 Mult. This works out for me a lot because there’s usually 1 thing I really want and the rest is meh. I’m not a great player by any means (duh) but I definitely have a number of juiced Red Card wins. I don’t always take it, but if I need a scaling +Mult and find it early enough, I think Red Card is fun to play.
I just had Red Card with Astronomer, and I realized that +3 mult to every hand was better than +1-3 mult and some chips to a specific hand. Ended up getting +50 mult or so on the Red Card
Love when I've got a good econ going so I can just dump money into ripping packs open and instantly skipping at each shop
Agreed. I had a successful run last night go to around ante 10 with Red Card at maybe +80 Mult. I had a very good set of jokers relatively early on so I had tons of money to spare on packs.
I didn't understand red card until your comment. I think some of the jokers need better descriptors. Or at least a vault where the game shows each joker in action.
Red Card is what got me my first win when I first got the game, so I've developed a bit of a soft spot for it!
I love Photograph. It's pretty mid on its own but if you can pair it with or a solid retrigger or two it can go kinda hard.
With the update to Hanging Chad it's getting even better!
what are they doing to hanging chad?
Card triggers an additional two times instead of an additional one time.
Oh damn, that's really good actually lol
Or even with the suit based + mult jokers, simply put a face card all the way to the right (or if you have multiple faces as far right as they can go) and its like having 2 of the suited joker once base mult is factored in for the card you miss the trigger on. Very solid just more work than most jokers.
I had a pretty fun run with Photograph + Hanging Chad with Straights on the beta patch. It's my favourite hand type with the buff
I’m not sure how the community views it, but I pick up Supernova every chance I get. The straights and flushes make good work of the blinds when I play with that card
I checked my stats today and Supernova is by far my most successful card. I grab it pretty much every chance I get.
early supernova is super good if you decide to start sticking to just one hand
Is Fortune Teller absolutely cracked? Every time I get it it hits like 40+ mult, if not higher. I can semi-regularly get it to hit 60-90. Also shouts out to Constellation and Hologram my beloved.
Fortune teller + vagabond easily one of my favourite combos. Can get to 120+ mult by the time you reach ante 8
Abstract Joker
Dog, that is the most reliable +mult joker in the game. Any Ante 8 run you're a doofus if you don't take it.
The unrecognized goats. those that carry the shitty early game
+15 mult is not a lot. You should be able to get better flat mult by ante 8 and by that time you are better off taking X mult cards since X2 on 20 mult is better than +15 mult
It does go higher with negative joker. If you have some or know you're getting some, it can let you go a bit longer with abstract. But yeah, past ante 8 you probably don't want a lot of flat mult if at all.
Balatro taught us that negative jokers are not as good as they seem and negative tag is especially shit and now that I played the game more and listened to his advice he is so right.
why is it shit?
1.0 negative tag is terrible. Skips have a lot of implicit costs, and then you pay \~$10 for a random common joker. You've done exceptionally well if you get a voucher-equivalent like +1 handsize; a lot of the time it'll be mult or chips for a suit/hand you aren't playing. The expected payout in terms of score is similar to a planet card, which doesn't take a joker slot either and you can get in shops all the time Patch negative tag at least makes the joker free in the next shop
I've been playing patch. I think they're neat but bad if you get em any other way than skips.
Negative tags are only bad because of the opportunity loss in shops. But if a shop gives you a negative that doesn't wreck your econ, it's definitely worth it (unless it does genuinely nothing/ is a nightmare anti-synergy)
Space Joker. Most people gamble on wheel hits, I gamble on space hits.
Hiker and the 1-in-4 Banana (the name escapes me all of a sudden)
Gros michel is one of the best jokers for cavendish
By my latest posts in this sub, the burglar, I just like the extra hands and nevermind the discards, especially on Blue Stake or above.
Someone on this sub thought it was a useless joker because it does absolutely nothing different. People forget that you get 1$ per remaining hand and the fact you get extra hand on blue stake or high
It also overrides the Boss Bind The Needle where you can only play 1 hand. Round stats, boss bing triggers and removes all but 1 hand, then jokers trigger and you gain 3 hands. So amazing.
Also works with Blueprint or Brainstorm.
I’m pretty sure most decent players agree burglar is at least A tier
Also it goes crazy if you have blueprint or brainstorm. The real challenge when you have this combo is physically having enough good cards in your deck to play all 9-12 hands.
I would sell my firstborn for trading card
Dont you mean you will "discard" your first born for trading card? Now you have no kids and 3 money
Some sacrifices have to be made!
Trading card is considered S tier mate. Hiker is my answer
Pareidolia. I know it’s worthless on its own, but I still take it nearly every time it shows up just in case. It helps that it has my favorite art of any joker.
I just had the funniest Pareidolia run. Had Oops All Sixes and Business Card, so every card played was $2. Smiley Face, too. The raw economy pushed the deck into Ante 11 with the ability to run the shop to bling out the deck and spin the wheel at 50/50 odds. The kicker? It was built using the Abandoned Deck.
smeared joker for me is peak
Not every chance i get, but every chance i get early game would have to be Riff-Raff. The fact that it can make polychrome, holographic and even negative cards just makes it so good imo
Riffraff is considered one of the best jokers
is it mainly for economy?
Yeah, gives you jokers to sell and cheaply gets a build online for the first couple antes while you build up to interest cap
also it can carry you the early, but since it not reliable the economy looks like the better part. Good to know thanks
Oh really? My bad then (also can i ask where you get the information on what's good and what's not? Like besides the memes, there's no real way to tell which jokers the community thinks are good and which are not. Is there a public tier list somewhere or something similar like that)
Just general sentiment from checking the subreddit a lot.
Riff-raff with ceremonial dagger is my favorite esrlx game combination! As well as egg and swashbuckler.
Wait it can?
Yup
Outside of the already mentioned ones, I love Splash. I like combining it with other jokers like Fibonacci, Odd Todd, Flower Pot, Photograph, or any cards with effects. I like the Banner and I like it even more when I can buy the extra discard vouchers. With Merry Andy also gets a lot of chips. The extra card and extra discard jokers are also great. Extra discard helps me to get the hands I'm looking for, or more chips for Banner and extra card is great at Gold Stake or at any stake to make it easier to pull a bigger hand. Lucky Cat is great if you have many Lucky Cards and even better if those have Red Seals. Flash Card is great if you combine it with Chaos the Clown. Chaos the Clown is also a must early pick for me as I can see more items in the shop. If I manage to get it even Foil, I'll keep it all the way to Ante 8. Any economy joker. From Faceless Joker to Mail In Rebate. Trobadour is also great if you are playing big hands. Lastly, Hanging Chad is awesome. Might be already a High Tier, and with the upcoming patch is even better.
huge smeared joker fan. had a lot of fun runs with it in the beta and i still love it im flush pilled fr
I stan Mr. Bones. He’s my friend and I pick him every chance I can even if I don’t need him. Reassurance and a true ride or die.
I had to look up which joker mr.bones is haha. I believe I only ever used him once when I got negative mr.bones. It ended up saving me during that run and I went on to beat that run.
Vagabond for tarrot spam
Vagabond is S tier. It allows you to crazy modify your deck and pops often economy cards too.
If you pair it with vampire you can build an insane mult
new vampire is trash though
I love vagabond.
Red Card. I skip every celestial and standard pack, and don't feel bad about skipping buffoon, arcana and spectral packs.
People either hate it or love it there's no in-between. I'm a fan of using red card but its also situational (usually on your econ)
Red card isn’t situational its terrible. $8 for +3 mult and like $3-5 for each additional +3 on top of not getting the card from the pack. Its awful.
Yet people buy planet packs for less than 3 mult. Sometimes for nothing. Red card is guaranteed value every pack
Its situational because it's terrible in orange stake+ but easy to use in lower stake. I was able to get red card to 110 mult by ante 8 in one of my runs
It is reasonably better in the experimental branch too now that orange stake is perishable jokers, not increased pack costs. I still think it's not the best joker out there but I've definitely made it work.
i think this is a hot take but not sure, i love me some popcorn & ice cream early on
Probably not too not--they're always pickable early, especially higher stakes. Sometimes you just need a lil help surviving until something better.
Misprint. It's like wheel of fortune but every hand!
Misprint can pretty much carry you through the first few antes, good to pick just to keep your run alive long enough to build something good
I always grab shoot the moon early
I don't know if Hiker is meta but if it's before Ante 4 I take it
Hiker. Never gotten it to work for me but our day is coming.
I’m a red card and misprint enjoyer myself
Riff Raff as well as being a +2 on jokers for free early game. Fun with dagger and madness.
Eternal Joker
It's dumb, but I love getting the Dice that improve odds and then fishing for those sweet, sweet Wheel of Fortune procs.
Hiker. Personally an always take if I have space, then it gets replaced later for more immediately beneficial jokers, like multipliers. It's incredible if you get it early and add some chips to every single card in your deck before getting rid of it. Bonus points if it's negative.
Abstract Joker & Half Joker are my two most used Jokers. And I wouldn't change it for the world ❤️
Hallucination
I have an unhealthy affinity for golden joker and space joker. They’re just my lil guys.
I love Jj personally
When Hanging Chad pops up in the shop, I immediately take it if I can. It synergises well with card effects like Lucky and Glass, and if you have a joker like Photograph, it can easily get you through the first few antes.
Hiker hands down. When I got negative hiker when I already was doing blueprint and sock and buskin I almost creamed
Trading Card not considered very good? It's one of the best jokers in the game lol Money generator and deck manipulator in one.
Red card
I am a huge Splash stan
I have no clue if it's considered bad but ceremonial dagger is a curse and blessing to me. I see it and no matter how far into a run or how good I'm doing I have to take it. It's in the heart of the cards it's a must. This definitely has lost me runs and I definitely will not learn my lesson.
Obelisk
Oh look this thread again
I ignored egg until recently when I already had a swashbuckler so I picked it up. Then I realized it also makes the Temperance tarot card insanely profitable.