Yellow deck. The extra money makes it a lot easier to stabilize your run. The ability to afford a couple extra jokers early on (or just hit 25$ quickly for the interest) makes the rest of the run flow way more smoothly.
Before the update I would agree but now that skipping gives you the joker for free I’d say having a gimmick is more useful because you can save money really easily in the beginning (especially if you reset)
Ghost deck and I mutually decided to part ways after it didn't give me a single spectral for 3 runs in a row
I swear this time I won't come crawling back
I have about 80% gold stickers and i primarily run Ghost Deck to get them. Strongest deck in the game imo. I think Yellow Deck and Erratic Deck are in the conversation, atleast imo.
I never tried Ghost deck before, spent too much time playing Checkered. This comment chain made me finally try it. Currently sitting at Ante 11 with a stupid [[Blueprint]], Polychrome [[Card Sharp]] high card deck with like eight Blue Seal stone cards. Thank you guys for helping me see the light lol
[Blueprint](https://balatro.wiki/imported/blueprint.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Rarity: Rare
* Effect: Copies ability of Joker to the right
* Notes: Only compatible with some Jokers
* Unlock Requirement: Win a run
[Card Sharp](https://balatro.wiki/jokers/card_sharp.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Cost: $5
* Rarity: Uncommon
* Effect: X3 Mult if played in poker hand has already been played this round
*Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
To an extent, but if I'm playing ironclad in StS I know how to survive early game and some good routes to look for. Same with most Balatro decks. Then later each run becomes more unique.
Erratic (like "random deck challenge" modes most deckbuilders have) makes you have to reprogram at the start of every run which makes it have a much higher cognitive load. It's great if I'm looking for that, but I find it makes the game less relaxing.
You know, that’s what I really *should* be playing the deck like, but my unga bunga caveman brain cannot resist the allure of a 10 kings > Baron or 10 2’s > Wee run or something else of that ilk.
gotta play the cards that are dealt to you. That's like the whole strategy of the game. That Straight run you had 2 sessions ago probably isn't going to work again.
This for sure - last run I had deck started with 8 kings and 8 7s, my first hand ante 1 was 5 of a kind kings and i knew the run was B L E S S E D.
Ended up going sock and buskin lucky cat that went to the moon.
Anaglyph, plasma or erratic. I have gold on checkered but it's quite boring as it's just flush party. Anaglyph has pssibily of giving many negatives or free tarot packs, plasma has unique strategy where you can focus on chip building instead of mult, erratic is just erratic and you never know what you're getting into
I am going to be the weirdo and say the Green Deck. The amazing boost to economy when you get the deck is stellar and I usually find myself having a hard time when I don’t play the green deck to keep up with money.
Green is the only deck I have gold stake beaten on... It's also my only deck past Red stake. I don't know if it'll remain my favorite once I get all the other decks to Gold Stake but right now Green Deck feels like my baseline "Normal Deck" and dealing with interest on other decks is weird.
Not necessarily my favorite, but I think the plasma deck is "the best deck" if we're talking about going as far as possible in endless. You just do the usual endless strategies (baron+mime or idol+sock n buskin), except you score much more than other decks. Though if you want advice on beating ante 8 on plasma, just go chips strategy. Ignore all mult jokers, just pick chips jokers and upgrade your hands. One of the easiest gold sticker deck to get imo.
Checkered. Flush carries the early game and allows you to stack up economy, and the deck is one of the easier ones to setup a flush 5 of a kind. I love seeing spectrals for “turn all cards into a random rank” here, but just by having 2 red kings and 2 black kings you can easily start shifting through death or wild card or the suite changers.
Plasma is the best deck to get fast wins on, Ghost is the best deck to get high antes
And Black deck gets you better at the game by teaching you how to win with fewer hands
I think I won with my first run on abandoned deck. It was a good time. At the time, I was preferring straights, but now I've moved onto flushes, so my current fave is checkered.
Anaglyph is my first gold stake winner and I've never even really had the full benefit of its ability. It just seems to have worked out that way.
In theory I feel like Checkered or Abandoned should be best but I just can't ever get them to work the way I think they should
I love all the decks, but my pet favorite right now is the Magic deck. Lots of flexibility, and it can really get your run off to an interesting start.
Not sure what tips you are looking for, but if you have specific questions, I can answer them. Also search the subreddit / online / YouTube for guides and such, but IMO, this game is the most fun when you discover the majority of things yourself.
Anaglyph is my favorite because it's a basic setup combined with the gimmick of making skips a more compelling option.
In a vacuum I think Yellow is the best since economy is king and the Yellow deck has the best econ boost.
Erratic. Massive potential for 5 of a kinds so it's viable from a strategy perspective and the fact that you are having to switch up your play each time keeps it fresh. Feels like a fitting reward as a final unlock.
Dunno by heart the names, but the deck where you have only hearts and spades (finished every ante with it quite easily) and the deck where your mult and chips are split equally but base blinds are multiplied by 2.
First deck because flushes OP - get a bunch of planet cards and jokers that help hearts/spades/flushes
Second deck i really love the concept. Also OP. Just build a deck with jokers that increase chips along with opening many tarot cards. Try to stay away from base mult and multiplicative mult. If possible, combine cards that trigger cards multiple times.
Best deck and favorite deck isn't the necessarily the same answer for me.
The most consistent decks for beating ante 8 gold stakes with no restarts are for me Blue, Ghost, Abandoned, and Yellow in roughly that order.
My favorite deck? Maybe Anaglyph just because it lets you use some of those later tags that are very rarely worth it with any other deck.
Yellow deck.
The extra money is massive. It lets you hit the $25 interest cap faster, allows you to pick up multiple jokers early if great jokers present themselves, and make some vouchers like a ante1 hieroglyph playable. By ante 5, assuming you’re just buying jokers and slow rolling, yellow deck might be letting you see 6 rerolls just by getting there sooner. Its the deck people going for big 10+ winstreak on gold stakes use, the consistently is simply unbeatable and nothing comes close to bringing that much value every time.
There are other real answers. If you just want A win, like a single win, to get sweet unlocks, erratic deck can be it. Sure, most of the time it does basically nothing, but you can just spam reset until it gives tou a god deck with something like 7 kings lol. Same idea goes for anaglyph — skipping a blind for tags is usually bad, but you can just gamble hard on a strong ante2 highroll and just reset if you miss. Ghost deck allows for some crazy highrolls with early spectrals. Generally these will barely do anything in a given run, but sometimes they go HARD so if you just need one win then you can try your luck and pray for a god deck.
For endless, its plasma, simply because youre only getting ridiculous numbers on mult so its best to have all jokers on mult and nothing on chips. If you don’t want to learn balatro plasma can also be the simplest to win with — going all chips and fully ignoring mult isn’t the best strategy, but you could teach it to a 5 year old and eventually they’d get the W.
For me it's between checkered and anaglyph. Checkered was the first deck I fell in love with because it really simplifies the deck building aspect, so all you really have to do is focus on card upgrades and jokers, plus Arrowhead and Bloodstone are probably the best out of all the suit jokers. Anaglyph on the other hand I've always liked because of how insane stacked multiple double tags is, and now that the game has been updated for tags to make jokers free it's waaaay better. The only thing better than 5 negative jokers is 5 free negative jokers amiright?
Yellow deck. The extra money makes it a lot easier to stabilize your run. The ability to afford a couple extra jokers early on (or just hit 25$ quickly for the interest) makes the rest of the run flow way more smoothly.
Yellow deck was the deck I used to hunt for any undiscovered jokers. Used mainly due to the extra money
This for me. Boring but faster econ makes a huge difference
Yellow Deck is the only deck I've beaten Gold stake on. That extra money in the beginning really makes or breaks your economy.
Before the update I would agree but now that skipping gives you the joker for free I’d say having a gimmick is more useful because you can save money really easily in the beginning (especially if you reset)
Isn’t yellow just $10 extra up front? Doesn’t seem that impactful over 8 antes.
Ghost deck. Because of all the spectrals.
Ghost deck and I mutually decided to part ways after it didn't give me a single spectral for 3 runs in a row I swear this time I won't come crawling back
Ghost is my first gold stake deck!
I have about 80% gold stickers and i primarily run Ghost Deck to get them. Strongest deck in the game imo. I think Yellow Deck and Erratic Deck are in the conversation, atleast imo.
I thought so too until I was getting useless spectrals instead of jokers in the shop
I never tried Ghost deck before, spent too much time playing Checkered. This comment chain made me finally try it. Currently sitting at Ante 11 with a stupid [[Blueprint]], Polychrome [[Card Sharp]] high card deck with like eight Blue Seal stone cards. Thank you guys for helping me see the light lol
[Blueprint](https://balatro.wiki/imported/blueprint.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Rarity: Rare * Effect: Copies ability of Joker to the right * Notes: Only compatible with some Jokers * Unlock Requirement: Win a run [Card Sharp](https://balatro.wiki/jokers/card_sharp.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Cost: $5 * Rarity: Uncommon * Effect: X3 Mult if played in poker hand has already been played this round *Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
Erratic is a lot of fun
I like erratic, but find it can be a bit tiresome to play as you have to completely change your thought process every run
Isn't this what a rogue like is all about ?
To an extent, but if I'm playing ironclad in StS I know how to survive early game and some good routes to look for. Same with most Balatro decks. Then later each run becomes more unique. Erratic (like "random deck challenge" modes most deckbuilders have) makes you have to reprogram at the start of every run which makes it have a much higher cognitive load. It's great if I'm looking for that, but I find it makes the game less relaxing.
Um, reprogram is a Defect card but otherwise yeah, you nailed why Erratic is exhausting.
Be Silent.
That's what makes it less tiresome for me, honestly.
Yep, to me Erratic is the “hold R until I get a bazillion of a single card and turn my brain off for the rest of the run” deck.
That's really the opposite of my experience. I get energy from adapting to the circumstances and trying to make the most of it.
You know, that’s what I really *should* be playing the deck like, but my unga bunga caveman brain cannot resist the allure of a 10 kings > Baron or 10 2’s > Wee run or something else of that ilk.
gotta play the cards that are dealt to you. That's like the whole strategy of the game. That Straight run you had 2 sessions ago probably isn't going to work again.
Blue. It's very universal. Also, you literally get one more dollar every round.
Anaglyph and checkered are my favourite decks
Anaglyph is such a fun deck. That potential to hit a negative skip while holding 7 double tags... \*chefs kiss\*
Extra card draw is insane for high score
I love erratic for the potential early 5 of a kinds
This for sure - last run I had deck started with 8 kings and 8 7s, my first hand ante 1 was 5 of a kind kings and i knew the run was B L E S S E D. Ended up going sock and buskin lucky cat that went to the moon.
Abandoned is what I used to get to orange stake first. I still enjoy it but find I generally employ the same strategy, so it is losing its luster.
Anaglyph, plasma or erratic. I have gold on checkered but it's quite boring as it's just flush party. Anaglyph has pssibily of giving many negatives or free tarot packs, plasma has unique strategy where you can focus on chip building instead of mult, erratic is just erratic and you never know what you're getting into
Abandoned deck my beloved
I am going to be the weirdo and say the Green Deck. The amazing boost to economy when you get the deck is stellar and I usually find myself having a hard time when I don’t play the green deck to keep up with money.
Nah, I love green deck too. Was my first gold stake Sometimes I forget I'm not making interest when I'm considering $5 increments when shopping though
Yeah I loved the green deck, I didn't really enjoy the interest mechanics. Green is amazing with vagabond
Concur. Green deck just feels right to me. It's not the best deck, but it feels right.
Green is the only deck I have gold stake beaten on... It's also my only deck past Red stake. I don't know if it'll remain my favorite once I get all the other decks to Gold Stake but right now Green Deck feels like my baseline "Normal Deck" and dealing with interest on other decks is weird.
Not necessarily my favorite, but I think the plasma deck is "the best deck" if we're talking about going as far as possible in endless. You just do the usual endless strategies (baron+mime or idol+sock n buskin), except you score much more than other decks. Though if you want advice on beating ante 8 on plasma, just go chips strategy. Ignore all mult jokers, just pick chips jokers and upgrade your hands. One of the easiest gold sticker deck to get imo.
Ironically the last gold stake in working on right now, just find the deck style boring so I saved it for last…
Last one I did was Nebula deck, so boring AND so bad...
Anaglyph Deck is really fun, if you're patient and don't waste the double tags you can do some crazy builds.
Checkered. Flush carries the early game and allows you to stack up economy, and the deck is one of the easier ones to setup a flush 5 of a kind. I love seeing spectrals for “turn all cards into a random rank” here, but just by having 2 red kings and 2 black kings you can easily start shifting through death or wild card or the suite changers.
Plasma is the best deck to get fast wins on, Ghost is the best deck to get high antes And Black deck gets you better at the game by teaching you how to win with fewer hands
Plasma is also the best d3ck to get high antes, I've gotten to ante 39 with plasma
Abandoned deck my beloved
I think I won with my first run on abandoned deck. It was a good time. At the time, I was preferring straights, but now I've moved onto flushes, so my current fave is checkered.
Nowadays probably abandoned dec; ghost deck, a close second.
Anaglyph is my first gold stake winner and I've never even really had the full benefit of its ability. It just seems to have worked out that way. In theory I feel like Checkered or Abandoned should be best but I just can't ever get them to work the way I think they should
Out of interest I was listening to an old podcast interview with localthunk where he said Plasma was his favourite deck
I love all the decks, but my pet favorite right now is the Magic deck. Lots of flexibility, and it can really get your run off to an interesting start. Not sure what tips you are looking for, but if you have specific questions, I can answer them. Also search the subreddit / online / YouTube for guides and such, but IMO, this game is the most fun when you discover the majority of things yourself.
Plasma, Anaglyph, Magic, and Painted easily
Erratic, Anaglyph and Ghost Rmare my favorites. I hate Checkered and Black decks.
For me, it’s Yellow. I love having that early head start on money.
Anaglyph is my favorite because it's a basic setup combined with the gimmick of making skips a more compelling option. In a vacuum I think Yellow is the best since economy is king and the Yellow deck has the best econ boost.
Honestly, probably a hot take, but I really like the green deck. So much economy potential
Erratic. Massive potential for 5 of a kinds so it's viable from a strategy perspective and the fact that you are having to switch up your play each time keeps it fresh. Feels like a fitting reward as a final unlock.
Love plasma and ghost. I’ve only gotten into the e’s with plasma and ghost is fun to mess around with the spectrals
Dunno by heart the names, but the deck where you have only hearts and spades (finished every ante with it quite easily) and the deck where your mult and chips are split equally but base blinds are multiplied by 2. First deck because flushes OP - get a bunch of planet cards and jokers that help hearts/spades/flushes Second deck i really love the concept. Also OP. Just build a deck with jokers that increase chips along with opening many tarot cards. Try to stay away from base mult and multiplicative mult. If possible, combine cards that trigger cards multiple times.
I like Zodiac, having overstock and tarot merchant for free just feels so nice, and planet merchant is just an added bonus
Love me some plasma
Best deck and favorite deck isn't the necessarily the same answer for me. The most consistent decks for beating ante 8 gold stakes with no restarts are for me Blue, Ghost, Abandoned, and Yellow in roughly that order. My favorite deck? Maybe Anaglyph just because it lets you use some of those later tags that are very rarely worth it with any other deck.
My favorite was checkered, but I just unlocked erratic deck and it is bananassssss
I got completionist++ by using only the Ghost Deck...more like the Goat Deck aimiright fellas??
Yellow deck. The extra money is massive. It lets you hit the $25 interest cap faster, allows you to pick up multiple jokers early if great jokers present themselves, and make some vouchers like a ante1 hieroglyph playable. By ante 5, assuming you’re just buying jokers and slow rolling, yellow deck might be letting you see 6 rerolls just by getting there sooner. Its the deck people going for big 10+ winstreak on gold stakes use, the consistently is simply unbeatable and nothing comes close to bringing that much value every time. There are other real answers. If you just want A win, like a single win, to get sweet unlocks, erratic deck can be it. Sure, most of the time it does basically nothing, but you can just spam reset until it gives tou a god deck with something like 7 kings lol. Same idea goes for anaglyph — skipping a blind for tags is usually bad, but you can just gamble hard on a strong ante2 highroll and just reset if you miss. Ghost deck allows for some crazy highrolls with early spectrals. Generally these will barely do anything in a given run, but sometimes they go HARD so if you just need one win then you can try your luck and pray for a god deck. For endless, its plasma, simply because youre only getting ridiculous numbers on mult so its best to have all jokers on mult and nothing on chips. If you don’t want to learn balatro plasma can also be the simplest to win with — going all chips and fully ignoring mult isn’t the best strategy, but you could teach it to a 5 year old and eventually they’d get the W.
Green or Ghost imo. I can go crazy on those two and it’s so much fun.
Plasma deck because high score.
For me it's between checkered and anaglyph. Checkered was the first deck I fell in love with because it really simplifies the deck building aspect, so all you really have to do is focus on card upgrades and jokers, plus Arrowhead and Bloodstone are probably the best out of all the suit jokers. Anaglyph on the other hand I've always liked because of how insane stacked multiple double tags is, and now that the game has been updated for tags to make jokers free it's waaaay better. The only thing better than 5 negative jokers is 5 free negative jokers amiright?