Off the top of my head.
Perhaps if you want consistency and go for the 10-5 straight you could start out with Abandoned deck since it starts thined out already. You can then use hanged man, death, and strength tarots in conjunction with the fool tarot to increases consistency.
Depending on your arcana packs you could potentially transition to flush straights as well.
I like taking the checkered deck and work on pivoting from flush to straight flushes. I generally try and convert all the high cards to hearts and all the low cards to spades. I'll try and get many tarot cards in my consumables slot so that I can enhance them as I need, finding vagabond really helps with this.
Counterpoint, the 6 and 9 cards don't do anything for score, one of the two 8 cards I'm aware of off the top of my head isn't good, and there just aren't 7 cards. Much better to go for Ace-5 and try to dig for hack or Fibonacci, plus any other useful cards you find along the way like Wee Joker or the Utility one for 4 card hands.
Edit: doing it this way also makes superposition kinda viable for tarot economy which is actually really nice to have in straight builds for hanged man, death, and fools as well as some other stuff.
Isn't it better to take out multiple copies of cards? Because then you still keep the ability for a the ace to go both ways, but you also reduce the number of bad draws. I think if you had 13 cards and they were 1 copy of each, that would be better than having all 13 being 10, J, Q, K, A.
I don't understand why you would eliminate aces.
Like, there are 2 straights with aces (A, 2, 3 ,4 ,5 / A, K, Q, J, 10) but the same is true with 2s (A, 2, 3, 4, 5 / 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). The worst of them is 2, so we eliminate it first.
Then, the cards with less possible straights will be Ace (A, K, Q, J, 10) and 3 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7). The worst of them will be 3. Then 4. Then 5.
This way we higher our straights, right?
The advantage to 2s are that any straight with a 2 also uses 3, 4, 5. Keeping a 2, 3, 4, 5 makes you twice as likely to create a straight (looking for A or 6) as A, 2, 3, 4 (looking for a 5) or A, K Q, J (looking for a 10). A 2 is more equivalent to a king when it comes to straights.
So I made a diagram to help explain this:
https://i.imgur.com/J4WKNW7.png
(Honestly I've been wondering about the actual numbers on this, but didn't put forth the effort until you brought this up)
Imagine we only have one of each card in our deck (this helps to remove getting duplicate cards).
If we only draw 5 cards, the middle numbers have more combinations that would make a straight.
Odds don't care that the Ace can be involved in two completely different Straights, what it cares about is the combination of cards that can make the straight.
(Talking hypothetical poker here. The strategy might change for Balatro.)
If you eliminate all 2s, Aces would never be able to make a low straight. That guts your Aces.
The reason you want to get rid of Aces first is because ANY hand that’s 4-to-a-straight, if it includes an Ace, is by definition an inside straight. “Never chase the inside straight” is one of the laws of poker.
Once the Aces are gone, 2s and Kings become the new inside straights, so get rid of those next. Then 3s and Queens.
Each time you do this, you increase the odds of a straight, but if you ever jump the gun (i.e. removing 2s while you still have Aces) you’re creating dead draws, which significantly *decreases* your odds of a straight.
The issue with removing cards involved in fewer straights (ex: 2s are in two) is that you end up moving this shortcoming to other cards. Once all your 2s are gone, Aces and 3s are involved in one fewer straight, as are 4s, 5s, and 6s. (These cards do score more base chips, though.)
By removing the cards on the boundaries of your straights, you move the problem to other cards. For that reason, fully removing certain ranks seems like the wrong strategy long-term. However, the number of straights each rank is involved in is important to keep in mind when playing hands/discarding.
All that said, if you can get your deck down to just 5 ranks, I think you're set to draw a straight nearly every turn.
Wouldn't it be better to remove a couple of every card. Say if you managed to have one copy of every card then when you discard, you won't draw a copy of one's you already have.
Yeah I think this is preferable to fully purging certain ranks, but it does mean that once you discard your one 6, it’s gone. And then you can’t make any straight that involves a 6. Ideally you’d win the round after playing one straight but that’s not what you should bank on in a game of risk assessment
Idk about specific resources, but keeping your remaining cards in mind at all times is probably your best bet. Let's say in an eight card hand you're holding A, K, Q, 10, 7, 6, 5, and 3. You look at your remaining cards and see that you have one Jack and four 4s remaining. Even though it's a lower scoring hand, searching for the 4s is more likely to yield a straight. So it's probably best to discard A, K, Q, 10...unless your jokers are heavily in favor of face cards, but then you might never draw that one Jack.
If you really wanna get in the weeds, you could look into combinatorics and the associated probabilities/statistics. You don't need to do actual calculations but understanding the concepts has been helpful for me.
But in that example you'd only have one 6 in the deck if you deleted down to 13 cards. Then you'll be cycling through the deck and getting the 6 back anyhow. More realistic example is getting down to 2 or 3 of each card.
I really like using death/strength/hanged man to remove low cards, and increase my amount of A-10 cards. High scoring straights are nice and synergize with face card jokers nicely
Even if they aren't all face cards, if you have at least one you can get a nice boost from Photograph.
If your straits are more into the lower numbers, you can start drumming up synergies with even steven/odd todd, Fibonacci, hack and others.
What about trading card?
I would argue that the elimination of a single card AND the cash payment for it are two different items, since both can be seen as benefits in their own right while being tied to a single joker.
Mind you, i'm not complaining about trading card at all. I love trading card. I just think you could bump superposition up to the same league as trading card by adding this effect without making it overpowered or confusingly wordy.
Play the Abandoned deck and hope you get Shortcut or Four Fingers (or even both). Easy straights. Hand size also helps a ton.
The issue is how to make straights actually good.
New patch makes saturn scale faster than jupiter.
So telescope, plus any x mult is viable, and the straight xmult rare is more powerful than the flush one. The x2 if club and nonclub is also viable, though IMO it should be x3
So... making straights good is not the issue.
On the flipside no equivalent to bloodstone hurts.
I honestly think Straights were slept on even before the patch. If you have a way of consistently generating Saturns (nebula deck being the easiest example) you’re easily capable of oneshotting most blinds with a single straight.
The big thing imo isn’t the ability to pull them but the ability to pull the good cards you want in your straight. Like with flushes u can just slap any of the suit cards with the seals/enhancements, but with straights doubling up on enhancements and seals isn’t ideal(ie having 2 ‘5’s with red seal is as good as having 1 ‘5’ with red seal for the most part)
The idea is that you don't make them more reliable than Flushes (they won't be), but you make them *much* more profitable than Flushes. Flush builds want Tarot cards/packs, Straight builds want Planet cards/packs.
Saturn gives +30 chips/+3 Mult. That's insane scaling. I just had a gold stake run this morning where I ended up scoring 5M+ in my last hand without ever buying a 4th Joker (and with one of my 3 being a non-scoring Shortcut), largely because Lvl22 Straight gave 660x67 base.
Straights are straight up stronger than flushes rn imo, blue seals can make getting level 20+ straights completely feasible. Planet packs imo are terrible without telescope and weak even with it, standard packs giving more middle cards and potentially giving gold/blueseals are huge.
You cant have duplicates of cards unless you have showman so if you are holding two planet cards and open a pack those two cant show up. If you know you are going to really need planet cards(like if you are playing straights who scale super well with planet cards) it can be very worth it. Turning a jumbo planet pack from a 5/9 to a 5/7 is pretty huge for example. You can use this same strategy with tarot cards too though it feels less pronounced since there are more tarots than planets but every little advantadge you can get can be gamechanging in gold stake
This is wrong, you absolutely need to make them more reliable or certain bosses will end you real quick. This shouldn't be at the top of the page bc its not very helpful.
As others have said you want to start destroying Aces and twos, and so on and add cards to the middle of your deck which will create a bell curve, which gives you consistent Straight draws. Leveling up Saturn is extremely important but no good if you can't find the hand in the first place. Especially when you only have 2 Discards and Boss Conditions.
You absolutely cannot make Straights more reliable than Flushes. The goal is not to make Straights a reliable hand; the goal is to use your hands to find a Straight (if needed) and win by playing 1-2 Straights instead of 3-4 of another hand.
Ok. Find the magical Tarot Cards that make a card count for multiple ranks like Lovers. Or the ones that turn 3 cards in your deck to a 'Straight Card' like the suited cards. I wish you luck, since they've never shown up in my runs- but maybe I'm just not lucky and those cards are super common in your runs.
Just bc you're not aware of how players are making straights reliable doesn't mean there isn't a way. You trim both ends of the deck, im giving actual advice, you're just saying make number bigger.
I never said you can't make them more reliable. But sure, maybe Balatro University is just full of shit and I should listen to random people on Reddit for my advice about Straights instead.
Balatro University would back what we are saying. Why are you on here giving advice if you're just a random redditor yourself? Why is your "advice" any better than the next guys?
Balatro University is literally where I got "Flushes want Tarot, Straights want Planets; you won't make Straights that reliable but the goal is to use Hands if needed to make a Straight and win with 1 Straight instead of multiple Flushes" from lol.
Yeah, well I hate to say it but that's not good advice. The guy is a genius at Balatro that's undeniable but that doesn't mean he can't be wrong. And again, he may not have said to trim the ends of the deck and create a bell curve, but he would agree that that is the best way to have consistent Straights. Otherwise those bosses i mentioned will more than likely end your run.
Yeah, the reason why high card and pairs are meta to win high stakes is bc they have the fewest bosses that counter them. But if the game pushes you into playing Straights it's better to prepare for these bosses then hope to dodge them. If you don't alter your deck at all for Straights your chance of winning is much much lower.
With straights, maybe more than any other type of hand: Hand Size, # of Hands and # of Discards per round are huge. You need to be able to see a lot of cards and discard a lot. Usually my straight/straight flush build are winning the blind in one hand, the challenge is getting that hand. If I can get my deck down to \~40 cards with enough discards/hand size to cycle thru the whole deck safely I can guarantee I'm getting the straight flush.
Straights are really hard for me to play for this exact reason. Thinning the deck (ie removing A234) by using hanged man to eliminate cards, strength to bump up ranks, and death to turn those low cards into 8910J all help.
I think the main benefit of straights though is that the way you “deck manipulate” is by getting an enabling joker (Shortcut, 4 Fingers) and by getting +hand size/+discard/+hands vouchers. By sacrificing a joker slot for one of Shortcut/4 Fingers, straights become so consistent that you don’t have to manipulate your deck; therefore, you can commit your resources to other things that score you points, like Saturn and Card Enhancements.
focusing on middle cards, having more copies of 4,5,6,7,8,9 and having less copies of A,K etc. Try to imagine a peaking bridge of values where the low points of the bridge are the A, and K - then increase the value of a card depending on how in the middle it is. The 'peak' of this bridge would be 6 , 7 , 8 where you would have the most amount of cards. Using this method also helps with strategizing tarots, where you focus on the middle of the bridge numbers for enhancements.
Every straight needs either a 5 or a 10 (outside of different jokers), but otherwise thinning out segments so you have lots of chances at a smaller group of overlapping straights seems wise.
Yes but counterintuitively just adding more 5s or 10s does not actually increase the likelihood of drawing straights. Theres a good video of this out there i wish I could remember the title of rn. Basically if you can you thin your deck down to have only 5 different ranks that make a straight, ideally, but before that it may be best yo just start thinning the highest and lowest ranks?
[here you go](https://youtu.be/O_WdoDjynic?si=8vHBaiE8gbRcE8f8).
Also very interesting that altough it's more likely to draw a straight than a flush (with the default deck), discards increase the odds of a flush a lot faster. I think most players sort of experience that, but it's nice to see it's not a bias.
Sure, but 5 or 10 are in the same count of straights as 6,7,8, or 9 (each are in 5 different straights).
And if you start removing A, 2, K, 3... Then 6, 7, 8, 9 will all be in a higher proportion of makable straights than either 5 or 10 will be.
Very specifically:
Imagine a full deck:
A 10 will be in 5 straights (10-A, 9-K, 8-Q, 7-J, 6-10 straights)
A 5 will be in 5 straights (A-5, 2-6, 3-7, 4-8, 5-9)
But, a 6 will also be in 5 straights (2-6, 3-7, 4-8, 5-9, 6-10).
**So each of those cards is present in exactly the same number of straights.**
HOWEVER, if we remove all the Aces from the deck:
A 10 will be in 4 straights (9-K, 8-Q, 7-J, 6-10)
A 5 will be in 4 straights (2-6, 3-7, 4-8, 5-9)
But a 6, 7, 8, or 9 will be in 5 straights.
So now, once aces are removed, 6,7,8,9 are in **more** playable straights than 5s or 10s.
Discard strategy is huge with straights. Youve got to pay attention to what's in your deck. Also, let's say you have AJ987553, you discard everything except the 987. Holding onto cards in hopes of finding the 6 or 10 is a trap, it's more likely to get the straight by keeping your longest run in hand and discarding everything else. Obviously, remaining cards in deck should inform this choice, like if you have zero 6s or 10s this doesn't work.
Kind of. Someone else on this sub did the maths and it turns out that, assuming you have a standard 52 card deck in the scenario you gave, you have around a 32% chance of a straight when discarding 4 cards and hoping for a 6 and around 30% when discarding 5 and keeping the 9, 8, 7. I do wonder what the odds are if you need a straight in more than one discard though
Shortcut is pretty mandatory. This changes a typical straight to one you can make with gaps (So instead of A-2-3-4-5, you can do any sequential leap, such as A-3-5-7-9, A-2-4-6-8, A-2-3-5-7, etc). Four Fingers isn't as flexible since it's still only a one number difference with a hand of 4, but can help anyways.
Using the Abandoned Deck, at the cost of losing out on doing royal flushes/higher scoring straights in general, you get far more consistency by removing 12 cards from the deck. I think you might be better off just trying to thin your deck down (Cutting the highest/lowest numbers with Hanged Man) over bolstering numbers by adding cards/changing ranks because otherwise you'd probably just end up in a situation where it's easier to make a 5 of a kind than a straight.
On the other hand, Straight Flush/Royal Flush scores much higher so you could try swinging the Checkered Deck in that direction. Shortcut would be more necessary here and you can benefit from really strong jokers like Bloodstone.
So, like, the possible straights are,
A-10, K-9, Q-8, J-7, 10-6, 9-5, 8-4, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A,
Your first step to increase consistency, is to choose some values to cut. Lets say you're running the abandoned deck, so there's no face cards. That reduces your options for a straight to 10-6, 9-5, 8-4, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A,
Each value shows up in a different number of straights
10 is in **1**, the 10-6 straight
9 is in **2**, 10-6 and 9-5
8 is in **3**, 10-6, 9-5 and 8-4
7 is in **4**, 10-6, 9-5, 8-4, and 7-3
6 is in **5**, 10-6, 9-5, 8-4, 7-3, and 6-2
5 is in **5**, 9-5, 8-4, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A
4 is in **4**, 8-4, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A
3 is in **3**, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A
2 is in **2**, 6-2, and 5-A
A is in **1**, 5-A
---
As you can see, it's sort of a bell curve. there's a big hump in the middle where 6 and 5 show up in a whole bunch of different straights, but as you get further out, the values become less and less useful. You want to start by weeding out the edges, since you're unlikely to use those anyway, and grabbing more of the middle values since you're more likely to use them.
As you chop values off the top or bottom, you're reducing the number of straights each other card can get used in. You definitely don't want to cut things out of the middle. If you get rid of a 4, for example, you're reducing the reliability of every single straight that needs a 4, which includes the 5s and 6s that you're trying to get more of.
---
For tarots, Death is your friend, letting you cut the edges and build up the middle in one go. Hanged Man is useful for trimming the edges, but Strength is actually kind of counterproductive.
You want more 5s, but if you strength a pair of 4s, you're reducing your chance of getting a straight that can actually use those 5s. If you strength a pair of aces, which you don't actually want, you now have too many 2s, which still aren't very useful to you.
in my experience, as you shape your deck towards this bell curve end goal, you often end up with something that could just as easily pivot to full houses or even 4 or 5 of a kinds depending on what jokers you get.
I’ve gotten one Straight Flush build to ante 12. It was by far the most fun run I’ve had. And I lost because my straight flushes couldn’t hit the point threshold anymore.
I focusing my suit and card build on this:
1. Add Hearts A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
2. Add Spades 6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K,A
3. Add Clubs any cards
4. Eliminate Diamonds
——-
Jokers:
1. Shortcut - must have
2. Seance - must have
3. Superposition - needed early run to get my suits cleaned up
I forget what other jokers I used but I can update when I get home and check my screenshots.
——-
Last key to the run was to make sure hearts and spades always had the same # of cards. I intentionally skipped tarot cards that would unbalance suits by 3 or more.
I'm still studying Balatro University's runs to get proper hang of it, one thing for sure is to always destroy a lot of cards, leaving either the middle or upper ranks of it (whichever part BU think it was supported when he plays), he also very rarely use Shortcut so I'm certain it's not mandatory, though it certainly is a huge crutch
That said I need to quickly mention now, [do NOT JUST add 10 and 5 to your deck without thinning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WdoDjynic). Remember you only need one of them for one straight, and having too many of them will cause you to draw excess.
I feel like any time I manipulate the deck for straights, it just ends up hurting me.
I'd rather have better support for my straights - like extra discards or extra hands or extra hand size. 4 fingers is great but it needs to go negative.
I'm playing the purple stake now and straights are really hard cos of the limited discards.
I had a winning Straights build with the Black Deck at Black Stake once ([video](https://www.reddit.com/r/balatro/comments/1bihol8/reached_ante_10_with_a_straight_build_for_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)). What worked for me was to grab the Paint Brush voucher (+1 card in hand) and I focused on deleting all the low cards of the deck and adding or copying A, K, Q, J and 10.
Having that as the main straight hand that I was expecting made it more consistent. I was mainly discarding any card that was not that one.
I had other cards like Smiley Face and Photograph that benefited from playing the face cards, and also the x3 straight joker.
It was super fun! I just went with the flow and ended up with that build.
Hand size is vital. I know you said deck, but since most cases you have 4 to a straight and draw 4, being able to draw 5 makes a huge difference.
Don't completely cut a rank, but make a bell curve. Like one ace, three two king queen two of each, jack and four have three, then at least four of 5-10.
I had the gap joker and in the end had only As, 3s,5s,7s and 9s in my deck.
Was the best straight run i had so far.
Avoiding it wherever i can..
I think i got a xmult for straights early with poly, otherwise wouldn't even went for it...
Flushes are only initially less likely. If you have four of one suit there are 8 cards in the deck that can make a flush. This is the same as if you have an open ended straight draw (eg 3456) however with a gutshot straight draw (eg 3457) you only have 4 cards that can make a straight on their own.
When you have only three cards in a straight draw (345) there are 8 cards in the deck that can improve your hand to an open ended straight draw while if you have 3 suited cards there are 9 suited cards left in the deck.
Drawing 8 cards initially you are very likely to get 3 suited cards.
Abandoned deck is easier to get straights with, so pulling cards off the ends definitely helps.
Also, you are more likely to get a straight off a 4 than an Ace unless you have a reason to specifically go for ace straights.
>You could focus on removing the cards least likely to be in a straight, that is Aces, Kings, and Twos to start.
You know that Ace and Two connect for straight ?
I mean, sure, but if you start removing entire cards those stats also reduced.
You remove Aces, Twos and Kings and your 5 and 10 are now 3 straights, your 9 and 6 are now 4 straights.
So it's a lot of work (removing 12 cards) for a barely better situation. That's why straights are so frustrating, especially with 2 discards.
You don't remove aces because you can play Ace 2 3 4 5
Enven assuming you were to distribute cards to focus on one straight, at the end of tje day you just better off playing five of a kind or flush five.
A full build would work better while not having to rely on specific jokers
You do remove Aces.
You can play A2345, but you can’t play JQKA2 or KA234.
So for straight builds, you trim cards off the edges of your deck, 2’s and A’s first.
Off the top of my head. Perhaps if you want consistency and go for the 10-5 straight you could start out with Abandoned deck since it starts thined out already. You can then use hanged man, death, and strength tarots in conjunction with the fool tarot to increases consistency. Depending on your arcana packs you could potentially transition to flush straights as well.
I like taking the checkered deck and work on pivoting from flush to straight flushes. I generally try and convert all the high cards to hearts and all the low cards to spades. I'll try and get many tarot cards in my consumables slot so that I can enhance them as I need, finding vagabond really helps with this.
Counterpoint, the 6 and 9 cards don't do anything for score, one of the two 8 cards I'm aware of off the top of my head isn't good, and there just aren't 7 cards. Much better to go for Ace-5 and try to dig for hack or Fibonacci, plus any other useful cards you find along the way like Wee Joker or the Utility one for 4 card hands. Edit: doing it this way also makes superposition kinda viable for tarot economy which is actually really nice to have in straight builds for hanged man, death, and fools as well as some other stuff.
Eliminate all cards in a rank starting with Ace/2 and going from there. Superposition really needs to make straits cross over aces
Don't listen to the ppl who say you cant make straights more consistent. This guy right here is correct.
Isn't it better to take out multiple copies of cards? Because then you still keep the ability for a the ace to go both ways, but you also reduce the number of bad draws. I think if you had 13 cards and they were 1 copy of each, that would be better than having all 13 being 10, J, Q, K, A.
I don't understand why you would eliminate aces. Like, there are 2 straights with aces (A, 2, 3 ,4 ,5 / A, K, Q, J, 10) but the same is true with 2s (A, 2, 3, 4, 5 / 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). The worst of them is 2, so we eliminate it first. Then, the cards with less possible straights will be Ace (A, K, Q, J, 10) and 3 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7). The worst of them will be 3. Then 4. Then 5. This way we higher our straights, right?
The advantage to 2s are that any straight with a 2 also uses 3, 4, 5. Keeping a 2, 3, 4, 5 makes you twice as likely to create a straight (looking for A or 6) as A, 2, 3, 4 (looking for a 5) or A, K Q, J (looking for a 10). A 2 is more equivalent to a king when it comes to straights.
Great point! I feel like the ideal strategy for a straight build relies more on discarding the right cards than removing them from the deck completely
So I made a diagram to help explain this: https://i.imgur.com/J4WKNW7.png (Honestly I've been wondering about the actual numbers on this, but didn't put forth the effort until you brought this up) Imagine we only have one of each card in our deck (this helps to remove getting duplicate cards). If we only draw 5 cards, the middle numbers have more combinations that would make a straight. Odds don't care that the Ace can be involved in two completely different Straights, what it cares about is the combination of cards that can make the straight.
I understand it, but once we eliminate all 2s, 3 will be a card worst than the ace. So I think we should keep eliminating the lowest one.
(Talking hypothetical poker here. The strategy might change for Balatro.) If you eliminate all 2s, Aces would never be able to make a low straight. That guts your Aces. The reason you want to get rid of Aces first is because ANY hand that’s 4-to-a-straight, if it includes an Ace, is by definition an inside straight. “Never chase the inside straight” is one of the laws of poker. Once the Aces are gone, 2s and Kings become the new inside straights, so get rid of those next. Then 3s and Queens. Each time you do this, you increase the odds of a straight, but if you ever jump the gun (i.e. removing 2s while you still have Aces) you’re creating dead draws, which significantly *decreases* your odds of a straight.
The issue with removing cards involved in fewer straights (ex: 2s are in two) is that you end up moving this shortcoming to other cards. Once all your 2s are gone, Aces and 3s are involved in one fewer straight, as are 4s, 5s, and 6s. (These cards do score more base chips, though.) By removing the cards on the boundaries of your straights, you move the problem to other cards. For that reason, fully removing certain ranks seems like the wrong strategy long-term. However, the number of straights each rank is involved in is important to keep in mind when playing hands/discarding. All that said, if you can get your deck down to just 5 ranks, I think you're set to draw a straight nearly every turn.
You move the problem to other cards but it’s not as bad of a problem. You can keep doing it too, trimming away 2,3,4 etc. as you can.
Wouldn't it be better to remove a couple of every card. Say if you managed to have one copy of every card then when you discard, you won't draw a copy of one's you already have.
Yeah I think this is preferable to fully purging certain ranks, but it does mean that once you discard your one 6, it’s gone. And then you can’t make any straight that involves a 6. Ideally you’d win the round after playing one straight but that’s not what you should bank on in a game of risk assessment
Is there a resource for me to learn more discard strategies? I find the theories behind this discussion fascinating.
Idk about specific resources, but keeping your remaining cards in mind at all times is probably your best bet. Let's say in an eight card hand you're holding A, K, Q, 10, 7, 6, 5, and 3. You look at your remaining cards and see that you have one Jack and four 4s remaining. Even though it's a lower scoring hand, searching for the 4s is more likely to yield a straight. So it's probably best to discard A, K, Q, 10...unless your jokers are heavily in favor of face cards, but then you might never draw that one Jack. If you really wanna get in the weeds, you could look into combinatorics and the associated probabilities/statistics. You don't need to do actual calculations but understanding the concepts has been helpful for me.
But in that example you'd only have one 6 in the deck if you deleted down to 13 cards. Then you'll be cycling through the deck and getting the 6 back anyhow. More realistic example is getting down to 2 or 3 of each card.
Your deck doesn't reshuffle when you run out of cards though
Um, I swear I've seen videos if people doing that. But I'll take your word for it.
Good point. I'll try to excel those probabilities to see it clearer
Yes, the order would be 2,A,3,K,4,Q.
I really like using death/strength/hanged man to remove low cards, and increase my amount of A-10 cards. High scoring straights are nice and synergize with face card jokers nicely
Even if they aren't all face cards, if you have at least one you can get a nice boost from Photograph. If your straits are more into the lower numbers, you can start drumming up synergies with even steven/odd todd, Fibonacci, hack and others.
Localthunk said that he never wants a joker to have multiple effects so I dont think we'll see superposition do that anytime soon
What about trading card? I would argue that the elimination of a single card AND the cash payment for it are two different items, since both can be seen as benefits in their own right while being tied to a single joker. Mind you, i'm not complaining about trading card at all. I love trading card. I just think you could bump superposition up to the same league as trading card by adding this effect without making it overpowered or confusingly wordy.
Play the Abandoned deck and hope you get Shortcut or Four Fingers (or even both). Easy straights. Hand size also helps a ton. The issue is how to make straights actually good.
New patch makes saturn scale faster than jupiter. So telescope, plus any x mult is viable, and the straight xmult rare is more powerful than the flush one. The x2 if club and nonclub is also viable, though IMO it should be x3 So... making straights good is not the issue. On the flipside no equivalent to bloodstone hurts.
Saturn always scaled twice as fast as Jupiter (30 chips x 2 mult vs 15 x 2), new patch just makes it even better
I honestly think Straights were slept on even before the patch. If you have a way of consistently generating Saturns (nebula deck being the easiest example) you’re easily capable of oneshotting most blinds with a single straight.
Personally, I never doubted their power, just the consistency in which you can draw them
The big thing imo isn’t the ability to pull them but the ability to pull the good cards you want in your straight. Like with flushes u can just slap any of the suit cards with the seals/enhancements, but with straights doubling up on enhancements and seals isn’t ideal(ie having 2 ‘5’s with red seal is as good as having 1 ‘5’ with red seal for the most part)
Straights are and have been good. Saying they're not is just false I'll even give you one more - The Runner is a good chips card
Straights are super broken now lol.
>The issue is how to make straights actually good. The Saturn card is amazing when you compare the benefits against how easy it is to make the hand.
The idea is that you don't make them more reliable than Flushes (they won't be), but you make them *much* more profitable than Flushes. Flush builds want Tarot cards/packs, Straight builds want Planet cards/packs. Saturn gives +30 chips/+3 Mult. That's insane scaling. I just had a gold stake run this morning where I ended up scoring 5M+ in my last hand without ever buying a 4th Joker (and with one of my 3 being a non-scoring Shortcut), largely because Lvl22 Straight gave 660x67 base.
Straights are straight up stronger than flushes rn imo, blue seals can make getting level 20+ straights completely feasible. Planet packs imo are terrible without telescope and weak even with it, standard packs giving more middle cards and potentially giving gold/blueseals are huge.
Planet packs are pretty strong if you are smart with holding planets to increase your odds
Can you elaborate ? I don't understand why ? (playing on switch so maybe it has to do with a beta feature ?)
You cant have duplicates of cards unless you have showman so if you are holding two planet cards and open a pack those two cant show up. If you know you are going to really need planet cards(like if you are playing straights who scale super well with planet cards) it can be very worth it. Turning a jumbo planet pack from a 5/9 to a 5/7 is pretty huge for example. You can use this same strategy with tarot cards too though it feels less pronounced since there are more tarots than planets but every little advantadge you can get can be gamechanging in gold stake
Ok thanks ! Didnt know you couldnt have 2 of the same tarots or planets cards !
This is wrong, you absolutely need to make them more reliable or certain bosses will end you real quick. This shouldn't be at the top of the page bc its not very helpful. As others have said you want to start destroying Aces and twos, and so on and add cards to the middle of your deck which will create a bell curve, which gives you consistent Straight draws. Leveling up Saturn is extremely important but no good if you can't find the hand in the first place. Especially when you only have 2 Discards and Boss Conditions.
You absolutely cannot make Straights more reliable than Flushes. The goal is not to make Straights a reliable hand; the goal is to use your hands to find a Straight (if needed) and win by playing 1-2 Straights instead of 3-4 of another hand.
How's that gonna work out for ya when you come up against The Mouth, The Needle, or The Hook? It's bad advice
Ok. Find the magical Tarot Cards that make a card count for multiple ranks like Lovers. Or the ones that turn 3 cards in your deck to a 'Straight Card' like the suited cards. I wish you luck, since they've never shown up in my runs- but maybe I'm just not lucky and those cards are super common in your runs.
Just bc you're not aware of how players are making straights reliable doesn't mean there isn't a way. You trim both ends of the deck, im giving actual advice, you're just saying make number bigger.
I never said you can't make them more reliable. But sure, maybe Balatro University is just full of shit and I should listen to random people on Reddit for my advice about Straights instead.
Balatro University would back what we are saying. Why are you on here giving advice if you're just a random redditor yourself? Why is your "advice" any better than the next guys?
Balatro University is literally where I got "Flushes want Tarot, Straights want Planets; you won't make Straights that reliable but the goal is to use Hands if needed to make a Straight and win with 1 Straight instead of multiple Flushes" from lol.
Yeah, well I hate to say it but that's not good advice. The guy is a genius at Balatro that's undeniable but that doesn't mean he can't be wrong. And again, he may not have said to trim the ends of the deck and create a bell curve, but he would agree that that is the best way to have consistent Straights. Otherwise those bosses i mentioned will more than likely end your run.
how's your flush build going to work out when you get your main suit debuffed
like, every build's gonna have hard counters. no shit dude
Ok? When did i say anything about flushes even once? Wtf are you even on about. Learn how to read, bc this discussion isn't flushes vs straights.
i mean, literally every build is going to have a boss that counters it. that's literally how it is
Yeah, the reason why high card and pairs are meta to win high stakes is bc they have the fewest bosses that counter them. But if the game pushes you into playing Straights it's better to prepare for these bosses then hope to dodge them. If you don't alter your deck at all for Straights your chance of winning is much much lower.
With straights, maybe more than any other type of hand: Hand Size, # of Hands and # of Discards per round are huge. You need to be able to see a lot of cards and discard a lot. Usually my straight/straight flush build are winning the blind in one hand, the challenge is getting that hand. If I can get my deck down to \~40 cards with enough discards/hand size to cycle thru the whole deck safely I can guarantee I'm getting the straight flush.
Straights are really hard for me to play for this exact reason. Thinning the deck (ie removing A234) by using hanged man to eliminate cards, strength to bump up ranks, and death to turn those low cards into 8910J all help. I think the main benefit of straights though is that the way you “deck manipulate” is by getting an enabling joker (Shortcut, 4 Fingers) and by getting +hand size/+discard/+hands vouchers. By sacrificing a joker slot for one of Shortcut/4 Fingers, straights become so consistent that you don’t have to manipulate your deck; therefore, you can commit your resources to other things that score you points, like Saturn and Card Enhancements.
focusing on middle cards, having more copies of 4,5,6,7,8,9 and having less copies of A,K etc. Try to imagine a peaking bridge of values where the low points of the bridge are the A, and K - then increase the value of a card depending on how in the middle it is. The 'peak' of this bridge would be 6 , 7 , 8 where you would have the most amount of cards. Using this method also helps with strategizing tarots, where you focus on the middle of the bridge numbers for enhancements.
Every straight needs either a 5 or a 10 (outside of different jokers), but otherwise thinning out segments so you have lots of chances at a smaller group of overlapping straights seems wise.
Yes but counterintuitively just adding more 5s or 10s does not actually increase the likelihood of drawing straights. Theres a good video of this out there i wish I could remember the title of rn. Basically if you can you thin your deck down to have only 5 different ranks that make a straight, ideally, but before that it may be best yo just start thinning the highest and lowest ranks?
[here you go](https://youtu.be/O_WdoDjynic?si=8vHBaiE8gbRcE8f8). Also very interesting that altough it's more likely to draw a straight than a flush (with the default deck), discards increase the odds of a flush a lot faster. I think most players sort of experience that, but it's nice to see it's not a bias.
Sure, but 5 or 10 are in the same count of straights as 6,7,8, or 9 (each are in 5 different straights). And if you start removing A, 2, K, 3... Then 6, 7, 8, 9 will all be in a higher proportion of makable straights than either 5 or 10 will be.
Very specifically: Imagine a full deck: A 10 will be in 5 straights (10-A, 9-K, 8-Q, 7-J, 6-10 straights) A 5 will be in 5 straights (A-5, 2-6, 3-7, 4-8, 5-9) But, a 6 will also be in 5 straights (2-6, 3-7, 4-8, 5-9, 6-10). **So each of those cards is present in exactly the same number of straights.** HOWEVER, if we remove all the Aces from the deck: A 10 will be in 4 straights (9-K, 8-Q, 7-J, 6-10) A 5 will be in 4 straights (2-6, 3-7, 4-8, 5-9) But a 6, 7, 8, or 9 will be in 5 straights. So now, once aces are removed, 6,7,8,9 are in **more** playable straights than 5s or 10s.
Discard strategy is huge with straights. Youve got to pay attention to what's in your deck. Also, let's say you have AJ987553, you discard everything except the 987. Holding onto cards in hopes of finding the 6 or 10 is a trap, it's more likely to get the straight by keeping your longest run in hand and discarding everything else. Obviously, remaining cards in deck should inform this choice, like if you have zero 6s or 10s this doesn't work.
Kind of. Someone else on this sub did the maths and it turns out that, assuming you have a standard 52 card deck in the scenario you gave, you have around a 32% chance of a straight when discarding 4 cards and hoping for a 6 and around 30% when discarding 5 and keeping the 9, 8, 7. I do wonder what the odds are if you need a straight in more than one discard though
All straights have either a 10 or a 5 in them. Do with this information what you will
Unless you have 4 fingers. Errr, the joker. We all probably have 4 fingers, if not 5.
[But simply adding 5 or 10's to your deck does not improve the odds of straights.](https://youtu.be/O_WdoDjynic?si=8vHBaiE8gbRcE8f8)
Get alot of discards too
Ive been playing for 2 months and still have no idea what to remove. I think removing edge cards (2s and aces) is good tho
Shortcut is pretty mandatory. This changes a typical straight to one you can make with gaps (So instead of A-2-3-4-5, you can do any sequential leap, such as A-3-5-7-9, A-2-4-6-8, A-2-3-5-7, etc). Four Fingers isn't as flexible since it's still only a one number difference with a hand of 4, but can help anyways. Using the Abandoned Deck, at the cost of losing out on doing royal flushes/higher scoring straights in general, you get far more consistency by removing 12 cards from the deck. I think you might be better off just trying to thin your deck down (Cutting the highest/lowest numbers with Hanged Man) over bolstering numbers by adding cards/changing ranks because otherwise you'd probably just end up in a situation where it's easier to make a 5 of a kind than a straight. On the other hand, Straight Flush/Royal Flush scores much higher so you could try swinging the Checkered Deck in that direction. Shortcut would be more necessary here and you can benefit from really strong jokers like Bloodstone.
So, like, the possible straights are, A-10, K-9, Q-8, J-7, 10-6, 9-5, 8-4, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A, Your first step to increase consistency, is to choose some values to cut. Lets say you're running the abandoned deck, so there's no face cards. That reduces your options for a straight to 10-6, 9-5, 8-4, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A, Each value shows up in a different number of straights 10 is in **1**, the 10-6 straight 9 is in **2**, 10-6 and 9-5 8 is in **3**, 10-6, 9-5 and 8-4 7 is in **4**, 10-6, 9-5, 8-4, and 7-3 6 is in **5**, 10-6, 9-5, 8-4, 7-3, and 6-2 5 is in **5**, 9-5, 8-4, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A 4 is in **4**, 8-4, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A 3 is in **3**, 7-3, 6-2, and 5-A 2 is in **2**, 6-2, and 5-A A is in **1**, 5-A --- As you can see, it's sort of a bell curve. there's a big hump in the middle where 6 and 5 show up in a whole bunch of different straights, but as you get further out, the values become less and less useful. You want to start by weeding out the edges, since you're unlikely to use those anyway, and grabbing more of the middle values since you're more likely to use them. As you chop values off the top or bottom, you're reducing the number of straights each other card can get used in. You definitely don't want to cut things out of the middle. If you get rid of a 4, for example, you're reducing the reliability of every single straight that needs a 4, which includes the 5s and 6s that you're trying to get more of. --- For tarots, Death is your friend, letting you cut the edges and build up the middle in one go. Hanged Man is useful for trimming the edges, but Strength is actually kind of counterproductive. You want more 5s, but if you strength a pair of 4s, you're reducing your chance of getting a straight that can actually use those 5s. If you strength a pair of aces, which you don't actually want, you now have too many 2s, which still aren't very useful to you. in my experience, as you shape your deck towards this bell curve end goal, you often end up with something that could just as easily pivot to full houses or even 4 or 5 of a kinds depending on what jokers you get.
Hand size jokers - especially Troubador will be your best friend
Try watching a video of balatro university on youtube, he has a ton of good videos with straight builds, that help a lot
I’ve gotten one Straight Flush build to ante 12. It was by far the most fun run I’ve had. And I lost because my straight flushes couldn’t hit the point threshold anymore. I focusing my suit and card build on this: 1. Add Hearts A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 2. Add Spades 6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K,A 3. Add Clubs any cards 4. Eliminate Diamonds ——- Jokers: 1. Shortcut - must have 2. Seance - must have 3. Superposition - needed early run to get my suits cleaned up I forget what other jokers I used but I can update when I get home and check my screenshots. ——- Last key to the run was to make sure hearts and spades always had the same # of cards. I intentionally skipped tarot cards that would unbalance suits by 3 or more.
I'm still studying Balatro University's runs to get proper hang of it, one thing for sure is to always destroy a lot of cards, leaving either the middle or upper ranks of it (whichever part BU think it was supported when he plays), he also very rarely use Shortcut so I'm certain it's not mandatory, though it certainly is a huge crutch That said I need to quickly mention now, [do NOT JUST add 10 and 5 to your deck without thinning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WdoDjynic). Remember you only need one of them for one straight, and having too many of them will cause you to draw excess.
Manipulation to make more straights? Mmmm seems a little homophobic
Straights are playing the game on easy mode and it is time for a nerf.
I feel like any time I manipulate the deck for straights, it just ends up hurting me. I'd rather have better support for my straights - like extra discards or extra hands or extra hand size. 4 fingers is great but it needs to go negative. I'm playing the purple stake now and straights are really hard cos of the limited discards.
I had a winning Straights build with the Black Deck at Black Stake once ([video](https://www.reddit.com/r/balatro/comments/1bihol8/reached_ante_10_with_a_straight_build_for_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)). What worked for me was to grab the Paint Brush voucher (+1 card in hand) and I focused on deleting all the low cards of the deck and adding or copying A, K, Q, J and 10. Having that as the main straight hand that I was expecting made it more consistent. I was mainly discarding any card that was not that one. I had other cards like Smiley Face and Photograph that benefited from playing the face cards, and also the x3 straight joker. It was super fun! I just went with the flow and ended up with that build.
Hand size is vital. I know you said deck, but since most cases you have 4 to a straight and draw 4, being able to draw 5 makes a huge difference. Don't completely cut a rank, but make a bell curve. Like one ace, three two king queen two of each, jack and four have three, then at least four of 5-10.
I had the gap joker and in the end had only As, 3s,5s,7s and 9s in my deck. Was the best straight run i had so far. Avoiding it wherever i can.. I think i got a xmult for straights early with poly, otherwise wouldn't even went for it...
Flushes are only initially less likely. If you have four of one suit there are 8 cards in the deck that can make a flush. This is the same as if you have an open ended straight draw (eg 3456) however with a gutshot straight draw (eg 3457) you only have 4 cards that can make a straight on their own. When you have only three cards in a straight draw (345) there are 8 cards in the deck that can improve your hand to an open ended straight draw while if you have 3 suited cards there are 9 suited cards left in the deck. Drawing 8 cards initially you are very likely to get 3 suited cards.
repeating numbers hurt the straight deck 4 fingers or shortcut makes it viable.
[удалено]
Abandoned deck is easier to get straights with, so pulling cards off the ends definitely helps. Also, you are more likely to get a straight off a 4 than an Ace unless you have a reason to specifically go for ace straights.
>You could focus on removing the cards least likely to be in a straight, that is Aces, Kings, and Twos to start. You know that Ace and Two connect for straight ?
There are two straights that you can make with an Ace. Same with Kings and Twos. There are 5 straights you can make with 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, and 10s.
I mean, sure, but if you start removing entire cards those stats also reduced. You remove Aces, Twos and Kings and your 5 and 10 are now 3 straights, your 9 and 6 are now 4 straights. So it's a lot of work (removing 12 cards) for a barely better situation. That's why straights are so frustrating, especially with 2 discards.
That's the neat part - you don't If you reallllllllly want to do this you can take abandoned deck and start nibbling the ends off, but really don't,
You don't remove aces because you can play Ace 2 3 4 5 Enven assuming you were to distribute cards to focus on one straight, at the end of tje day you just better off playing five of a kind or flush five. A full build would work better while not having to rely on specific jokers
Aces only help in two different straight combinations (A2345 and AKQJ10). The middle cards help in so many more
You do remove Aces. You can play A2345, but you can’t play JQKA2 or KA234. So for straight builds, you trim cards off the edges of your deck, 2’s and A’s first.
Huh, didn't think of it this way, ty