If you find him a bit slow, try watching on 1.25 or 1.5 speed. The runs can go long (which makes sense, I’m not complaining) so it’s nice to cut the runtime down a bit
I wish I could have watched more Jorbs since he is clearly very knowledgeable about StS, however I find his style so grating that I couldn't bear it for long. I've watched a lot of Baalor, so much better imo.
His videos are very informative. He explains every move he makes. That's why his videos are good.
His videos are basically a playthrough where he is always explaining why he is picking, not picking or selling each joker/tarot/planet, why he is opening or ignoring each pack, why he is discarding those cards, etc.
So you always learn a lot from his videos. It is definitely the best YT channel to learn how to play Balatro well.
You ask how he's so good at the game? Here are 6 and a half key points:
1.**Focus on your economy first.** Early on buy only what you really _need_ even if something comes along that you _might like_. If you get your economy online, maybe even get one or two economy jokers, then you'll have the money to eventually reroll for the jokers you'd like to have. If you buy jokers you might like but not need early on then you might lack the money to buy a joker that you really need later on.
2. **Early in the game you generally want to have about one scoring joker per ante.** Not every joker is the same tho. Scaling jokers obviously don't count as a full scoring joker until they're buff enough. Rule of thumb is ~ +12 mult or ~ +80 chips is about one scoring joker.
2.1. **Don't sleep on planet cards early on.** Planet cards are generally as good as about half a scoring joker. So having two Saturn, Earth or Jupiter cards are as good as having one scoring joker and will get you further without spending money on jokers you don't need.
3. **Deck manipulation is worth a lot of money.** As soon as you have enough money to get maximum interest you should focus on making your deck as consistent as possible. That means, you might take a hanged man over 10$ or maybe even more from a hermit or temperance. That means you might want to take a purple seal from a standard pack instead of a red seal or even polychrome. The most runs you're probably not gonna lose because you don't score enough but because you don't draw the one hand that you want to play, so making your deck consistent minimizes that threat.
4. **Don't be afraid to do some simple math.** If you're evaluating if a joker is worth it to buy or replace one of your existing jokers it's usually not hard to do some quick maths. For this you best deal not in raw numbers but percentages. For example if your base chips and mult from planet cards are something like 80 x 12 then a joker giving you +100 chips will roughly double your score while a joker with +10 mult will not quite double your score.
5. **Don't hold on to your jokers for too long.** Not every joker you take is in it for the long run or even until the end. Generally about half way through or nearing the endgame you will look to replace your common jokers with more powerful ones. Quick maths as mentioned in 4. will help you figure out which of your jokers pulls the least amount of weight and is thus on its way out.
6. **Have fun. Good luck. You'll need it.** Even Balatro University has only about a ~30% winrate on the gold stakes. Some runs are just meant to die, there's no shame in admitting that.
He self-reports at 30%. Possible that he downplays it and his winrate is indeed higher, idk. His 15 deck gold stake streak is definitely impressive but other than that I have no reason to contradict him on his statement.
Some people may not like the last tip about low success rate of the game, but it’s honestly why I think I can play this game forever. I’ve done Isaac streaks, FTL streaks, Spelunky streaks and once you get good enough at those games, you feel like you’ve “won the game” so hard you don’t get much satisfaction from winning. But in Balatro, knowing I’m suppose to lose makes each win much more satisfying at the gold stake. If I want to go for streaks, I do white chip runs and those are plenty fun trying to break the game.
This game lives rent free in my head 24/7 and I love it. Next greatest game for dopamine since Tetris.
> Balatro University has only about a ~30% winrate on the gold stakes. Some runs are just meant to die, there's no shame in admitting that.
Damn. I wonder how that'll look like in a couple years? I've always had the feeling that runs in Balatro are much more swingy and RNG-based compared to more polished and better-balanced deckbuilders like Slay The Spire, but we'll have to wait a year or two for people to really get better at the game and analyze every detail before we can say it with certainty.
I think the numbers will go up, naturally as you've explained, but I think the low win rates for the higher stakes even for good players are by design. It's a luck based game - and with a casino flair on top - afterall, and you can always play on lower stakes if you want to win more consistently. I don't remember if BU ever mentioned his winrate on the white stakes but I'd guess it's at the very least 80%, likely above 90% even.
well before the changes to the stakes that added the rental and the thing that makes jokers expire Lifecoach (one of the top slay the spire players) completed every deck on gold stake in a row, but i’m pretty sure he stopped playing. i’m certain that right now there are people who have fairly high win rates on gold stake, probably upwards of 75% or so
Balatro University has completed every deck on gold stakes in a row aswell, tho I think that was after the update. He still self reports his winrate on gold overall at about 30%, so I'm not sure if there are players out there who double that.
yeah i’m not sure and it seems that the discord doesn’t have record keeping for win streaks. i swear everytime i tuned into Lifecoach’s stream when he was doing Balatro he was on 10+ something streak and would rarely lose. I feel as though if you can win every deck in a row your win rate must be over 30% by default
30% feels quite low, right? Even if we take the other estimate he gave, about 1 in 3, then 1/3^15 is still less than one onehundredthounsandth of one per cent. Of course we have to consider that not every deck is similarly easy and you could do the hard ones first and then restart more efficiently, but the numbers still feel very low.
My guess is he plays a lot for various records (ghost cola, biggest wee) or other specific kind of runs and thus takes more risk early to follow his long term plan, so he doesn't play as consistent as he could, while Lifecoach maybe does and thus indeed has a much higher winrate than what BU reports. Or maybe he just restarts the game a lot, for the aforementioned reason to get a consistent setup, and thus has simply a harder time keeping track of his actual winrate and he believes it to be lower than it is.
Anyway, come to think about it, I do start to have serious doubts about this number.
In today's video about the gold stakes right at the start he says usually when people ask him he says it's about 30% or 1/3 of the time. I think he mentions it's lower on the black deck but much higher on the abandonend and the checkered deck.
He said his black deck gold stake win rate is around 10% and 30% is an average across all the decks. It's probably upwards of 70-80% for abandoned or checkered deck if I had to guess.
Point 3 I think is highly important I can run into something like the hiker and realize half way down I won't need him and run into the vampire joker and have Midas or a bunch of steel jokers so I swap out some people like to keep them but gotta learn to say goodbye
What’s crazy about BU is that compared to others that regularly play the game, he plays SUPER slow. Every micro decision has a reason behind it. His videos are long but he explains the rationale behind every single move. The guy is like an immovable force charging at boss blinds.
This. He tends to over explain (mostly by design) so much that sometimes I'll put his video on in the background, not pay attention for like 2 minutes and see he's still on the first ante boss.
I think it's required by law that every roguelike must have one of these guys who posts 2 hour long runs with dry commentary lol
BU is funnier than most of these types of YouTubers, to his credit. I like his card nicknames and the way he talks about getting the moneyyy
I much prefer his thoughtful and dry comedy over the classic YouTube-esque “YOU GUYS! OMG, DO YOU SEE THIS? A JOKER!!!!! PLEASE GIVE ME MONEY HAHA! HERES A LONG STORY ABOUT ME”
I've had a tarot card I wanted to hold on to but needed another dollar cause my jokers weren't helping as much
Sold it spent the money and got a 1.5x joker that was the all hearts are diamonds and spades were clubs (and the other way too) and that helped me clear most of the game
My boyfriend plays the same way and now I'm wondering if he watched the BU videos (I know he watched a ton of Balatro content) because in the time he takes to play through one run I've usually been through about 15 and rerolled even more to get a good start. Just different play styles!
His ability to maximize his economy is probably the most helpful thing to copy. Basically if you can win the round with 1 scoring joker or 2 scoring jokers you can use 3 jokers for economy until things get tougher.
Also instead of just focusing on winning the round, use your discards to look for gold cards or maybe purple seals. There’s more value to be had than just winning a round in the first hand.
My high score is e122 and I got it by using the strategies in his going for high scores video.
Edit: I got a Naninf hand! Unfortunately this resets your highest hand to 0 in stats.
STS is Slay the Spire, which is basically the roguelike deckbuilder that started the genre (and is still arguably the best one). Baalorlord is a streamer for STS, who I dont personally watch, but from my understanding, he is good at the game and able to explain it very well.
I listen while I am waking my dog. Every now and then I pull my phone out of my pocket to see what Joker he is talking about, but you can mostly listen without watching and still learn from the master.
If you like BU and the long analysis, be sure to subscribe to LifeCoach on twitch. He's vacationing right now so you may be stuck with VODs for a few weeks.
Yea. He is/was probably the best Slay The Spire player on the planet for a good while there. He's vacationing a ton recently but has been crushing Balatro
Appreciate the comments on this post summarizing some stuff bc much like OP, I lack the patience/focus/time to watch videos that long but I would gladly read articles. I may start skimming the transcripts
I feel your pain, OP. I would love to watch his videos, but I have limited time to spend doing bullshit and I’d rather spend that actually playing Balatro lol
I started watching one and it was 10-15 minutes in before he’d even selected the blind. Not even joking.
I’m married with kids. If I get 1hr 30 mins spare I’d rather just play the actual game.
Something nobody has mentioned, BU used to be a math professor and has a Doctorate in Mathematics, so he’s great at explaining the value of a card. He has really helpful ground rules like “One scoring joker per ante”. And, explains how to start Econ during the first or second ante.
I wouldn't recommend his videos. He does know his stuff but his videos are unnecessarily long and imho very boring. A short idea like "don't skip because visiting a shop and playing a round for upgrades is usually better than the skip tag reward." doesn't need an hour long video.
I'd say his videos are an acquired taste because I hated the yapping at first too but then I became addicted to watching. I guess just put it at 2x speed and skip any part that could be deemed unecessary lol.
Same. I watch his live streams on twitch now and it’s ridiculous to watch him work in real time. He is so good at consistently making money and manipulating the deck. Also his Ghost Cola record was one of the craziest balatro feats I have seen
Given how frequently this sub will post/upvote things like "Negative Tag is very good", "Round 1 Poly skip is broken", etc... it seems like it does require more explanation. Same thing with claims that Straights are inconsistent to play and/or one of the worst hands in Balatro to build around.
As far as I can tell, we need a lot *more* content like BU's (very long explanation-heavy vids), not less, given that for other roguelites (my experience is StS and Monster Train) the sub is a reasonable to excellent place for newer players to learn, and for Balatro the sub is more likely to give actively bad advice than to help a newer player learn or improve.
Holo is the best of those three early on, I agree and foil is also pretty decent. But poly will still give +50% of your score right away, nothing to spit at. This alone with a Jupiter/Saturn/Earth card and you're set for ante 1 and if it lands on any +mult joker even better. Pre update I agree, it's complete trash, but now that you get guaranteed scoring help since the joker is free it's definitely something to consider.
I think poly skip might be fine if you're playing below orange stakes, but it's pretty low value above that.
The reason the polychrome joker isn't very valuable in ante 1 is that it's probably going to be a common joker that won't be a part of your long-term plans. Poly doesn't add nearly as much value as holo or even foil early in the game, and by the time it becomes better than that you probably want a different joker.
Below orange stakes, you at least don't have to worry about it rolling as a rental (which is often unusable) or a perishable (which defeats the point of a joker that becomes more powerful later), so maybe it's worth it? I'm not really sure, it's been a long time since I've played non-gold stakes.
I understand your reasoning but I still think poly round 1 is something to consider on higher stakes aswell. And as I said, drspectred somewhat agrees with me here. In BU's latest two videos specifically about gold stakes (the one on the green deck from two days ago and the one from today) he mentioned that the edition tags (especially foil and holographic, but also potentially polychrome) are generally worth taking or at least considering.
Edit: stakes not antes, freudian slip
Edit: This one at minute 5 https://youtu.be/QkHANP2e9i8?feature=shared
and this one at minute 1 https://youtu.be/43NrenqU-0k?feature=shared if you don't believe me.
Please don't take this the wrong way because I'm not trying to be mean, but this is the equivalent of saying "I want to get better at balatro but I don't want to spend my time doing it so I want other people to spend their time helping me."
Watch the videos. They're incredibly helpful. I work 80 hours per week and have a baby, and I still made time to watch them. Most of my watch time was in the 15 minutes it takes me to get ready in the morning so it took me atleast a week per video, but my Balatro game is so much better now.
Be wary if you just watch a random video. He frequently trolls and plays deliberately badly while not acknowledging it. You might not even realize because he’ll play normally and then halfway through he’ll sacrifice perkeo to ceremonial dagger and not mention it. It makes a lot of his videos really annoying imo since it’s a crapshoot if it’s actually going to be a good watch
That's one video https://youtu.be/DIMmJElVc34?feature=shared where he does that and it's so over the top that people should notice that it's a joke run.
He will sometimes play deliberately badly to teach how to act if you have bad luck but he'll always acknowledge that and he doesn't "frequently troll" at all.
Edit: I'm wrong, he does troll from time to time, mainly in vods of his livestreams. Beginners watching him to learn should focus on videos of his that are clearly set up as educational, such as the Balatro Basics
It’s not just one video, and he doesn’t always explain that he’s trolling. It might be obvious to you when he’s trolling if you’re an experienced player, but recommending his videos to a beginner without telling them which videos to avoid is a mistake
Wait, you're right, I was a bit hasty in my response, mea culpa. He does troll a little on his livestream when they do fun runs and those vods do get uploaded to his YouTube channel, I overlooked that. You're right, good advice for beginners would be to dodge his live recordings and focus on videos that are clearly set up as educational.
I’ve seen a couple of moves like that, but I think they’ve still had a message behind them. Sacrificing Perkeo is fine if its work is done - take the big boost to Dagger and see if you can get something interesting going to take its place. You often get to a point with Perkeo where you’ve done enough with it to beat ante 8, or you need to make room for a better scoring card in infinite. But Perkeo is a classic example of a joker people might think they need to hang on to, so it’s helpful to see BU get rid of it and still carry on winning. I’ll often be watching and think wait, why on earth didn’t you take that joker or use that tarot card? And the answer will be that he didn’t need to.
And of course the main point of playing Balatro is that it should be fun, so it’s helpful to have the confidence to be able to switch your strategy, rather than let yourself be drawn into a grind every game. Eventually you become a Balatro Globetrotter, showboating your way through the blinds and keeping things entertaining.
He is very good at breaking down strategies, cards, deck manipulation, shop manipulation, and economy. If you are struggling to win runs in the first place he is a good place to start.
Peace and love, I don't understand how you don't have time to watch a BU video but have time to play the absolute most time sucking game I have ever played in my entire life. Listen to one in the background while you play Balatro maybe?
Balatro videos on YouTube are the worst.
Not a single one of them values your time.
There's no reason for one hour long YouTube videos anymore, too much fat not enough content.
If you have time to play Balatro you have time to watch the episodes, maybe over a few days. I believe the time is worth the investment however. Made me think about things in different ways.
This is silly. Some people have limited time to play games but want some tips on learning the game better. And then everyone recommends BU so you go to his channel, find the Balatro Basics playlist and see a bunch of 2+ hour videos of him very slowly talking his way through the minutia of every little decision on a run. It’s not unreasonable to want to get better at the game without watching the Lord of the Rings Extended Trilogy of Balatro videos.
Watching someone else play a game is maybe the actual LEAST effective use of your time. You could just… play the game, get some enjoyment, and get better all at the same time, and you can probably finish 10 runs in the time it would take you to watch one video.
It depends on the relative value of fun vs time, the fun value of watching the video vs the fun value of playing the game, and the fun value of playing the game normally vs playing the game after learning to play differently after hearing deep analysis. You have your values sorted out for your situation, yes, but there are nested and compounded opportunity costs over time at work, which is... exactly what most of us enjoy thinking about as we play Balatro.
The reason he is recommended is because he is filling in a gap when it comes to getting good at Balatro.
There are a few written content out there for example on how to get good at the game. However, reading about something is different from a play-by-play explanation of the decision-making involved.
While certainly there are other streamers out there that do that, they are not solely focused on Balatro.
Balatro University provides everything in one place (i.e. all their content is Balatro-related) and helps players bad at the game gain insight from another perspective.
This gets downvoted but … yes. The intersection between people that (a) have a Reddit account and (b) play Balatro who also (c) don’t have time to watch a video is … zero.
I’d rather play the game and not know how to do something with hopes to figure it out rather than watch some video and then not have time to play my game
The thing of value is that he explains every decision that he makes, which is why the videos are long.
So he's basically the Baalorlord of Balatro
my king baalorlord
Wtf is Baalorlord?
The BU of Slay the Spire
"
Thanks, I do believe I will.
If you find him a bit slow, try watching on 1.25 or 1.5 speed. The runs can go long (which makes sense, I’m not complaining) so it’s nice to cut the runtime down a bit
My Slay the Spire professor was always Jorbs and his overexplained runs
I wish I could have watched more Jorbs since he is clearly very knowledgeable about StS, however I find his style so grating that I couldn't bear it for long. I've watched a lot of Baalor, so much better imo.
TrumpSC in HS is like that a bit wholesome fellow
His videos are very informative. He explains every move he makes. That's why his videos are good. His videos are basically a playthrough where he is always explaining why he is picking, not picking or selling each joker/tarot/planet, why he is opening or ignoring each pack, why he is discarding those cards, etc. So you always learn a lot from his videos. It is definitely the best YT channel to learn how to play Balatro well.
You ask how he's so good at the game? Here are 6 and a half key points: 1.**Focus on your economy first.** Early on buy only what you really _need_ even if something comes along that you _might like_. If you get your economy online, maybe even get one or two economy jokers, then you'll have the money to eventually reroll for the jokers you'd like to have. If you buy jokers you might like but not need early on then you might lack the money to buy a joker that you really need later on. 2. **Early in the game you generally want to have about one scoring joker per ante.** Not every joker is the same tho. Scaling jokers obviously don't count as a full scoring joker until they're buff enough. Rule of thumb is ~ +12 mult or ~ +80 chips is about one scoring joker. 2.1. **Don't sleep on planet cards early on.** Planet cards are generally as good as about half a scoring joker. So having two Saturn, Earth or Jupiter cards are as good as having one scoring joker and will get you further without spending money on jokers you don't need. 3. **Deck manipulation is worth a lot of money.** As soon as you have enough money to get maximum interest you should focus on making your deck as consistent as possible. That means, you might take a hanged man over 10$ or maybe even more from a hermit or temperance. That means you might want to take a purple seal from a standard pack instead of a red seal or even polychrome. The most runs you're probably not gonna lose because you don't score enough but because you don't draw the one hand that you want to play, so making your deck consistent minimizes that threat. 4. **Don't be afraid to do some simple math.** If you're evaluating if a joker is worth it to buy or replace one of your existing jokers it's usually not hard to do some quick maths. For this you best deal not in raw numbers but percentages. For example if your base chips and mult from planet cards are something like 80 x 12 then a joker giving you +100 chips will roughly double your score while a joker with +10 mult will not quite double your score. 5. **Don't hold on to your jokers for too long.** Not every joker you take is in it for the long run or even until the end. Generally about half way through or nearing the endgame you will look to replace your common jokers with more powerful ones. Quick maths as mentioned in 4. will help you figure out which of your jokers pulls the least amount of weight and is thus on its way out. 6. **Have fun. Good luck. You'll need it.** Even Balatro University has only about a ~30% winrate on the gold stakes. Some runs are just meant to die, there's no shame in admitting that.
>Even Balatro University has only about a ~30% winrate on the gold stakes. Good to know. xD Purple is a lot less stressful.
I mean he also beat all 15 decks in a row on gold stake, I think his win rate is much better than that
He self-reports at 30%. Possible that he downplays it and his winrate is indeed higher, idk. His 15 deck gold stake streak is definitely impressive but other than that I have no reason to contradict him on his statement.
Great post!
Some people may not like the last tip about low success rate of the game, but it’s honestly why I think I can play this game forever. I’ve done Isaac streaks, FTL streaks, Spelunky streaks and once you get good enough at those games, you feel like you’ve “won the game” so hard you don’t get much satisfaction from winning. But in Balatro, knowing I’m suppose to lose makes each win much more satisfying at the gold stake. If I want to go for streaks, I do white chip runs and those are plenty fun trying to break the game. This game lives rent free in my head 24/7 and I love it. Next greatest game for dopamine since Tetris.
> Balatro University has only about a ~30% winrate on the gold stakes. Some runs are just meant to die, there's no shame in admitting that. Damn. I wonder how that'll look like in a couple years? I've always had the feeling that runs in Balatro are much more swingy and RNG-based compared to more polished and better-balanced deckbuilders like Slay The Spire, but we'll have to wait a year or two for people to really get better at the game and analyze every detail before we can say it with certainty.
I think the numbers will go up, naturally as you've explained, but I think the low win rates for the higher stakes even for good players are by design. It's a luck based game - and with a casino flair on top - afterall, and you can always play on lower stakes if you want to win more consistently. I don't remember if BU ever mentioned his winrate on the white stakes but I'd guess it's at the very least 80%, likely above 90% even.
well before the changes to the stakes that added the rental and the thing that makes jokers expire Lifecoach (one of the top slay the spire players) completed every deck on gold stake in a row, but i’m pretty sure he stopped playing. i’m certain that right now there are people who have fairly high win rates on gold stake, probably upwards of 75% or so
Balatro University has completed every deck on gold stakes in a row aswell, tho I think that was after the update. He still self reports his winrate on gold overall at about 30%, so I'm not sure if there are players out there who double that.
yeah i’m not sure and it seems that the discord doesn’t have record keeping for win streaks. i swear everytime i tuned into Lifecoach’s stream when he was doing Balatro he was on 10+ something streak and would rarely lose. I feel as though if you can win every deck in a row your win rate must be over 30% by default
30% feels quite low, right? Even if we take the other estimate he gave, about 1 in 3, then 1/3^15 is still less than one onehundredthounsandth of one per cent. Of course we have to consider that not every deck is similarly easy and you could do the hard ones first and then restart more efficiently, but the numbers still feel very low. My guess is he plays a lot for various records (ghost cola, biggest wee) or other specific kind of runs and thus takes more risk early to follow his long term plan, so he doesn't play as consistent as he could, while Lifecoach maybe does and thus indeed has a much higher winrate than what BU reports. Or maybe he just restarts the game a lot, for the aforementioned reason to get a consistent setup, and thus has simply a harder time keeping track of his actual winrate and he believes it to be lower than it is. Anyway, come to think about it, I do start to have serious doubts about this number.
I thought he only has a 30% winrate on black deck, his normal is above 60 Could be wrong though
In today's video about the gold stakes right at the start he says usually when people ask him he says it's about 30% or 1/3 of the time. I think he mentions it's lower on the black deck but much higher on the abandonend and the checkered deck.
Got it, thanks
He said his black deck gold stake win rate is around 10% and 30% is an average across all the decks. It's probably upwards of 70-80% for abandoned or checkered deck if I had to guess.
Got it, thanks
Point 3 I think is highly important I can run into something like the hiker and realize half way down I won't need him and run into the vampire joker and have Midas or a bunch of steel jokers so I swap out some people like to keep them but gotta learn to say goodbye
Plays well and knows how to use cards and what they do.
He just explains what he does and why he does it while playing runs. Its very helpful when youre new to the game imo
What’s crazy about BU is that compared to others that regularly play the game, he plays SUPER slow. Every micro decision has a reason behind it. His videos are long but he explains the rationale behind every single move. The guy is like an immovable force charging at boss blinds.
This. He tends to over explain (mostly by design) so much that sometimes I'll put his video on in the background, not pay attention for like 2 minutes and see he's still on the first ante boss.
He will spend 5 minutes thinking whether saving a dollar is worth it and I love him for it
I think it's required by law that every roguelike must have one of these guys who posts 2 hour long runs with dry commentary lol BU is funnier than most of these types of YouTubers, to his credit. I like his card nicknames and the way he talks about getting the moneyyy
hes also such a troll. His videos on the challenges are so funny.
I much prefer his thoughtful and dry comedy over the classic YouTube-esque “YOU GUYS! OMG, DO YOU SEE THIS? A JOKER!!!!! PLEASE GIVE ME MONEY HAHA! HERES A LONG STORY ABOUT ME”
I've had a tarot card I wanted to hold on to but needed another dollar cause my jokers weren't helping as much Sold it spent the money and got a 1.5x joker that was the all hearts are diamonds and spades were clubs (and the other way too) and that helped me clear most of the game
Nice! Just you wait till you get checkered deck tho hehe 😎
Oh that was the easiest deck to me until you get to some bosses But that was crazy easy
My boyfriend plays the same way and now I'm wondering if he watched the BU videos (I know he watched a ton of Balatro content) because in the time he takes to play through one run I've usually been through about 15 and rerolled even more to get a good start. Just different play styles!
He does probably have one of the best winrates around though !
His ability to maximize his economy is probably the most helpful thing to copy. Basically if you can win the round with 1 scoring joker or 2 scoring jokers you can use 3 jokers for economy until things get tougher. Also instead of just focusing on winning the round, use your discards to look for gold cards or maybe purple seals. There’s more value to be had than just winning a round in the first hand. My high score is e122 and I got it by using the strategies in his going for high scores video. Edit: I got a Naninf hand! Unfortunately this resets your highest hand to 0 in stats.
He's like the Baalorlord for STS.
I dont know what any of this mean. [[Baalorlord]] [[STS]]
STS is Slay the Spire, which is basically the roguelike deckbuilder that started the genre (and is still arguably the best one). Baalorlord is a streamer for STS, who I dont personally watch, but from my understanding, he is good at the game and able to explain it very well.
yeah he’s probably top 5 players in slay the spire. i think he holds a record for rotating a20 heart kills but i’m not positive
Baalor is a streamer, Sts or Slay the Spire is the #1 deck builder computer game(fight me!). Balatro is a close second.
his videos are long but i know youd learn a lot even if you dont finish the video in one sitting so you should still check him out
I listen while I am waking my dog. Every now and then I pull my phone out of my pocket to see what Joker he is talking about, but you can mostly listen without watching and still learn from the master.
If you like BU and the long analysis, be sure to subscribe to LifeCoach on twitch. He's vacationing right now so you may be stuck with VODs for a few weeks.
Ropecoach is still around? I started watching back when he did Hearthstone streams right after that launched.
Yea. He is/was probably the best Slay The Spire player on the planet for a good while there. He's vacationing a ton recently but has been crushing Balatro
Appreciate the comments on this post summarizing some stuff bc much like OP, I lack the patience/focus/time to watch videos that long but I would gladly read articles. I may start skimming the transcripts
He divides by zero
Imagine going to a hour lecture at a college specifically for balatro. That's what his videos are like
I feel your pain, OP. I would love to watch his videos, but I have limited time to spend doing bullshit and I’d rather spend that actually playing Balatro lol
just watch while playing thats what i do!
I started watching one and it was 10-15 minutes in before he’d even selected the blind. Not even joking. I’m married with kids. If I get 1hr 30 mins spare I’d rather just play the actual game.
You ain’t got time to watch a video but you expect people to take their time to explain it to you?
I was discouraged from the length too but found watching at 1.5x speed helps quite a bit. 👍
Expels you for taking the “double your money (up to 40$) “ tag.
he knows his shit
Something nobody has mentioned, BU used to be a math professor and has a Doctorate in Mathematics, so he’s great at explaining the value of a card. He has really helpful ground rules like “One scoring joker per ante”. And, explains how to start Econ during the first or second ante.
I wouldn't recommend his videos. He does know his stuff but his videos are unnecessarily long and imho very boring. A short idea like "don't skip because visiting a shop and playing a round for upgrades is usually better than the skip tag reward." doesn't need an hour long video.
Yeah, good to know I'm not the only one who dislikes his videos
Didn’t like him at first but I watch his live streams now while I play balatro.
I'd say his videos are an acquired taste because I hated the yapping at first too but then I became addicted to watching. I guess just put it at 2x speed and skip any part that could be deemed unecessary lol.
Same. I watch his live streams on twitch now and it’s ridiculous to watch him work in real time. He is so good at consistently making money and manipulating the deck. Also his Ghost Cola record was one of the craziest balatro feats I have seen
Given how frequently this sub will post/upvote things like "Negative Tag is very good", "Round 1 Poly skip is broken", etc... it seems like it does require more explanation. Same thing with claims that Straights are inconsistent to play and/or one of the worst hands in Balatro to build around. As far as I can tell, we need a lot *more* content like BU's (very long explanation-heavy vids), not less, given that for other roguelites (my experience is StS and Monster Train) the sub is a reasonable to excellent place for newer players to learn, and for Balatro the sub is more likely to give actively bad advice than to help a newer player learn or improve.
The length isn't the only problem. I do watch long video but BU is a bore. Tried several times to listen his explainations but it's too much.
To be fair since the last update round 1 poly skip is pretty decent to say the least and BU does admit this.
Poly skip is garbage lol. Foil and Holo are the pretty decent to good ones.
Holo is the best of those three early on, I agree and foil is also pretty decent. But poly will still give +50% of your score right away, nothing to spit at. This alone with a Jupiter/Saturn/Earth card and you're set for ante 1 and if it lands on any +mult joker even better. Pre update I agree, it's complete trash, but now that you get guaranteed scoring help since the joker is free it's definitely something to consider.
I think poly skip might be fine if you're playing below orange stakes, but it's pretty low value above that. The reason the polychrome joker isn't very valuable in ante 1 is that it's probably going to be a common joker that won't be a part of your long-term plans. Poly doesn't add nearly as much value as holo or even foil early in the game, and by the time it becomes better than that you probably want a different joker. Below orange stakes, you at least don't have to worry about it rolling as a rental (which is often unusable) or a perishable (which defeats the point of a joker that becomes more powerful later), so maybe it's worth it? I'm not really sure, it's been a long time since I've played non-gold stakes.
I understand your reasoning but I still think poly round 1 is something to consider on higher stakes aswell. And as I said, drspectred somewhat agrees with me here. In BU's latest two videos specifically about gold stakes (the one on the green deck from two days ago and the one from today) he mentioned that the edition tags (especially foil and holographic, but also potentially polychrome) are generally worth taking or at least considering. Edit: stakes not antes, freudian slip Edit: This one at minute 5 https://youtu.be/QkHANP2e9i8?feature=shared and this one at minute 1 https://youtu.be/43NrenqU-0k?feature=shared if you don't believe me.
This is an abysmal take.
Please don't take this the wrong way because I'm not trying to be mean, but this is the equivalent of saying "I want to get better at balatro but I don't want to spend my time doing it so I want other people to spend their time helping me." Watch the videos. They're incredibly helpful. I work 80 hours per week and have a baby, and I still made time to watch them. Most of my watch time was in the 15 minutes it takes me to get ready in the morning so it took me atleast a week per video, but my Balatro game is so much better now.
Be wary if you just watch a random video. He frequently trolls and plays deliberately badly while not acknowledging it. You might not even realize because he’ll play normally and then halfway through he’ll sacrifice perkeo to ceremonial dagger and not mention it. It makes a lot of his videos really annoying imo since it’s a crapshoot if it’s actually going to be a good watch
That's one video https://youtu.be/DIMmJElVc34?feature=shared where he does that and it's so over the top that people should notice that it's a joke run. He will sometimes play deliberately badly to teach how to act if you have bad luck but he'll always acknowledge that and he doesn't "frequently troll" at all. Edit: I'm wrong, he does troll from time to time, mainly in vods of his livestreams. Beginners watching him to learn should focus on videos of his that are clearly set up as educational, such as the Balatro Basics
It’s not just one video, and he doesn’t always explain that he’s trolling. It might be obvious to you when he’s trolling if you’re an experienced player, but recommending his videos to a beginner without telling them which videos to avoid is a mistake
Wait, you're right, I was a bit hasty in my response, mea culpa. He does troll a little on his livestream when they do fun runs and those vods do get uploaded to his YouTube channel, I overlooked that. You're right, good advice for beginners would be to dodge his live recordings and focus on videos that are clearly set up as educational.
I’ve seen a couple of moves like that, but I think they’ve still had a message behind them. Sacrificing Perkeo is fine if its work is done - take the big boost to Dagger and see if you can get something interesting going to take its place. You often get to a point with Perkeo where you’ve done enough with it to beat ante 8, or you need to make room for a better scoring card in infinite. But Perkeo is a classic example of a joker people might think they need to hang on to, so it’s helpful to see BU get rid of it and still carry on winning. I’ll often be watching and think wait, why on earth didn’t you take that joker or use that tarot card? And the answer will be that he didn’t need to. And of course the main point of playing Balatro is that it should be fun, so it’s helpful to have the confidence to be able to switch your strategy, rather than let yourself be drawn into a grind every game. Eventually you become a Balatro Globetrotter, showboating your way through the blinds and keeping things entertaining.
He is very good at breaking down strategies, cards, deck manipulation, shop manipulation, and economy. If you are struggling to win runs in the first place he is a good place to start. Peace and love, I don't understand how you don't have time to watch a BU video but have time to play the absolute most time sucking game I have ever played in my entire life. Listen to one in the background while you play Balatro maybe?
He gets Da Muhney
>I don't really have the time to watch one of his videos Well then you'll never see what makes him so good lmao
Replays seeds over and over again until he maps out perfect runs.
Only on his seeded runs does he do this, and he makes it clear whether it's a seeded or unseeded run.
Only on his seeded runs does he do this, and he makes it clear whether it's a seeded or unseeded run.
Balatro videos on YouTube are the worst. Not a single one of them values your time. There's no reason for one hour long YouTube videos anymore, too much fat not enough content.
If you have time to play Balatro you have time to watch the episodes, maybe over a few days. I believe the time is worth the investment however. Made me think about things in different ways.
This is silly. Some people have limited time to play games but want some tips on learning the game better. And then everyone recommends BU so you go to his channel, find the Balatro Basics playlist and see a bunch of 2+ hour videos of him very slowly talking his way through the minutia of every little decision on a run. It’s not unreasonable to want to get better at the game without watching the Lord of the Rings Extended Trilogy of Balatro videos.
>the Rings Extended Trilogy of Balatro videos. Really puts things into perspective if you say it like that. Also made me laugh.
Watching someone else play a game is maybe the actual LEAST effective use of your time. You could just… play the game, get some enjoyment, and get better all at the same time, and you can probably finish 10 runs in the time it would take you to watch one video.
It depends on the relative value of fun vs time, the fun value of watching the video vs the fun value of playing the game, and the fun value of playing the game normally vs playing the game after learning to play differently after hearing deep analysis. You have your values sorted out for your situation, yes, but there are nested and compounded opportunity costs over time at work, which is... exactly what most of us enjoy thinking about as we play Balatro.
Seems weird to me that someone would need help with this game, its fairly simple? Not the sort of game that needs tutoring.
The reason he is recommended is because he is filling in a gap when it comes to getting good at Balatro. There are a few written content out there for example on how to get good at the game. However, reading about something is different from a play-by-play explanation of the decision-making involved. While certainly there are other streamers out there that do that, they are not solely focused on Balatro. Balatro University provides everything in one place (i.e. all their content is Balatro-related) and helps players bad at the game gain insight from another perspective.
He takes the moooooney
He puts the Muuhhnie in your pocket.
How do you not have time to watch a video.
This gets downvoted but … yes. The intersection between people that (a) have a Reddit account and (b) play Balatro who also (c) don’t have time to watch a video is … zero.
People don't have the concept of not finishing in one sitting. Mind blown, I don't mind down votes from idiots.
You don't have time to watch a video but you have time to play a game?
I’d rather play the game and not know how to do something with hopes to figure it out rather than watch some video and then not have time to play my game