Balatro: All Difficulties, Explained

While winning your first run in Balatrocan be an exciting experience, it only opens the way for further challenges as you unlock the harder difficulties. With these being exclusive to each deck, you'll need to approach every difficulty with a unique strategy to overcome the challenges.

Balatro: Achievement/Trophy Guide

Here's how to unlock all 31 achievements in Balatro.

There are eight difficulties, with the challenges growing exponentially as you beat each one and all previous limitations apply to your run. Each strategy you use will need to build off the one before it, which will allow you to improve your skills while you find new ways to play your cards off one another.

Every Stake Difficulty

Including the base difficulty, there are eight increasing challenges you can take on across the eight different decks, for a total of 64 different runs of increasing difficulty for you to complete. Remember that all previous modifiers apply to the difficulties after them.

You can unlock all difficulties immediately through the Profile menu, but this will disable all achievements until that profile is reset.

When starting a new run, you can select any unlocked difficulties using the menu under the Deck selection. You can tell which difficulty you've beaten on which deck due to the colored-in sections to the right of the Deck description.

Stake Color

Difficulty Modifier

Strategy

White

None

N/A

Red

Beating a Small Blind gives no reward money.

Invest in Jokers or Gold Cards that always give money.

Green

Required score scales faster in each Ante.

Add to your score multiplier with upgradeable Jokers and Enhanced cards.

Black

Shop can have Jokers that can't be sold or destroyed.

Don't buy these unless you're sure you can make permanent use.

Blue

You have one less Discard per run.

Make up for it by purchasing a Joker or Voucher that gives an additional Discard.

Purple

The required score for each Ante scales even faster.

Focus more on the multiplier while making sure your Chips are steadily increasing.

Orange

Booster Packs cost a dollar more per Ante.

Follow a similar strategy as Red, focusing more on cards and effects that give money.

Gold

Lose one slot to your hand size.

Purchase a Voucher to alleviate this and use your Discards.

Completing all of these difficulties is easier said than done, but you'll need to find a balance to get around the challenges posed by all of them.

Best Red Stake Strategy

Since the limitation of this difficulty is that you'll make less money from completing the Small Blind, you can use a Joker to get additional income from each round you play. The 'Golden Joker', for example, gives you four dollars every time you win a round.

One strategy is to use the 'Midas Touch' Joker, which makes every played Face card Gold. If you place the 'Pareidolia' Joker to the left of it, then you can turn every card in your deck Gold.

Another option is using Gold Cards to earn money at the end of each round when they're in your hand. You can make or find Gold Cards via Arcana and Standard Booster Packs.

Best Green and Purple Stake Strategy

This is similar to 'The Wall' Boss Blind, which increases the score required for that round, but across the entire run and every difficulty after. To beat this run, you should prioritize adding to and multiplying your score each round, with cards like Steel, Mult, and Glass.

Don't rely too much on Glass Cards, as they have a 25 percent chance to be destroyed.

With the difficulty increasing, it's important to be mindful of each hand you play. Instead of playing a Pair, check that you can't play a Flush or a Straight instead.

Best Black Stake Strategy

Eternal Jokers will start appearing in this difficulty. Thankfully, they're easy to avoid if you don't purchase them. When you see the infinity symbol in the top right corner of the card, you shouldn't purchase it unless it's useful enough to be used throughout your entire run.

Blue Stake Strategy

Since you'll lose a Discard in this difficulty, you can try to replace it with a card or use a strategy that doesn't reward Discards. The 'Drunkard' Joker and the 'Wasteful' Voucher can both give you your lost Discard back during the run.

On the other hand, cards like the 'Delayed Gratification' Joker give you two dollars per Discard after the round as long as you don't use any, which can help you make up for what's lost during the Small Blind as well.

Best Orange Stake Strategy

You'll begin to see inflation on Booster Packs at an additional dollar per Ante, but there are solutions to make more money or lower the price of the cards. The 'Astronomer' Joker, for example, can lower the cost of all Celestial Booster Packs and Planet Cards in the Shop to nothing.

Your other option is to follow a similar strategy as the Red Stake to create additional funds, which you should still be mindful of anyway. If you're earning the maximum interest on your money or using other cards to make more money, the rising cost of Booster Packs shouldn't ruin your entire strategy.

Best Gold Stake Strategy

Like in the Blue Stake, you can either choose to make up for the lost hand size or make it so that each hand you draw is enough on its own. The 'Paint Brush' Voucher and the 'Juggler' Joker Card both add a slot to your hand size, but you'll need to keep the Juggler for the entire run.

If you'd rather maximize each hand you get, consider taking advantage of Jokers that cover a range of hands and suits. You can also change the suits of your cards using Arcana Booster Packs, which will make it easier to play regular and Straight Flush.

Balatro: How To Get High Scores

Here's how to get high scores in Balatro.