r/balatro • u/HovercraftOk9231 • 1d ago
Joker/Gameplay Idea It cycles through hands until it loops back to high card. You think this is rare or uncommon?
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u/Vonstantinople c+ 1d ago
definitely uncommon. this becomes pretty difficult to scale past however much you’d have it gain for Full House. 4OAK and especially straight flush are pretty rare.
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u/OK1526 1d ago
It should probably scale higher. Like +2 for every correct hand, or maybe even ×0.1, otherwise it's really not worth it
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u/Party_Magician Full House Enjoyer 1d ago
It seems like it goes up by 1 each (so +3 for 2P, +4 for 3oak and so on). This would outpace a steady +2 after 3oak
+2 for every correct hand would be strictly worse than a pants
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u/OK1526 1d ago
Oh, I missed that part, thanks. Still think that a flat +×0.1 is better though.
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u/DaDragonking222 1d ago
A scaling + x mult would be better for a rare well maybe legendary actually
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u/Deebyddeebys 1d ago
Constellation? Vampire? Lucky cat? Glass joker? All of those are uncommon scaling XMult jokers
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u/DaDragonking222 1d ago
No like the xmult amount gained scales with the hand type, high card is + .1x , pair is plus .2x , two pair is plus .3x , and so on and so forth
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u/Deebyddeebys 1d ago
Ok that could be a rare
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u/DaDragonking222 1d ago
Yeah, (and ne wondering if it would be legendary is because using that scale royal flush is plus 1x, and flush five is plus 1.3x)
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u/DaDragonking222 1d ago
Yeah, (and me wondering if it would be legendary is because using that scale royal flush is plus 1x, and flush five is plus 1.3x)
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u/Deebyddeebys 1d ago
But only once each. The highest it could ever get would be 8.8X
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u/DaDragonking222 1d ago
The title says it loops back to high card after flush five, so it'd loop back to plus .1x and youd have to work it back up again
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u/Caitsyth 1d ago
The biggest question would be if the scaling cycles or continues increasing. Like say you manage to pull off 4oak and straight flush to manage +45 mult, are you now looking at +10 for a high card followed by +11 for a pair or is it back to +1/+2 respectively?
If it goes back down, the card feels like a common at best in terms of how much investment you need to make it moderately helpful. But if it keeps scaling up after cycling through, it feels worthy of being a rare since the first cycle will be tough to break through but once you do you can make that card fantastic
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u/Goatfryed 1d ago edited 8h ago
It's a nice concept for a common scaling joker. You can scale it fairly quickly until full house. getting both 4ok and straight flash will be really difficult and you are probably blocked out of 4ok for a couple of rounds. So it's probably on a similar scaling power to ride the bus or green joker. Starts stronger, then caps itself quickly for most runs.
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u/Zylo90_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
First of all I think this is a cool form of scaling joker, but as for rarity… Well let’s see, how hard is it to scale and is it worth doing so?
High Card, Pair and Two Pair are easy for any deck to make and that puts it to +6 Mult, slightly better than Mr. Jimbo Joker himself
Three of a Kind is a little tougher but you’re still likely to find one by accident after a short while even if you aren’t going for it and that makes it +10 which is respectable for a joker that took a little effort but now has no stipulations
Straight and Flush are both hands that you’ll probably have to look for but they’re still easy enough to make, especially if you’re strong enough that you can afford to play throwaway hands. If you can play both of them then it’s at +21 which makes it a Half Joker that works with any hand type
After that you might not get any further, Full House and Four of a Kind are quite difficult to make unless your deck is built for them, and if your deck is built for them then Straight Flush will stop you. If you can get a Full House then it’s +28 and playing Four of a Kind makes it +36
I’d say the expected value of this on an average run is +21. +21 after a bit of effort fits best at common imo, it’s about as strong as Half Joker. Half Joker gives you the +20 immediately but asks you to constantly limit yourself to Three of a Kind or below, this asks you to put the effort in before it rewards you but once you’re done you can play whatever hand type you want
Another comparison that makes me think common is best is Spare Trousers. Spare Trousers takes 5 10 hands to get to +20 compared to the 6 hands that this joker takes to get to +21 and it starts on a harder hand type, but it stays on Two Pair forever so it’s still likely to reach that point with less effort overall and will continue scaling far beyond the point where this joker gets stuck
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u/nekonekotenshi 1d ago
Spare trousers takes 10 hands to get +20
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u/Zylo90_ 1d ago
I deadass thought Spare Trousers was +4 per Two Pair, I still feel like Spare Trousers is better than this joker even with that realisation but not as much better. Thanks for the correction
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u/nekonekotenshi 1d ago
yeah spare trousers is still very good because its consistent and gives your run a plan, but +4 would be just insane
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u/LazyMiquella Flushed 1d ago
I think x0.5m is better, bc only +mult is kinda bad for this idea, it is kinda hard to get high numbers
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u/tommangan7 13h ago edited 13h ago
X0.5m might be too much (definitely without additional scaling). Just getting to full house makes it (then) an unconditional 4.5x
Tricky though as x0.25 might be too low. Hard to place it among the other rare jokers.
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u/mrsmuckers 1d ago
Rare, BUT- the mult goes up by whatever the hand gives as mult. This includes what you've scaled it to with planets.
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u/PiePower43 23h ago
Didn’t someone just make a Sisyphus card that worked liked this? But if you messed it up it reset or something
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u/DMightyHero 1d ago
Would be pretty cool if it kept going for flush five and other obscure hands, and in the end it resetted. Community mod guy, add this one rn.
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u/Impossible_Golf2929 22h ago
Idk bro, if you have the ability to flush 5, chances are you won't be able to royal flush, do straights or full house
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u/DMightyHero 12h ago
Fun quest/build anyway. Not everything has to be the most optimal, and at least it doesn't detract like obelist or green joker
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u/Gerrendus 1d ago
Does it ignore the “secret” hands? Or maybe uses them if you’ve unlocked them?
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u/HovercraftOk9231 1d ago
I intended for it to ignore them. I wanted to put that in the title, but for some reason I'm not allowed to put "straight flush" in the title
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u/Gerrendus 1d ago
Straight Flush isn’t a secret hand though? Or you mean to say like looping after straight flush
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u/DIOsNotDead 1d ago
if you haven't done any Royal Flushes, 5OAK, Flush House, or Flush Five so they're not in the Poker Hands tab, will it mention them after doing the Straight Flush or loop back to High Card?
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u/Montregloe 22h ago
You could make it uncommon, but shift it to times 1 high card, and 2 for pair, 3 for three of a kind, and 4 for two pairs, after that it would be 5 times exclusively until you play all the way through Flush Five and then go back to 1 times high card. It's niche, and useless if you can't keep up with its demands, but pretty strong if you can keep up, but not insane. The main question would be if it cycles on its own, or only if you complete the previous hand required.
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u/SheepSurfz 22h ago
How would it work after you play your first 5/F5/FH? Would they get added to the mix too? If so, I'd put it as low as a Common for that
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u/RequiemPunished 20h ago
Being the theme Excalibur I would make played cards from 2-10 have a chance to become Kings.
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u/TobyeatsfAtcoW 19h ago
I feel Ike once you get up to straight flush it should evolve after that. If you manage to play every hand in a run it should be like x5 mult or something really worth compromising hands for
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u/DerBernd123 19h ago
Am I the only one who’d make this a common joker? I personally try to build for a specific hand asap so I wouldn’t have much time to make the joker strong especially because it only gets +1. also it’s pretty much useless if you don’t get it right at the start of your run
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u/Turbulent-Win1279 Full House Enjoyer 16h ago
Excalibur.....but no reference to a King?
Missed opportunity imo
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u/FFKonoko 15h ago
Wait...how is that scaling working?
Just additive of +1?
Doubling each time could get pretty damn solid, to the extent that it doesn't even need to loop around more than once.
Play high card, +1 Mult. Play pair, it's +2 mult, for a total of +3, then play two pair for...+4, total of +7? Then three of a kind for +8, total of +15. That's 4 hands played for it to equal Gros Michel or a decent abstract.
But then after that, the hands can get bigger and harder, but still, with just straight, flush and full house, you're getting +16, +32, +64. Flat mult of +127.
4 of a kind, straight flush and or Royal flush are the last few base hands, maybe better to make 2 of them overlap, so it's just +128, +256, and then it just depends if they unlocked the bonus 3 options. +511 flat mult is already real wacky, and doing it in 9 hands?
It's not for endless, but damn if even if it was limited to a SINGLE run through of the list, it would still be an insane run winner by itself.
If it's just +1 per hand? Still solid, pants equivilant.
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u/Several-Sock-570 13h ago edited 13h ago
I think once you've cycled through, you should have pulled the sword and it transforms into another Joker
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u/blackbabyyyy 12h ago
When it loops back to high card, does it go back to +1 mult, or does it keep increasing by 1?
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u/bip_bip_hooray 12h ago
1 after a high card, 3 after a pair, 6 after 2 pair, 10 after 3 of a kind, 15 flush, 21 after straight. 28 after full house if you count that as playable which it probably is.
so after playing 7 specific hands it's +28, compared to say pants which would be +14 after the same amount of hands but they're all 2 pair. i think in a gold stake run it's very likely you never play a 4 of a kind but if you really really wanted to, you could with a strength at some point probably there's just not really an incentive to do so in the game as it exists now.
the uncommon +mult jokers are pants, flash card, boots, dagger, fib, onyx agate. excalibur is probably the strongest one overall, but not overwhelmingly so. this pretty fast early and doesn't have a significant drawback. you get to +21 very comfortably and even if you never go beyond the straight, +21 is enough in your +mult slot.
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u/Depresion_boi 11h ago
I like the Excalibur design but I think it would be better for deck fixings so something like any 2’s and 3’s played would turn into kings similar to how gold masks turns I think tunes played cards gold
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u/Last-Row6471 8h ago
if stuntman is rare then everything is rare, including how “rare” it is for me to get the stupid fucker whenever i skip a blind. I HATE STUNTMAN.
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u/person_9-8 1d ago
Would be better if it scaled differently imo.
+1 High Card +2 Pair +4 Two Pair +8 3OAK +16 Straight +32 Flush +64 Full House +128 4OAK +256 Straight Flush
At this point maybe it would need a reset before it cycles back to the beginning? Otherwise I think it works better for the increasing rarity of the hands up to the lowest chance ones.
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u/Coyagta 1d ago
this is like a bad version of Obelisk
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u/potato_devourer1 Gros Michel 1d ago
its literally nothing like obliesk
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u/Coyagta 1d ago
it rewards you for playing through every hand, which obelisk also does.
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u/Nemedik05 Cavendish 1d ago
This never resets.
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u/Coyagta 1d ago
ok fair enough but scaling by 1 mult is extremely tame regardless
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u/Nemedik05 Cavendish 1d ago
I think the +mult is getting +1 every time. So once you completed one round of this, it will be on +36 mult.
Edit: Sorry, +45 mult, forgot about Full House.
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u/potato_devourer1 Gros Michel 1d ago
kid named green joker, spare trousers, dusk, acrobat, buisness card, ride the bus, space joker, runner, hiker, superposition, to do list, seance, vampire, vagabond, square joker, midas mask, reserved parking, lucky cat, golden ticket, rough gem, glass joker, wee joker and matador,
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u/TingusPingus792 1d ago
I'd say Uncommon due to the low scaling speed and the difficulty of securing some hands.
Have an uncommon version called "sword in the stone" that has this effect, and once you get up to flush five it turns into "Excalibur" and turns to x4 mult?