Which poker hand build is your favorite to play???

In defense of flushes (and why I think they are at least A tier): 1. They are the easiest play to get through ante 1 with minimal hands played to boost econ before you get an econ joker. At least easier than straights and full houses. 2. They thrive in mid-game when you only have common jokers 3. If you can get DNA and use it on a red sealed card, you can very quickly make very powerful flushes. Getting a few uncommon jokers will usually make 5 played cards score higher score than leaving more spots for steel 4. It backs up the Flush 5. Even with an insane flush 5 build, you will still occasionally have a hand where that fifth identical card just didn't come in time

Ok… you’ve changed my opinion of High Card. Never thought about the potential you get from having an almost-full hand of steel and gold cards. Cheers!

i think that flush house might be one of the strongest early game hands ever, now hear me out. you don’t have to build your deck around this, but let’s say you get any of the four tarot cards that convert 3 cards to one suit. you then draw a full house, which probably already has 2 cards of that suit, use the tarot, boom flush house to win an early round in 1 hand and get out with max money. not the most reliable or easy thing in the world but damn it gets you out of some tough spots on high antes

Flush House's biggest pro is that you can unlock it with a single Tarot card and potentially start planeting it up as early as the first ante. If you're playing Painted Deck or Abandoned Deck then it's even better, in my opinion. _Especially_ with painted deck.

subscribed! I've been getting really into Balatro content recently, and this channel makes good stuff.

This is mostly accurate but I think that square joker and pants immediately make two pair a solid b tier pick

you should display the jokers you're reffering to in screen, it helps a lot with non-native english speakers

I basically only play straights ever since the patch dropped. Full houses, are always disappointing, I'm with Balatro University on this one

I look forward to watching this. I’m obsessed with full house / two pairs. I need to branch out, get more agile.

Completionst ++ high stakes disclaimer: Pretty solid list overall. Personally, I would bump Neptune up to C, I typically will use it as a transition late game from straight builds. I'd bump Venus down to D. I have never had a 3ofK run pop off that wouldn't have been better going for a different hand...and that is with over 500 hours. 2 pairs I would go B. There just way to many good scaling jokers/reliable jokers that support the play style for me to put it at C. Mercury I'd probably put at B. Live patch I agree with A for gold but changes to Orange/Gold allow other hands to shine a bit more since you aren't restricted by packs and hand size anymore. I rate it about the same as 2 pair trading better overall jokers for more tarot shennigans/high +mult scaling. Straights...I agree with BU. It is undeniably the best scaling planet for effort now. Easy S for me right now. Definitely a build that requires more thought and deck crafting though. Edit: ...realized dont have an A...I'd probably drop flush five down just requires a lot of set up/prereqs and comes online typically too late for high stakes.

I think flushes are higher tier, but I don't play endless that much I imagine they fall off pretty hard at antes beyond 8. And you bring up some good points, there are boss blinds that just flat out kill flush runs :D Biggest pro is probably that it's a pretty easy/beginner friendly deck to build with all the tarot cards and stuff manipulating your suits you can pretty reliably turn your deck into mostly a single suit. I imagine for endless, as you said I suppose you really want the flush fives, it has all the benefits and synergies of flushes combined with all the synergies for pairs, 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind AND it has higher chips and mults to start with too.

2-pair is currently my go-to hand to play when I just go for winning a run instead of high scores. It's good at nothing but also terrible at nothing. It's not hard to get, unlike big hands that eats discards and/or hands. It's not a 5-card hand, so it does leave some room for smart discard for held benefits. It's also not 1 or 2 card hands meaning jokers that relies on scoring is also not crippled. It's master of none but jack of all trades and is not hard to pivot from which makes it really "flexible" in matter of run strategy. That and squarepants being absolutely bonkers.

I rmb when full house was the dominant build in the demo version lol (forgot which exact one but it's the one with verdant leaf as the "extra" final boss).

I just started and literally the only two times I've been able to win a run had been with early pants jokers and building towards 2 pairs & full houses haha. This tier list broke me

I mostly do pairs, flushes, full houses or two pairs depending on my build

I've seen the World wrong. Before this video i mostly go for Full-Houses. I've should learn how to reliably Do 5OTK/Flush Five or Straights.

bear in mind he's talking about the hands, not the planet cards

“Are the straights okay??”

Square joker also has good synergy with two pair, but other than that and pants, I still agree with putting two pair in C

straights with runner early i dont think ive lost

Crazy how flushes and pairs scale the same for chips. If pairs allow you to hold two more steels then you're already better off doing that.

While I don't disagree with your ranking i don't really like how High Card builds are so good at higher stakes. It's absolutely the least fun build to play for me. Yes it works. But the gameplay itself is the most boring to me. Fishing for a full house and later flush fives is way more fun. To me finding a joker that works with a specific hand type, or combination of cards is what attracted me to Balatro. But a lot of that goes out of the window when switching to High card builds.

i love your content. could you boost the audio volume a bit in your videos?

What the general strategy for thinning the deck in a straight build? I want to play straights but chasing that 1 in 4 chance to get the single or even the two cards I need in the early game feels too risky. If I dont invest in the straight build eary, it falls off which is a conumdrum.

I love playing straights but one bad round of rng without Shoetcut and you lose. Had a level 29 straight build on gold stakes abandoned deck with like 25 cards and the very last round in ante 8 i couldnt hit a straight so i lost. You really need shortcut or four fingers to make straights viable.

Are there any mods that you recommend? I’ve been wanting to start playing with mods but I don’t have the slightest idea on where to start

I believe straight/royal flushes should be b tier. Yes they are hard to play around, but they have a few advantages you didn't point out yet. Similar to Flush Houses (even if not quite as strong) can be used as an emergency earlier in the game especially with one of the suit tarot cards or strenght (you dont even make a new planet card available in the shop). Another advantage is that you can pick them up if you play straight or flush depending on what other planet cards are in the shop. It happened to me quite a few times that i accidentally played one, when i went for straights or flushes (it,s great scaling makes this possible even in the later antes). And what i find to be it's best advantage is its suit. Equal to flushes and flush fives does the straight flush trigger suit effects like bloodstone. It does come with higher deck managing, but even in this aspect it does better than flush fives and flush houses as you have 4-7 (four fingers) cards instead of 1-2. If you're building straigh's why not just pick up 2-3 neptunes and 2-3 sun cards for it to be available as an option. But i do agree it to be hard to specifically play around a straight flush build (I take it as a available option which just makes this hand more versatile for me).

So what’s the point of playing the game unless you’re going for high card, tier lists kind of ruin games for me as the other hands now seem useless after watching this, and you obviously know what you’re talking about.

I don't think there's really a reason to play full house over 3oak. It's better with pants and flower pot, and it scales 1.2x quicker in chips? 3oak is easier to draw, leaves more cards in hand and basically activates all the same jokers. I'm curious to hear if I'm forgetting anything.

I will not take this full house slander

3 of a kind works with half joker and that’s not nothing

flush deserved better

I think two pair should be C and 3oak should be D

Imo planet X is just too easy to win with while flush five is nice you pretty much need a death often or some sort of copier while planet X can be achieved much easier and is normally enough to win on its own and the cards below can easily be strengthed up more consistently. You also don't have to worry much about all the cards getting cancelled out by a random suit boss.

Three of a kind is better than you think. +2 mult for a 3 card hand is pretty good and easy to get reliably. A few planet levels in that and an x mult and you have a solid run going. Since you are only aiming for a 3 card hand, it even works somewhat well with Stuntman. The only hand I can never seem to get to work is Full house(which I agree is bottom tier).

D for neptune Sadge

Flush house enjoyers need to be studied in a lab

So everything I thought I knew about the game is wrong lool

Flushes are mathematically proven to be the best hand in this game, so them not being #1 makes no sense.