I've been trying to hit the end difficulties in Balatro with the Nebula Deck. It's a fun deck that can make for very feast-or-famine runs depending on how you handle its bonuses. Because of that, it can also be extremely difficult to beat the higher Stake difficulties with it. I was stuck on Purple Stake for quite a long time, but today gave me a composition that let me absolutely breeze it in short order. The seed for this run was AQDZUQJK if you want to try it yourself.
The bonus features of the Nebula Deck are that you get 3 consumable item slots and two Fool Tarot cards to start the round. Using those Fools effectively is the part that makes this deck hard to use effectively. They copy the most recent Tarot or Planet card you used. My favorite things to do with them are use them on a Suit Tarot to convert up to 9 cards in my deck to a suit, or using the Strength Tarot to turn six cards into the value I want. I also like using them on High Priestess to get a run of 6 Planet Cards or Judgement to get some easy early Jokers.
For this run, I used the Fool Tarots in a way I don't usually go with: on the Hermit tarot. One of Nebula's big issues at high difficulties is keeping money, so getting wins in fewest hands is key. I won't continue a run if I can't get the $3 on Small Blind to give me $7 to really start the game, and I ended up getting Hermit out of the card shop. That let me use my Fools to double my money three times, putting me at $32. I was also able to use the Immolate in the Spectral Pack to get $20 and land at around $48 after buying a Celestial Pack as well. Money was no longer an issue, so getting wins in fewest hands became less of a concern. Now, we could cook.
Jokers
There are several key Jokers I was able to get early in this run that made it easy for me to snowball through the rest of it. You'll see above I picked up Baseball Card early. That card is useless by itself, but it multiplies your multiplier by x1.5 for every Uncommon tier Joker you have in your deck. That set me on a Joker hunt with all the money I had. Luck of luck, I was able to get Fortune Teller (Common, but good) and Flash Card early in the game as well. Fortune Teller grows a multiplier to apply to your hands by +2 for every Tarot card used. Flash Card grows a multiplier for your hands by +2 for every time you reroll in the shop. Flash Card is also Uncommon, so we got our x1.5 multiplier from Baseball Card into play early.
With Fortune Teller and Flash Card in my arsenal, and a ton of money from the earlier Hermits, I was able to grow my multiplier round by round, buying Tarot cards and running rerolls until my money was down to around $25 so I could get the extra Interest money per round ($1 for every $5 to a max of $5 when you finish a round). I used the Tarots to convert as many of my cards to club and diamond suit, and Strength Tarot to convert as many cards into face cards as I could so I could start playing flushes, full houses, and the occasional Flush House (a full house where all five cards are the same suit). However, another couple major pickups early in the run solidified my victory.
I found a Lucky Cat Foil Joker in around Ante 2 or 3 of this run. It's an Uncommon Joker, which means more x1.5 bonuses from Baseball Card, plus getting a +50 chip bonus per hand for the Foil quality. However, the real magic is in what Lucky Cat does. It gains a times-multipler, starting at x1 and increasing by 0.25 for every time a Lucky Card activates in the run. Those are the gold leaf tinted cards that Magician Tarot can make that have a 1 in 5 chance of adding a +20 multiplier to your hand and a 1 in 15 chance of giving you $20 when the card is played. Normally, those bonuses can be stressful to hit, but then I got the Oops! All 6's Joker that increases luck-based probabilities of hitting. 1 in 5 became 2 in 5 and 1 in 15 became 2 in 15. It's also Uncommon, so Baseball Card got another x1.5 bonus, but it was Lucky Cat that was ready to slay.
Between Fortune Teller and Flash Card giving me bonuses per round with my spending on Tarot and Rerolls, the Uncommon Jokers feeding into Baseball Card, and Lucky Cat growing its times-multiplier as I grew my number of Lucky Cards and played them frequently (with help from Oops! All 6's to increase their probability of hitting), it became much less important what hand I played. Still, I converted most of my deck to clubs and diamonds and powered up full houses, flushes, and flush houses with Planet cards where applicable. I was able to use the Wheel of Fortune Tarot successfully with the boost form Oops! All 6's as well, adding more bonuses to my cards with Foil (plus chips) and Holographic (plus multiplier) qualities. I eventually got Castle late in the game, which is another Uncommon for Baseball Card to work with and gained permanent bonus chips when I discarded a certain suit.
This deck worked incredibly well because most of it snowballs in a way you can control, and nearly all of the things you'd do normally feed into it. By the end of the game, I got Lucky Cat to a x6.5 multiplier. On one hand, when all of my bonuses were settled, I achieved 2,704,660 chips in one hand, which is my best so far at high difficulties. There are some tight spots at the beginning where you have to discard carefully because you're not using Baseball Card yet, but once Fortune Teller and Flash Card come along, the run becomes a breeze. And later, you'll be able to stack your multiplier as high as 5,000+. That's what we like to call big damage.
To summarize, here's what you need to do:
- Win the first round with a Full House
- Buy Baseball Card from the Joker Booster Pack
- Buy the Hermit and use the two Fools to double your money in the next round
- Be on the look out for Fortune Teller, Flash Card, Lucky Cat, and Oops! All 6's in early booster packs (they will appear in the order listed)
- Convert suits to club/diamond (optional, spade might be better than club here)
- Use Magician Tarot to create Lucky Card every time you see them
- Use Wheel of Fortune Tarot if it's available and Magician isn't
- Be on the lookout for Spectral cards that add extra Joker slots
- Profit
If you play it like I did, Jokers should end up as:
- Baseball Card (Uncommon Joker multiplier)
- Fortune Teller (Growing Tarot use multiplier)
- Flash Card (Growing Reroll use multiplier)
- Lucky Cat (Growing Lucky Card use multiplier)
- Oops! All 6's (probability improvement)
- Arrowhead (spades chip bonus)
- Castle (Growing chip bonus per specfic discard)
Was really proud of this overall run. I know I can do better, but at this high of difficulty (Again, Purple Stake) after so long, I was really happy to see how this one played out. Any good runs on y'alls end? Tell me about it.
