I’ve been quietly going on a journey for a while. It’s taken my attention away from more meaningful things – though, it’s not as if I have the high energy to fully commit to other pursuits like I used to, anyway. It’s a journey that I’d like to ramble about, because if you spend more than 300 total hours on something, you might as well make some Content(TM) out of it.

Let’s talk about my path to 100%ing Balatro, and what I think about it now.

localthunk’s Balatro was my favorite game of 2024. It combined the joys of deckbuilding roguelike with the game of poker, making for an addicting experience anyone can grasp onto. I wanted it to win the Game Awards that gamers jack off to to cause Gamer 9/11, because I’m of the opinion that most gamers are fucking boring people. That opinion honestly hasn’t changed at all. Wow yeah, spend $100 on a digital only copy of a game that’s just yet another Rockstar game but with even more unnecessary realism that doesn’t fundamentally change anything. You must be so proud of yourselves.

I played my Steam copy of Balatro until I hit 50% completion. There were plenty of other things in the world to focus on, like other games and my own works. I was just so drawn in by Balatro, and I needed to pump the breaks. But why was I so drawn in by Balatro? Was it my love of gambling aesthetics? Maybe. Was it the addicting gameplay? Well, yes, but there are plenty of games that felt addicting to play, yet I wasn’t quite able to take a swing at other games again and again…

Then late in 2024, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I tried to work, but my body eventually failed me and I’ve been on disability leave ever since. It’s extremely unlikely that I’ll be able to properly go back to my old job, or any standard job.

And looking back, I realize why Balatro pulled me in so well. I was getting hit by early MS symptoms through 2024 that actively made it difficult for me to play things that called for active and careful movement, like Diorama Dungeoncrawl in hindsight. But I gel with slower stuff just fine because it’s stuff that I can take at my own pace. Balatro is a game that I can take at my own pace, and combined with the addicting elements to it, it easily melded to me.

In early 2025, I got Balatro on the phone and it was a comfort game I played whenever I went out to my appointments. It was familiar and welcoming and I played it a lot. I got close to gold staking all of the decks. However, as I settled into my new normal, I took a look back at my Steam copy of Balatro…

If I was going to be playing Balatro again, why not return to my old stomping grounds entirely? And hell… why not aim for higher? Why stop at 50% completion?

And so began my manic tear of 100%ing Balatro. In 2025, Balatro pretty much eclipsed everything else I played on Steam. It was a low energy comfort game, and with life being how it was, it called me over everything else.

When it came to gold staking the decks, my main strategy was resetting until I got a skip tag that’d give me a foil or holographic Joker. No matter what it was, it’d give me a crutch to survive the first several blinds more easily – especially that dang Black Deck. I think it’s unfair that the Jokers you skip for can get stuck with perishable or rental modifier, but it is what it is.

When it comes to actually playing Balatro, I did work to cut cards from the deck, maybe transform cards so that I could inch toward playing five-of-a-kinds. I originally only added cards to the deck if I had Hologram, the eternally useful Joker that gets buffed everytime you add cards, but I realized that it’d be handy to add cards that have blue seals attached since they’d help your most played hands grow stronger. When it came to Jokers, I usually let the first few that come along guide the direction of things, especially the buffed Jokers I skipped the early blinds for.

But when Photochad comes along, I’m pivoting hard. If you don’t know, Photochad is the combination of the Hanging Chad and Photograph Jokers. Hanging Chad plays the first card in a hand multiple times, and Portrait multiplies the first played face card in a hand – and if a face card is made the first played card in general, that’s just perfect. Even a mere High Card becomes your ticket to greatness, especially if that face card is a glass card. Add the Blueprint and/or Brainstorm yuri to the mess and you’ll be riding high into the post-game. The fact that Hanging Chad and Photograph are common jokers too makes it really easy to fall into the irresistible allure of Photochad.

It’s actually nuts how good Photochad is, given that it only sucks up two Joker slots. On one hand it can be somewhat boring, but on the other hand, please never rebalance Photochad, localthunk. It makes for the ideal companion for Balatro’s bigger challenge: getting a gold sticker on all the Jokers.

One of the big things to achieve in 100%ing Balatro is to get a gold sticker on every Joker. Finishing a run on any deck on the gold stake difficulty nets gold stickers on every Joker you beat the final boss with. It initially seems easy, but you have to remember: there are 150 Jokers, and a good chunk of them suck ass for the endgame. Sure Clever Joker, I’ll take you and your measily 80 extra chips for playing a two pair into the endgame. No, I’m definitely not furiously spamming Wheel of Fortune tarot cards to keep you viable.

At first, I hoped to just stumble into a good run for the endgame, then cut out all the useless Jokers in the final ante and try to buy up Jokers without stickers to take into the final fight. The new additions might not be of much help, especially against the bastard Violet Vessel, but it seemed the ideal way to play. But then I thought… how can I keep those useless Jokers from being useless?

My first big strategy with getting gold stickers was playing Anaglyph Deck. Finishing a boss blind gives you an extra skip tag, which doubles up on the rewards you get when you skip a blind, or more if you have a bunch of tags stored up. The big strategy was to store those tags for when a negative Joker is a skip reward, which nets multiple negative Jokers that won’t affect your main setup. Some players complain about negatives being applied to useless Jokers… but if those Jokers happen to need gold stickers, that’s just free real estate. I had a good game on the phone once where I got multiple uncommon negatives, and combined with Baseball Card, heaven was mine.

Eventually though, farming negatives with the Anaglyph Deck wasn’t enough. I ended up getting a huge chunk of stickers through this method, but it eventually turned to hoping that an unfinished Joker spawned to become negative. I needed to start actively hunting for things…

So, the next deck of choice was the Ghost Deck. Ghost Deck starts you out with the Hex spectral card that makes a Joker polychrome, which immediately makes any Joker a valuable mulitiplier multiplier. I skipped for uncommon and rare Jokers to look for ones that I haven’t completed yet, checked the Joker packs for commons that haven’t had a sticker yet, and played on. The greater availability of Specter cards makes it easier to fix the deck, enabling me to go for higher scoring four-of -a-kind or five-of-a-kinds to make winning easier. Getting Photochad mixed in with that nonsense? Even better.

But of course, you don’t need to make those Jokers special if you got a solid way to play. Getting nutty pair build can be good, but if you have an easier way of getting flushes, that’s also just as good. So while I mainly switched to Ghost Deck, I dabble in Checkered Deck too. Hard to say no to easy flushes.

At time of writing, the only Jokers I don’t have a gold sticker on is Devious, Pareidolia, Steel, DNA, Mime, Baron, Glass, Showman and Invisible. I’m honestly surprised I didn’t get the Mime/Baron yaoi stickers yet, since they’re the thing that can truly rival Photochad from what I hear about. Steel and Glass are unique Jokers in that they only really show up if you have cards enhanced to be steel or glass, so it’s no surprise they aren’t as readily findable. In general, I’m sure DNA would be a great help to all these Jokers, I just haven’t a dream run that successfully got off the ground with any of these, even with Hex helping on Ghost Deck runs (no fucking thanks to the deck drawing a flush house in the above screenshot instead of a regular one!).

I’ve just been plain unlucky with getting the other Jokers. And for Showman specifically, I actually kinda hate that Joker. Sorry, the chances of that ever giving me a copy of something I’d actually need has been low. I’m more likely to get a Legendary Joker than to get something good from Showman.

And of course, Balatro has its own set of challenges outside of the usual deck playing. You start out with fixed Jokers and occasional unique rules to push you toward playing in certain ways. 15 Minute City challenges and encourages you to play with straights with Shortcut, while actively discouraging you from playing face cards. I remember really liking Non-Perishable, which made all Jokers eternal so you’re pushed to really think about what you should be playing with in advance.

The most important challenge in Balatro is the final one – Jokerless – where you must win a run without having Jokers. It initially seems daunting… but to me, I see it as a challenge of your ability to fix the deck. You may not have Jokers, but you have greater access to card packs and tarot packs. When I played, I fixated on pivoting the deck to be a five-of-a-kind engine and getting blue seals to make that hand stronger. It took a bunch of resets, but I made it through, and it felt accomplishing. It feels like the game’s taking you by the shoulders and saying “hey, if you can do this, you can 100% the game just fine.”

(The Golden Needle challenge was also kinda this because it only really felt possible if you could scourge up four-of-a-kinds/five-of-a-kinds/etc, but I’ll be honest, I just lucked into a holographic Hologram in the first ante and rode that to victory. Jokerless is flirting, Golden Needle was sexual harassment.)

When will I actually 100% Balatro? I can’t say. After all, I have been saying that Balatro is a comfort game for me. But as I’ve been writing this, I started thinking: is it truly comfort if you put all of yourself into something? Have I just been replacing the mindset I had with my old day job with Balatro? I can’t even consider this as a job, it’s not as if I’m even a streamer or anything…

Maybe I hard focused on 100%ing Balatro because it’d be an accomplishment that’d be easy to do with my disability. I have personal work that makes me feel accomplished and I’ve been poking at something new, but after a few hours of work, my body crashes out and I need to lay down. I do have a Steam Deck which is my primary way of playing things for Indie Hell Zone, but rather than play something I’m covering, I wind up playing Balatro…

…

Balatro is a good game. But I can’t deny I’ve realized it’s unhealthy for me. In the end, a fake casino is still a casino, and I’ve been trapped in it. I’ve seen cool mods like a multiplayer mod, but after I 100% Balatro, I’m done with the game. I’ll achieve that one final high then delete Balatro from the Steam Deck and my phone. There’s a lot of things to do in the world, and while MS fatigue certainly gets in the way, I should be dedicating what little energy I can muster nowadays to new things. I need to step out of Jimbo’s casino and find healthier ways of adjusting to my new normal.