Which New Poker Game is Taking the Gaming World By Storm?

When the PokerNews team heard about a new game being advertised as a ‘poker, rogue-lite’ experience, our curiosity was raised. And since its initial announcement, Balatro has already captured many players’ attention, with its PC demo attracting over 100,000 downloads with millions of hours played in the span of a few days.

Following raving reviews, Balatro not only piqued our curiosity, it now had our full-focused attention (resulting in quite a few lost working hours). The initial buzz has led to an expanded release, rolling out across fan-favorite platforms like PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, Playstation, and Xbox for the accessible price of $14,99.

But is the game worthy of the hype? Believe us, as poker purists, we were skeptical as well going it. But after putting in a few hours, the team can say that there is a lot to like here for both poker fans and casuals alike. The game appeals to a wide array of players, all challenged to figure out how to best play a series of poker hands with unique twists.

Don’t let the retro look fool you: Balatro offers a challenging, new twist on the poker genre, and offers the potential to be a hit among both poker veterans and new players alike. LocalThunk and Playstack, the brains and publisher behind Balatro respectively, might just have a new poker-themed sensation on their hands.

What is Balatro?

Balatro is a poker-inspired rogue-lite deck builder all about creating powerful synergies and winning big. To progress in the game, you need to play valid poker hands, boosted by unique Joker cards to create varied synergies and builds. Earn enough chips to beat devious blinds and bosses, all while uncovering hidden bonus hands and decks as you progress.

You’re going to need every edge you can get to reach the boss blind, beat the final ante, and secure victory. Blinds offer modestly challenging roadblocks along the way, and can be skipped if one desires to go straight to the boss instead (which we don’t recommend, for what it’s worth).

How to Play Balatro

Merging the timeless charm of poker with strategic deck-building elements, Balatro promises an engaging gameplay experience that is both nostalgically familiar and refreshingly new. The strategic twist of joker cards in the game adds an unexpected layer of excitement, broadening its appeal to a diverse range players.

Besides Jokers, the players have an array of potent tools at its disposal, such as different decks that give modifiers to the amount of hands that can be played, cards that can be discarded, and so on. Tarot Cards, Planet Cards, Spectral Cards, and Vouchers offer versatile instruments to ignite a combo frenzy and turbocharge your poker hands, crafting electrifying, adrenaline-fueled synergies.

While you start with a traditional, 52-card poker deck, here’s what you can pick up along the way to make a run at the bosses.

• 150 Jokers, each with their own unique abilities
• 15 Decks, with distinct modifiers to choose from for each run
• 5 potential variants of each Joker, which add more abilities
• 22 Tarot Cards, variants that can enhance your regular playing cards
• 12 Planet Cards, that help level up your possible poker hands
• 18 Spectral Cards
• 4 Seals
• 32 Voucher cards to help provide permanent buffs for your current run

How Do You Win in Balatro?

Unless you come equipped with Daniel Negreanu-like poker talent, it might be hard to go all the way on a first run. Luckily, and true to the rogue-lite genre, you’ll unlock several needed items during the first runs that allow you to get a true high score in the game.

The following options are presented to the player along the way:

• Deck Choice – You can win trophies for winning with each deck type, but we recommended playing each deck type in separate games for trophies. PokerNews recommends starting with the blue or red deck (an extra hand or discard, respectively), but don’t underestimate the green deck.
• Tags – You can skip the blinds for tags if you do so desire.
• Jokers – Crucial to the game and getting high scores. Look out for high multipliers and build your deck around it.
• Celestial Cards – You may be tempted to use these for higher-type hands.
• Playing Cards – It’s fun messing around with your deck, but the variance of the booster packs might not give you what you’re looking for.
• Vouchers – Vouchers can be expensive and will drain your money, however, some like the Grabber offer great advantages.

To reach high scores in Balatro, you’ll need to incorporate all of the above in different ways to succeed in a run, but the randomization means things will likely never be perfect.

Balatro: Honest Verdict

Fair warning up front: this game will get you hooked in no time. At first glance, stringing a bunch of poker hands together might look easy enough, but the game offers surprising depth; defeating all eight bosses along the way in a single run is a daunting challenge. In fact, despite sinking a few hours into it already, the authors haven’t successfully completed a single run yet.

The bosses especially put you up for a fight, debuffing various decks in your deck to leave your well-crafted pack of cards without its key elements. Or, they’ll cause some of your cards to be face-down, forcing you to make an educated guess (or a gamble) about the contents of your hand. There’s even a boss that limits the number of hands you can play to just one, forcing you to find the perfect combination in your deck to slay it.

Long story short: over the years, many publishers have tried (such as in Red Dead Redemption 2) to bring poker with gaming elements together. Could Balatro have found the right recipe for success? As poker fans, we believe there’s a lot to like here and appreciate how traditional poker-playing elements have been packed into a rogue-like survival experience.

The game offers a surprising amount of depth and no two games, nor paths to success, are the same. While it might be impossible to capture the excitement of a real game of poker, the game is certainly worth the price of admission and offers a fun, poker-lite experience for a wide audience.

What are your thoughts? Let us know what you think in the poll below.

Balatro Poll

Balatro Gameplay

PokerNews streamer Keith “AccidentalGrenade” Becker is one of the many who tried his hand at the game, and recorded his first experience with the game below. Watch his run below to get an idea of what it’s like to play a game of Balatro.

Balatro Discord

The best way to get customer support is through the discord channel. You can join the Balatro Official Discord Server here.

Balatro Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Disclaimer

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Senior Content Manager

A former professional poker player with a background in sports marketing and journalism. Yori has been a part of PokerNews since 2016 and manages the content team.

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