martTM

Eh, it's a life.

San Andreas, I barely scratched the surface of because I got into a vicious loop of 'go to gym, get lean > deliver drugs on a bike > eat fast food, get fat > sleep' and never went anywhere. I've got the trilogy on Switch, maybe I'll give it another try.

What in the unholy hell is that.

No I've come across those, but as far as I can tell they generally only affect one card at a time? So you might play a whole ante plus boss, and as a reward you delete the 7 of Diamonds. The pace just seems glacial.

I guess it depends on your drop rate for Arcane Packs, and other factors. The bigger one, you can pick two cards, not just one. There's a token you can buy which adds Tarot to the shop area more regularly. Suit-changing Tarot affect up to three cards, not just one. You can also get rarer Spectral card packs that can affect things more drastically, like changing all the displayed cards into one random suit (lower odds of getting what you want than being able to choose the suit, but more cards affected). It's about spending cash on what you want to do… as long as you can earn the money, you can do it. You can also skip blinds to get tags, which can help too.

Thing is, it's a circle… you have to play to unlock more options, but you can't have more options if you don't play with the limited ones first. Gotta suffer pain to get the pleasure.

tl;dr - Balatro is very much about making a move early and sticking to it. If you dither and leave it too late, your deck ends up being too general to hit big scores quickly. You need to have a plan in the works by the third ante, really.