Balatro: How To Unlock The Plasma Deck

Want to earn even more chips in Balatro without even trying? You’re going to need the Plasma Deck. This unique deck multiplies your score, effectively squaring the number of points you earn for a hand. Unfortunately, it isn’t unlocked automatically so you’re going to have to complete at least one run on higher difficulty to earn the Plasma Deck for yourself. Learn more about the wild Plasma Deck and how to get it in the full guide below.

Learn how to cheat (with mods) on PC or how to win your first full run in Balatro with more guides on Gameranx.

What Is The Plasma Deck?

The Plasma Deck is an odd deck that changes how hands are scored. Essentially, you’ll earn many, many more points per hand. All Blinds are doubled when using this deck.

• The Plasma Deck: Balance Chips and Mult when calculating score for played hand. x2 Base Blind Size.

The Plasma Deck has two special effects that the description doesn’t fully explain — it doubles the base Blind on all challenges, and it balances chips / multiplier when calculating hand score. If the chip number is higher than the multiplier, both numbers will shift to something in between — which ends up generating a much, much higher chip score for each hand.

Here’s how calculating a hand works when using the Plasma Deck.

F

• A Level 1 Straight is scored with 30 Chips x 4 Multiplier.
• Normally, this would give 120 Chips.

With the Plasma Deck, the calculations change drastically.

• With the Plasma Deck, a Level 1 Straight is calculated like this:
• 30 + 4 = 34
• 34 / 2 = 17
• 17 x 17 = 289

Because Chips are so much higher than Mult, usually you’ll basically (almost always) have a higher Mult than Chips, exponentially increasing your hand score. That’s why Blinds are doubled. Even with the double Blind, you’ll earn far, far more score with this deck.

Y

How To Unlock The Plasma Deck

The Plasma Deck is not unlocked by default. To unlock, you’ll need to complete a run on Blue Stake difficulty.

• To unlock the Plasma Deck, you’ll need to complete a run on Blue Stake difficulty.
• Blue Stake difficulty is the fifth difficulty level — to unlock it, you must complete the following stakes (difficulties):
  • 1. White Stake: Base Difficulty
  • 2. Red Stake: Small Blind gives no reward money.
  • 3. Green Stake: Required score scales faster with each ante.
  • 4. Black Stake: 30% chance Jokers in shops and booster packs have an Eternal sticker.
  • 5. Blue Stake: -1 Discard

To earn the Plasma Deck, you’ll have to complete five runs on each Stake. Stakes are unique to each deck, so you’ll have to use the same deck. I recommend using the Red Deck as it gives +1 Discard which nullifies the Blue Stake difficulty… when you reach it. The other difficulties aren’t too bad, only the Green Stake difficulty is noticeably more difficult with blinds increasing much faster (and to higher numbers) than normal.