Balatro may only start you out with a single deck, but as you play through the game’s various challenges, more will become available to you. In total, there are a whopping 15 decks to choose from, and you better believe they are all different. Naturally, not all decks are created equal, however.
You can beat Balatro with every deck if you know what you are doing (and if luck is on your side). That being said, bringing the big guns can help you climb the antes, earn bigger Stakes, and complete your collection. In this guide, we are going to rank them all, from worst to best.
More Balatro content:
Deck Unlock Guide | Planet Card Guide | Tarot Card Guide | Spectral Card Guide | Legendary Joker Guide | Modifier Guide | Blank Voucher Guide | Best Legendary Jokers | Tag Guide | How To Unlock Cavendish
15. Painted Deck
The Painted Deck isn’t bad. None of the decks in Balatro are. It is, however, one of the worst. The painted deck reduces your maximum Joker size by 1 in exchange for +2 to your hand size. Larger hands allow you to play more complex turns, however, fewer Jokers limit your upper score threshold. Jokers are incredibly powerful and being down a slot all game is too rich for our blood.
14. Yellow Deck
The Yellow Deck is all about the money, sadly, it’s not that great at providing the money. You simply start with $10 in your pocket, and that’s all well and good for generating early interest or buying a powerful Joker in your first shop. This is ultimately a temporary benefit that gets overshadowed by most other decks after a couple of rounds. If you can get off to a good start, it’s fine, otherwise, you might struggle.
13. Zodiac Deck
We are not fans of the Zodiac Deck. This deck makes it much harder to get Jokers because your shop is filled to the brim with Planets and Tarot cards. This makes your early game much more difficult as you might never get the tools to overcome the early Antes. On the plus side, Tarot and Planet cards are powerful in their own right, so if you can survive the early game, you can forge a very unique run. Oh, and Constellation and Fortune Teller work very well with this deck.
12. Green Deck
The Green Deck is a more complex version of the Yellow Deck. Like that deck, the Green Deck is all about making money and then converting that money into power. This deck rewards you heavily for winning early without using discards, but in return, you get no interest between rounds. With the right Jokers, you can blaze a trail through Balatro with the Green Deck as money is power. However, without the right setup, you might hit a roadblock earlier than you might expect.
11. Magic Deck
The Magic Deck starts you off with the wonderful Crystal Ball Voucher in addition to 2 Fool Tarot cards. This deck relies on you making the most out of those Fool cards. You want to find a powerful Tarot card early and use it three times to gain huge gains. This could be copious amounts of money through Hermit and Temperance, deck manipulation with Magician, Chariot, or Empress, or hand buffing through Planets and Suit modifiers. If you don’t get the right cards, you are playing a deck that has no benefits, forcing you to rely on raw skill and luck, and not your deck’s benefits.
10. Nebula Deck
The Nebula Deck is interesting because it allows you to force the game to give you the right Planet cards to boost your deck’s efficiency thanks to Telescope. However, the trade-off is -1 consumable slots. Our biggest issue is that this deck always feels a little bit bland and the benefit is rather slow. Early on you are more likely to play a variety of hands, and this messes with Telescope something rotten, slowing your roll.
9. Black Deck
Black Deck is really hard to use because it gives you nothing. Kind of. You lose a hand for the duration of the run giving you less time to defeat every Blind. In return, you gain +1 Joker slot…which does nothing early on. The Black Deck is all about late-game power – you just have to make it that far, which is easier said than done.
8. Red Deck
When you boot up Balatro you start with the Red Deck, and it’s pretty darn good. Like a lot of the ‘coloured’ decks, it is not massively exciting, but it is consistently good. +1 discard for the duration of your run is very powerful as it lets you more effectively craft the perfect hand after a series of dead draws. It also combos well with a bunch of Jokers, such as Mystic Summit, which is a pretty powerful early-game Joker. The perfect deck to cut your teeth on.
7. Blue Deck
The Blue Deck is the opposite of the Red Deck and it’s just as universally good. The Blue Deck grants you +1 Hand for the duration of your run, and this is just excellent across the board. You will gain more money in Interest, you will have more time to overcome Blinds, and frankly, you will never be disappointed with the Blue Deck. Solid all-round pick.
6. Anaglyph Deck
We are a sucker for the Anaglyph Deck. This thing grants you a Double Tag after every Boss Blind you defeat. Double Tags duplicate the next Tag you get that isn’t a Double Tag. We have a whole guide on Tags, which we recommend you check out. In short, Tags can be used to gain huge amounts of power very quickly by skipping Blinds. Stockpiling a few Double Tags in the early game exponentially increases the benefits of skipping whilst also giving you ungodly amounts of power. If the game never gives you a good Tag, however, Anaglyph will fall very, very flat. It’s a fun risk that we can’t help but take, however.
5. Ghost Deck
The Ghost Deck offers a lot of powerful effects. Firstly, you can now find Spectral cards in the Shop. These are some of the most powerful cards in the game, and now you get to use them far more often – awesome. Secondly, you start with Hex – a Spectral card that grants Polychrome to a single Joker (and destroys all other Jokers). Early on, this grants you free access to multiplicative Mult, giving you a great start to almost all your runs. Fantastic deck.
4. Abandoned Deck
The Abandoned Deck is all about numbered cards and slim decks. This deck only has 40 cards and comes with no Face cards. This lets you mess around with Jokers like Walkie Talkie, Hack, and the like more effectively, whilst also playing powerful hands like Four Of A Kind more reliably. You do lose out on some Jokers that interact with Face cards, but that’s a small price to place for a deck this tight.
3. Checkered Deck
The Checkered Deck is all about Flushes and is easily one of the easiest decks to win with on most Stakes. This deck ONLY has Spades and Hearts, meaning you are making a Flush almost every single hand. Flushes will fall off eventually if you aren’t buffing them with Planet cards and powerful Jokers, but this deck is perfectly suited to a chill run that doesn’t require much to beat Ante 8.
2. Erratic Deck
Erratic Deck will likely be the last deck you unlock, and it’s one heck of a deck. This is the deck that adds complete chaos to Balatro as every card in your starting deck is random. This can absolutely backfire if you get a bad set of cards, but for the most part, you are getting a deck that is already leaning towards a certain build, and you just have to refine it to its perfect form. This is the most complex deck to fully grasp, but it’s also the one with the most replayability.
1. Plasma Deck
The Plasma Deck is the most powerful in the game. This deck technically makes the game harder as all Blinds have a high score threshold. This is offset by its ability to split your Chips and Mult evenly for ludicrous scores early on. Buy Jokers with big numbers and steamroll the game. It’s hard to unlock, but it’s well worth the effort for a noticeable change of pace.
That’s all we have on Balatro for now. Be sure to check out our other guides for more tips and tricks.
