Balatro Joker Tier List: Best Jokers to Use

Balatro is a poker roguelike game that makes use of special cards called Jokers to help you score points and win a run easily. With so many modifiers available, though, it can be hard to pinpoint the best ones to use. With that in mind, we’ve put together a Joker tier list for Balatro, along with our take on the best Jokers in the game.

Best Jokers in Balatro

First, a disclaimer: most of the Jokers in Balatro are perfectly playable. And because this is a roguelike game, you’re bound to find some unique combination of five or six Jokers that will create some sort of broken synergy that completely works for you. With a total of 150 Jokers in the game, it’s difficult to point to any one card and say that’s the best in the game, but from our experience, here’s our tier list based on what we’ve found really worked across multiple runs:

Each of these Jokers serve a different purpose in your runs. Generally speaking, you’ll want cards that give you Chips, give you a flat Mult, and give you a Mult multiplier. All of the Jokers listed above will assist with one of these three functions, and some of them even have solid synergy with one another.

Chips

Let’s go over the Chip Jokers first. These are cards that will add blue Chips to your score before getting multiplied by your Mults. It might be tempting to go all-in on Mults in Balatro, but don’t underestimate Chips. You need a good balance of both if you want to go far.

• Banner (Common): +40 Chips for every remaining discard.
• Ice Cream (Common): Starts at +100 Chips but loses 5 Chips for every hand played.
• Blue Joker (Common): +2 Chips for each remaining card in your deck.
• Bull (Common): +2 Chips for each dollar you have.
• Castle (Uncommon): This Joker gains +3 Chips per discarded card from a random suit. The suit changes every round.

Ice Cream is a very solid card with a guaranteed 100 Chips when you first get it. Its value will fall off if you get it early on, but it can be a huge lifesaver if you get it in the mid or late-game Blinds. Conversely, Castle is a card that you want very early on, as the Chip amount accumulates for every card you discard. There’s a bit of anti-synergy here with Banner, but if you’re able to balance your discards with each hand, both can work very well together.

Finally, both Bull and Blue Joker are among some of the best Chip cards you can get in Balatro. These scale very well, especially in the late game when you have more money to spare. The Blue Joker also works especially well for decks that like adding playing cards.

Flat Mult

Next, let’s talk about the Mult cards. These Jokers will give you a flat Mult number if you meet the required conditions, and will likely be the baseline of your Joker engine in your early runs.

• Jolly Joker (Common): +8 Mult if played hand contains a Pair.
• Mystic Summit (Common): +15 Mult when 0 discards remaining.
• Raised Fist (Common): Adds double the rank of lowest card in hand to Mult.
• Supernova (Common): Adds the number of times poker hand has been played to Mult.

We’ll be the first to admit that Mystic Summit has some anti-synergy with Banner if you’re looking to run that, but it’s hard to say no to +15 Mult, which is insane value. Again, it’s about striking a balance between the two. Take advantage of the Banner Chips in your first few hands, and as you use up your discards, Mystic Summit helps make up for the Chip loss with its Mult.

Jolly Joker and Supernova are two cards I absolutely love playing together in Balatro. The beauty of Jolly Joker is that while its description only specifies a Pair, its bonus is applied to Two Pair, Three of a Kind, and Four of a Kind as well. As long as you have a pair of matching cards in your hand, that counts towards the Jolly Joker Bonus. This feeds into Supernova, as you’ll tend to play Pairs more than anything else, and that can really add up to your Mult count.

Finally, Raised Fist is a solid card that just works in every run of Balatro. Chances are good that you’ll want to keep playing Aces and face cards, but it’s very easy to get rid of your lower value cards in hand and make sure Raised Fist hits a high number by the time you make your play.

Mult Multipliers

Last, but certainly not least, the Mult multiplier cards are the final piece in the puzzle for your Joker runs. These cards will multiply your existing Mults to create some seriously nutty numbers.

• Cavendish (Common): x3 Mult, but 1 in 1,000 chance this card is destroyed at the end of round.
• Card Sharp (Uncommon): x3 Mult if played poker hand has already been played this round.
• Hologram (Uncommon): Gains x0.25 Mult per playing card added to your deck.
• Ancient Joker (Rare): x1.5 Mult for each card played of a specific suit. The suit changes at the end of each round.
• The Duo (Rare): x2 Mult when the hand contains a Pair.

Cavendish is easily the best in the bunch, though it requires you to purchase and Gros Michel and have it destroyed first. The 1 in 1,000 chance is a joke, and is pretty much just a guaranteed x3 every time. Hologram is another great pick if your deck likes getting cards added to it, and it also synergizes well with Blue Joker.

Card Sharp and The Duo are fantastic, especially if you start leaning into the Pair strategy with Jolly Joker and Supernova. The Duo works similarly to Jolly Joker, where the bonus gets counted even with Two Pair, Three of a Kind, and Four of a Kind. By leaning into this play style, it’ll be very easy to trigger Card Sharp as well, which gives you an additional x3 Mult.

Finally, Ancient Joker is another very easy one to trigger. While you do have to keep an eye on the suit each round, having an easy x1.5 Mult even if it only triggers once can be very helpful.

And that does it for our Balatro Joker tier list and the best Jokers to use for each run. Be sure to search up The Escapist for more tips and information on the game, including information on all Tags and all decks.