Balatro Joker Tier List: Ranking Every Card That Actually Matters

Balatro has 150 Jokers. Some of them will carry you through Ante 8 while you eat a sandwich with your free hand. Some of them will sit in your Joker slot doing nothing useful while you lose to a Boss Blind you should have beaten. The difference between the two categories is what this tier list is about.

These rankings are built for Gold Stake clears — beating Ante 8 at the highest base difficulty. Endless Mode scaling is a different conversation where economy Jokers matter more and everything eventually breaks. We're not ranking for Endless. We're ranking for "did you win the run."

A quick note on Joker rarity: Commons show up 70% of the time in shops, Uncommons 25%, Rares 5%, and Legendaries only appear from the Soul Spectral card (1-in-5 chance when you get one). You'll see a lot more Cavendish than Perkeo. That's the game working as intended — the S-tier Rare and Legendary Jokers are designed to feel like finding a winning lottery ticket. The S-tier Commons are designed to feel like the game handing you a loaded weapon.

With 150 cards to evaluate, we're focusing on the ones that actually shape runs. Every S and A-tier Joker gets individual commentary. B-tier gets briefer treatment. C and D get the speed round. Nobody needs 200 words on why Misprint is mediocre.

The Ones That Break the Math (S Tier)

These Jokers don't just improve your runs. They redefine what's possible. Seeing any of these in the shop should make your hand reach for the buy button before your brain finishes processing the price.

Blueprint (Rare)

The best Joker in Balatro. Full stop. Blueprint copies the ability of whatever Joker sits to its right, which means it's only as good as your best Joker — and it turns your best Joker into two of your best Joker. The positioning flexibility is what elevates it from "very good" to "broken." Before the small blind, slide Blueprint next to your economy Joker. During scoring, slide it next to your biggest multiplier. Between hands, reposition it next to your scaling engine. One card, three different functions per round, zero cooldown.

Every experienced player has a "Blueprint saved my run" story. Most of them have several.

Brainstorm (Rare)

Blueprint's mirror twin. Copies the leftmost Joker instead of the rightmost. Slightly less flexible because the leftmost slot is harder to reposition around, but the core effect — doubling your strongest Joker — is identical. The galaxy-brain play is running both Blueprint and Brainstorm with one scaling Joker between them. Triple the effect. The game was not designed to survive this.

Triboulet (Legendary)

Doubles the mult for every King or Queen scored. With a face-card-heavy hand of five, Triboulet alone can produce enough mult to clear mid-game blinds without any other Jokers helping. Pair it with mult card enhancements and the numbers stop making sense. Legendary rarity means you'll see it rarely, but when you do, the run is over. You won.

Cavendish (Common)

x3 Mult. No conditions. No setup. No build-around requirements. Just a flat x3 multiplier applied every single hand. The "drawback" is a 1-in-1,000 chance of self-destructing at the end of each round. In practice, Cavendish almost never dies. You'll complete hundreds of runs before it triggers once. The fact that this is a Common — available 70% of the time in shops — makes it arguably the most impactful card in the game on a per-run basis. You'll see Blueprint three times in your Balatro career. You'll see Cavendish thirty.

Throwback (Uncommon)

x0.25 Mult for every Blind skipped. Sounds modest. Does math. By Ante 8, if you've skipped aggressively, Throwback can reach x4 or higher. A Polychrome Throwback is one of the most disgusting things in the game. The strategy it enables — intentionally skipping Blinds for long-term scaling — creates a completely different decision tree than normal play. Throwback runs don't feel like normal Balatro. They feel like you're playing a different game where patience is a weapon.

Canio (Legendary)

x1 Mult per face card destroyed. Destroying face cards sounds painful until you realize the payoff is exponential. Ten destroyed face cards gives x11 Mult on a single Joker. The deck gets smaller and more consistent as you sacrifice cards, which means your remaining hands hit harder with less variance. Canio rewards commitment. Half-measures produce mediocre results. Going all-in produces absurdity.

Perkeo (Legendary)

Creates a negative copy of a random consumable each round. Negative cards don't take inventory space. Over a long run, Perkeo generates a stockpile of free consumables that let you manipulate your deck, enhance cards, and destroy problems without spending money. The value compounds every round. By Ante 6, Perkeo has usually given you enough free tools to solve any problem the game throws at you.

DNA (Uncommon)

If the first hand of the round has only one card, permanently copies it into your deck. This sounds like a niche condition. It's actually trivially easy to set up. DNA + a single enhanced card = a deck that gets more consistent every round. Steel card decks with DNA are one of the most reliable Gold Stake strategies in the game. The snowball starts slow and becomes unstoppable.

Baron (Uncommon)

x1.5 Mult per King held in hand (not played — held). Baron rewards you for keeping Kings in your hand while playing other cards, which inverts normal Balatro logic where you want to play your best cards. With three Kings held, Baron provides x4.5 Mult passively while you score with whatever else you drew. The interaction with Mime (which retriggers held cards) makes Baron + Mime one of the most reliable two-card combos in the game.

Chicot (Legendary)

Disables Boss Blind effects. That's it. That's the entire card. Boss Blinds are the hardest part of every Ante, and Chicot makes them into regular Blinds. Some Boss Blinds (Violet Vessel, The Needle) can end otherwise-perfect runs through their effects alone. Chicot removes that variance entirely. It won't make your scoring better, but it removes the single most common cause of losing runs you should have won.

The Ones That Make Good Runs Great (A Tier)

These Jokers can't solo-carry a run the way S-tier picks can, but they complete builds, enable strategies, and turn marginal wins into comfortable ones. You're always happy to see these in the shop.

Mime (Uncommon)

Retriggers the effect of all held cards. With Steel cards in hand, Mime multiplies your mult for each one held. With Baron providing mult per held King, Mime doubles the Baron bonus. Mime is the connective tissue between "cards I'm holding" strategies and "cards I'm playing" strategies. Every held-card build wants Mime.

Hologram (Uncommon)

Gains x0.25 Mult every time a playing card is added to your deck. In any run where you're buying cards from the shop or getting them from events, Hologram quietly scales into a monster. By Ante 7, a Hologram that's been in your lineup since Ante 2 often has x2-3 Mult. Not flashy. Devastatingly effective.

Vampire (Uncommon)

Gains mult for every Enhanced card played, then removes the enhancement. The nerf in 2024 reduced its ceiling, but the floor is still excellent. Vampire turns surplus enhancements into permanent scaling. The card rewards fluid deckbuilding — enhance cards, play them, let Vampire eat the enhancements, enhance more cards. An ecosystem, not a combo.

Constellation (Uncommon)

Gains x0.1 Mult every time a Planet card is used. Planet cards level up your poker hands, and you're using them every run anyway. Constellation passively rewards something you're already doing. By Ante 8, it's usually sitting at x1.5-2.0 without any special investment. Free scaling attached to normal play patterns.

Photograph (Uncommon)

x2 Mult on the first face card scored in each hand. In any deck running face cards (which is most decks), Photograph is a reliable x2 every single hand. No scaling, no conditions beyond "play a face card first." Photograph is boring in the best possible way.

Card Sharp (Uncommon)

x3 Mult if the same poker hand was played in this round. Play Two Pair, play Two Pair again, second one gets x3. The condition sounds restrictive but in practice most players default to one hand type per round anyway. Card Sharp rewards consistency without requiring you to change your play patterns.

Spare Trousers (Uncommon)

Gains mult every time you play a Two Pair. Scales indefinitely. Two Pair is one of the easiest hands to assemble consistently, and Spare Trousers turns that consistency into permanent scaling. The card punishes flexibility — you want to play Two Pair every hand, even when a better hand is available — but the payoff is reliable.

Mr. Bones (Uncommon)

If you fail a Blind but scored at least 25% of the target, Mr. Bones destroys itself and you win anyway. Insurance against bad draws, bad math, or bad luck. Mr. Bones has saved more runs than any other single card in the A-tier. It's the card you're most grateful for and least excited to buy.

Stuntman (Uncommon)

+250 Chips. That's a massive flat addition to every hand. The downside is -2 hand size, which restricts your scoring options. But 250 chips on top of your existing hand often pushes marginal hands over the threshold. Stuntman is the brute-force solution to "I don't have enough chips."

Four Fingers (Uncommon)

Lets you make Straights and Flushes with only four cards instead of five. This fundamentally changes deck construction. Four-card Flushes are dramatically easier to assemble than five-card Flushes, and the hand still scores at full value. Four Fingers enables strategies that literally wouldn't exist without it.

Solid but Not Essential (B Tier)

Good Jokers that do their jobs. You'll buy them when they show up and sell them when something better appears. The defining characteristic of B-tier: they're transition pieces, not cornerstones.

Fibonacci — +8 Mult per Ace, 2, 3, 5, or 8 played. Strong flat mult that stacks quickly in the right deck. Wee Joker — Chips per round survived. Slow-building but reliable. Hiker — Permanently adds chips to every played card. Subtle and powerful over long runs. Rocket — Economy Joker that pays out increasing money per round. Strong early, sell mid-game when passive interest outpaces it. Golden Joker — $4 per round. Simple economy. Sell at $25+ balance when interest takes over. Egg — Gains $3 sell value per round. Literal investment vehicle. Buy early, sell Ante 5-6 for maximum return. Lucky Cat — Gains mult on triggered Lucky cards. Snowballs hard in Lucky-focused builds. Abstract Joker — +3 Mult per Joker held. Simple, scales with Joker count. Fortune Teller — +1 Mult per Tarot used. Passive scaling from normal play.

Functional but Forgettable (C Tier)

These Jokers have uses. Those uses rarely justify the slot. Misprint gives random mult between 0 and +23 — the variance actively hurts planning. Odd Todd and Even Steven reward playing specific card values but restrict your hand options. Raised Fist gives mult based on the lowest card held — punishes good hands. Green Joker gains mult per hand played but loses mult per discard — brittle scaling. Credit Card gives you $20 of debt, which sounds like economy but is actually just delayed poverty. Ramen gives +x0.01 Mult but loses it on discards — the anti-synergy with normal play patterns makes it worse than it looks.

The Shop Tax (D Tier)

Marble Joker adds a Stone card to your deck when a Blind is selected — sounds like free stuff, actually dilutes your deck. Madness destroys a random Joker when a Blind is selected — the randomness is the problem, not the concept. Luchador sells itself to disable the current Boss Blind, but Chicot does this permanently without self-destructing. Popcorn starts with +20 Mult but loses 4 per round — a ticking clock that feels bad every time. Ice Cream starts with +100 Chips but loses 5 per hand played — same problem, worse feeling. Ceremonial Dagger gains mult when a Joker is destroyed, which requires you to destroy Jokers, which is usually bad.

The Actual Takeaway

Balatro's Joker system is designed around scarcity and positioning. You have five Joker slots. The S-tier list has eleven cards on it. You will never have all of them in one run. The skill of Balatro isn't finding S-tier Jokers — it's building functional decks from whatever the shop gives you, which is usually two Commons and an Uncommon you've never heard of.

Blueprint and Brainstorm are the best cards in the game because they multiply whatever you already have. Cavendish is the most impactful card in the game because you'll actually see it. The Legendaries are lottery tickets — incredible when they show up, irrelevant to your average run.

The tier list above tells you what to buy when you see it. The game itself teaches you what to do when you don't see any of it. That's the part that takes 500 hours.

Balatro is available on Steam. If you're into deckbuilders, it's the one that proved poker and roguelikes belong together — and if you want something with less math and more grandmothers, Granny's Rampage launches on Steam June 22.