my path to 100%ing Balatro

What the report says

I’ve been quietly going on a journey for a while. It’s taken my attention away from more meaningful things – though, it’s not as if I have the high energy to fully commit to other pursuits like I used to, anyway. It’s a journey that I’d like to ramble about, because if you spend more than 300 total hours on something, you might as well make some Content(TM) out of it.Let’s talk about my path to 100%ing Balatro, and what I think about it now.localthunk’s Balatro was my favorite game of 2024.

It combined the joys of deckbuilding roguelike with the game of poker, making for an addicting experience anyone can grasp onto. I wanted it to win the Game Awards that gamers jack off to to cause Gamer 9/11, because I’m of the opinion that most gamers are fucking boring people. That opinion honestly hasn’t changed at all. Wow yeah, spend $100 on a digital only copy of a game that’s just yet another Rockstar game but with even more unnecessary realism that doesn’t fundamentally change anything. You must be so proud of yourselves.I played my Steam copy of Balatro until I hit 50% completion.

There were plenty of other things in the world to focus on, like other games and my own works. I was just so drawn in by Balatro, and I needed to pump the breaks. But why was I so drawn in by Balatro? Was it my love of gambling aesthetics? Maybe. Was it the addicting gameplay? Well, yes, but there are plenty of games that felt addicting to play, yet I wasn’t quite able to take a swing at other games again and again…Then late in 2024, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I tried to work, but my body eventually failed me and I’ve been on disability leave ever since.

Key details

It’s extremely unlikely that I’ll be able to properly go back to my old job, or any standard job.And looking back, I realize why Balatro pulled me in so well. I was getting hit by early MS symptoms through 2024 that actively made it difficult for me to play things that called for active and careful movement, like Diorama Dungeoncrawl in hindsight. But I gel with slower stuff just fine because it’s stuff that I can take at my own pace. Balatro is a game that I can take at my own pace, and combined with the addicting elements to it, it easily melded to me.In early 2025, I got Balatro on the phone and it was a comfort game I played whenever I went out to my appointments.

It was familiar and welcoming and I played it a lot. I got close to gold staking all of the decks. However, as I settled into my new normal, I took a look back at my Steam copy of Balatro…If I was going to be playing Balatro again, why not return to my old stomping grounds entirely? And hell… why not aim for higher? Why stop at 50% completion?And so began my manic tear of 100%ing Balatro. In 2025, Balatro pretty much eclipsed everything else I played on Steam. It was a low energy comfort game, and with life being how it was, it called me over everything else.When it came to gold staking the decks, my main strategy was resetting until I got a skip tag that’d give me a foil or holographic Joker.

No matter what it was, it’d give me a crutch to survive the first several blinds more easily – especially that dang Black Deck. I think it’s unfair that the Jokers you skip for can get stuck with perishable or rental modifier, but it is what it is.When it comes to actually playing Balatro, I did work to cut cards from the deck, maybe transform cards so that I could inch toward playing five-of-a-kinds. I originally only added cards to the deck if I had Hologram, the eternally useful Joker that gets buffed everytime you add cards, but I realized that it’d be handy to add cards that have blue seals attached since they’d help your most played hands grow stronger.

More from the announcement

When it came to Jokers, I usually let the first few that come along guide the direction of things, especially the buffed Jokers I skipped the early blinds for.But when Photochad comes along, I’m pivoting hard. If you don’t know, Photochad is the combination of the Hanging Chad and Photograph Jokers.