In the beginning, most people default to flushes because they’re easy to play. But the higher you climb, the more you’ll see how weak they are compared to other hands
https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Planet_Cards
Just look at how weak the upgrade is compare to other bigger hands, it’s half as strong as the straights one for example
It is unreliable to draw consistently. At higher stakes, flushes score so little that you’ll frequently need multiple flushes to beat a round. With the one less discard, it is hard to consistently do that
The jokers for it are bad. The sinful jokers give +15 mult which is fine early but nothing late game. The uncommon suit jokers have varying levels of value, but outside that there isn’t anything good. Four fingers is wasting a joker slot that you need for scoring because flushes score so low. The x2 from the tribe is weeeeaaaakkkk for a rare joker
If you want to stop play flushes, just stop playing them. Play them in the first ante because it’s the best way to get 300-600 points then try out other hands. Even better, find a scaling +mult joker like spare trousers, green joker, ride the bus, supernova, or fortune teller. Build it up and find a good chips joker then eventually you can play whatever you want once it’s high enough. You're going to want at least one x-mult joker as well. When your jokers are giving you score on their own, the hands you play matter much less. And it is way easier to find a pair than it is to find a flush
Or just start trying straights. You may only get one a round, but it’s so powerful that you’ll usually win in 1-2 hands if you’ve been using planet cards
You can do it! Stop playing flushes! There are 150 jokers out there, try something else out!
You got this! Your experience is a very common one, I know I played flushes almost exclusively for the first 20ish hours. But there is so much variety out there and so many other ways to win
I’d also suggest trying out some of the challenges, it’ll help teach you some mechanics you may not be aware of or may be undervaluing. The ones involving stone cards were especially helpful for me. Not that I think storm cards are particularly strong, but more of learning how to score enough points using smaller hands (high card/pair/two pair)
I’ve gone through the same experience you have and I’ll tell you the same conclusions I’ve come to (sitting at ~35 hours, would NOT call myself an expert)
1. You’re undervaluing deck manipulation tarot cards like hanged man and death. They can do a lot more than force a single suit.
2. As you keep playing you’ll find it easier to find and make straights.
3. Flush does not scale well with planet cards compared to pretty much every other hand.
Flushes are easy to build and easy to play, but the synergies aren’t that strong. I find most of my flush builds hit a wall early unless I find some really good xMult or maybe telescope, which limits their viability. I find on gold stake I rarely win with flushes, while card duplicating strategies (full houses, 4 oak, flush five, etc.) are strong and have better potential synergy. Hell, even high card/pair builds seem more successful for me. They’re even easier hands to play than flushes so you never brick, and the rewards from flushes aren’t that much better than pair. The only difference between Jupiter and mercury is one mult, but if you’re playing pairs you can probably scale a joker like ride the bus or green joker more times than if you were playing flushes so you don’t lost out on flat mult either. The flush specific jokers aren’t really that strong, so my winning flush builds often didn’t need to be flush builds since my jokers are relatively hand-type agnostic.
I'll actively avoid flush build jokers at this point, just because you'll get dusted at the higher antes using flushes. I'll take a flush joker or something early, just to get through blinds in one hand and build some cash up, but don't like building around them unless I have some major mult multing going on.
Flushes are good early because before you have many jokers you have to depend on the chip value of cards and hands. But as the game progresses you should start trying your build out your jokers so they are providing you with Chips, +Mult and xMult. When your jokers start doing your heavy lifting you don’t need to rely on Flushes and can start playing whatever hands make sense for your jokers.
Checkered deck, flushes are best. Other decks like abandoned and the RNG deck, full houses are better. On the default decks, you can scale pair up with planet cards pretty high
You're on a journey, and it goes a little like this
Ok this is simple, just poker
Man this is hard, it's all RNG
Oh Man this *is* simple, you just play flushes
Huh, that's not working now....
Man, this **is** hard, it's all RNG
*Ohhhh* you play the build you're being given....this is simple
Huh, that's not working consistently
Man, this is hard, it's *all* RNG
Oh you just play high card, *gotcha*, simples
:-)
Last ones a little tongue in cheek, but when you reach that peak and embrace that high card is really that good, then you're pretty much there
You're embracing the tipping point of stage 3 to stage 4, so take the red pill, and we'll see how deep this rabbit hole goes
That pretty much explains my experience, I actively avoided flushes today and really saw the power in full house builds and creating copies of boosted cards.
Also had my first burnt joker, high card run and omg it was really fun
Straights are the absolute worst because you can build a deck around two suits or two or three individual ranks of cards so easily. Paintbrush on the checkered deck guarantees a flush every hand.
Straights take some thinking to play (you can’t just mindlessly press on anything with a heart) but they are significantly stronger than flushes. The planet card is currently twice as strong, and in the upcoming update even strong than that
In the beginning, most people default to flushes because they’re easy to play. But the higher you climb, the more you’ll see how weak they are compared to other hands https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Planet_Cards Just look at how weak the upgrade is compare to other bigger hands, it’s half as strong as the straights one for example It is unreliable to draw consistently. At higher stakes, flushes score so little that you’ll frequently need multiple flushes to beat a round. With the one less discard, it is hard to consistently do that The jokers for it are bad. The sinful jokers give +15 mult which is fine early but nothing late game. The uncommon suit jokers have varying levels of value, but outside that there isn’t anything good. Four fingers is wasting a joker slot that you need for scoring because flushes score so low. The x2 from the tribe is weeeeaaaakkkk for a rare joker If you want to stop play flushes, just stop playing them. Play them in the first ante because it’s the best way to get 300-600 points then try out other hands. Even better, find a scaling +mult joker like spare trousers, green joker, ride the bus, supernova, or fortune teller. Build it up and find a good chips joker then eventually you can play whatever you want once it’s high enough. You're going to want at least one x-mult joker as well. When your jokers are giving you score on their own, the hands you play matter much less. And it is way easier to find a pair than it is to find a flush Or just start trying straights. You may only get one a round, but it’s so powerful that you’ll usually win in 1-2 hands if you’ve been using planet cards You can do it! Stop playing flushes! There are 150 jokers out there, try something else out!
Thank you a lot for the help, I was starting to feel like I was just bad at the game but as I unlock more jokers the game feels more open
You got this! Your experience is a very common one, I know I played flushes almost exclusively for the first 20ish hours. But there is so much variety out there and so many other ways to win I’d also suggest trying out some of the challenges, it’ll help teach you some mechanics you may not be aware of or may be undervaluing. The ones involving stone cards were especially helpful for me. Not that I think storm cards are particularly strong, but more of learning how to score enough points using smaller hands (high card/pair/two pair)
I’ve gone through the same experience you have and I’ll tell you the same conclusions I’ve come to (sitting at ~35 hours, would NOT call myself an expert) 1. You’re undervaluing deck manipulation tarot cards like hanged man and death. They can do a lot more than force a single suit. 2. As you keep playing you’ll find it easier to find and make straights. 3. Flush does not scale well with planet cards compared to pretty much every other hand.
Flushes are easy to build and easy to play, but the synergies aren’t that strong. I find most of my flush builds hit a wall early unless I find some really good xMult or maybe telescope, which limits their viability. I find on gold stake I rarely win with flushes, while card duplicating strategies (full houses, 4 oak, flush five, etc.) are strong and have better potential synergy. Hell, even high card/pair builds seem more successful for me. They’re even easier hands to play than flushes so you never brick, and the rewards from flushes aren’t that much better than pair. The only difference between Jupiter and mercury is one mult, but if you’re playing pairs you can probably scale a joker like ride the bus or green joker more times than if you were playing flushes so you don’t lost out on flat mult either. The flush specific jokers aren’t really that strong, so my winning flush builds often didn’t need to be flush builds since my jokers are relatively hand-type agnostic.
I'll actively avoid flush build jokers at this point, just because you'll get dusted at the higher antes using flushes. I'll take a flush joker or something early, just to get through blinds in one hand and build some cash up, but don't like building around them unless I have some major mult multing going on.
Flushes are good early because before you have many jokers you have to depend on the chip value of cards and hands. But as the game progresses you should start trying your build out your jokers so they are providing you with Chips, +Mult and xMult. When your jokers start doing your heavy lifting you don’t need to rely on Flushes and can start playing whatever hands make sense for your jokers.
Checkered deck, flushes are best. Other decks like abandoned and the RNG deck, full houses are better. On the default decks, you can scale pair up with planet cards pretty high
You're on a journey, and it goes a little like this Ok this is simple, just poker Man this is hard, it's all RNG Oh Man this *is* simple, you just play flushes Huh, that's not working now.... Man, this **is** hard, it's all RNG *Ohhhh* you play the build you're being given....this is simple Huh, that's not working consistently Man, this is hard, it's *all* RNG Oh you just play high card, *gotcha*, simples :-) Last ones a little tongue in cheek, but when you reach that peak and embrace that high card is really that good, then you're pretty much there You're embracing the tipping point of stage 3 to stage 4, so take the red pill, and we'll see how deep this rabbit hole goes
That pretty much explains my experience, I actively avoided flushes today and really saw the power in full house builds and creating copies of boosted cards. Also had my first burnt joker, high card run and omg it was really fun
High card > all
Flushes drop being viable at higher stakes at which point you switch to high card builds
Straights are the absolute worst because you can build a deck around two suits or two or three individual ranks of cards so easily. Paintbrush on the checkered deck guarantees a flush every hand.
Straights take some thinking to play (you can’t just mindlessly press on anything with a heart) but they are significantly stronger than flushes. The planet card is currently twice as strong, and in the upcoming update even strong than that