Black Deck

Black Deck
Effect
+1 Joker slot
-1 hand every round
Unlock Requirement
Discover at least 100 items from your collection

The Black Deck is an unlockable Deck that provides +1 Joker slot but -1 Hand each round. This deck is unlocked by discovering at least 100 items in the collection.

Black Deck is considered by many to be one of the hardest decks the game has to offer. While the upside, +1 Joker slot, is very good going into mid-late game, the brutal -1 Hand each round makes progressing through the first few rounds incredibly difficult, as there will not be many scoring tools available at disposal. The −1 hand also results in one less dollar made at the end of the blind.

Starting Contents

It contains the 52 cards of a normal deck: four suits, each with 13 cards (2 to 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace).

Synergies

Poker Hands

The early game on the Black Deck is much more difficult than with any other deck, since with one less hand, 5 fewer cards can be seen, which makes building around 5-card hands more difficult, but smaller hands (such as High Card) can be even worse, since one can only play 3 of them per round (instead of 4).

Jokers

As the Black deck, you should be more willing to take temporary strength, such as Popcorn or Ice Cream, in order to stay alive.

Finding an early Riff-Raff can be a very powerful starting Joker as well, leveraging the increased +1 Joker slot for early scoring and econ.

Some other jokers that benefit from the extra Joker slot or -1 hand per round include:

  • Gros Michel can be good, as it's easier to hold for a long time in order to evolve into Cavendish, and the extra mult is good for surviving the early game.
  • Swashbuckler and Abstract Joker give more flat mult.
  • Joker Stencil gives X6 Mult instead of X5 Mult if all slots are empty.
  • Baseball Card can trigger off of more Uncommon Jokers.
  • Burglar practically doubles the number of hands you can play.
  • Gift Card increases the sell value of even more Jokers.
  • You are more likely to have an open slot to buy Diet Cola, which you can then sell.
  • Because of the lowered number of hands, Acrobat and Dusk take fewer hands to trigger.
  • Ceremonial Dagger appreciates the extra Joker slot, as one can still have four safe Jokers while scaling Dagger.

Consumables

  • Judgement is a good choice, as filling out your Joker slots, even with bad Jokers, can help you survive the early game.
  • The value of Temperance rises from the extra Joker.

Vouchers

  • Grabber and Nacho Tong are incredibly helpful on Black Deck, as they negate the deck's -1 hand penalty.
  • Wasteful and Recyclomancy provide more discards to help assemble powerful hands.
  • Blank / Antimatter can be powerful if you want to go all in on Joker slots.

Anti-Synergies

Jokers

Jokers that are worse on the Black deck include:

  • Overall, any scaling Joker that requires hands to be played is impeded by the -1 hand penalty, giving fewer opportunities to scale them efficiently.
    • This includes Green Joker, Ride the Bus, Supernova, Runner, Square Joker, Spare Trousers, and Obelisk.
  • Jokers that encourage the player to not discard, such as Delayed Gratification, Banner, and Ramen, are very difficult to use, as they suffer from the -1 hand penalty, which forces more dependency on discards while disallowing liberal use of 'throwaway' hands.
  • Vagabond and Reserved Parking suffer from the -1 hand penalty, as Jokers that generate a resource when a hand is played have fewer opportunities to trigger.
  • Card Sharp can activate one less time.
  • Loyalty Card becomes harder to activate.
  • Troubadour's -1 hand per round penalty means players will only have 2 hands to beat each blind.

Vouchers

  • Hieroglyph is not recommended, as its -1 hand penalty means the player will only have 2 hands to beat each blind.

Trivia

  • The ability of this deck may be a reference to Negative Jokers (which are usually black), since both give an extra Joker Slot.


In other languages

LanguageName
Internalb_black
Chinese (Simplified)黑色牌组
Chinese (Traditional)黑色牌組
DutchZwart kaartspel
FrenchJeu noir
GermanSchwarzes Deck
IndonesianBlack Deck
ItalianMazzo nero
Japaneseブラックデッキ
Korean블랙 덱
PolishCzarna talia
Portuguese (Brazilian)Baralho Preto
RussianЧерная колода
Spanish (Spain)Baraja negra
Spanish (Latin America)Baraja negra
RS3 Decks in Balatro
Standard Decks
  • Red Deck
  • Blue Deck
  • Yellow Deck
  • Green Deck
  • Black Deck
  • Magic Deck
  • Nebula Deck
  • Ghost Deck
  • Abandoned Deck
  • Checkered Deck
  • Zodiac Deck
  • Painted Deck
  • Anaglyph Deck
  • Plasma Deck
  • Erratic Deck
Challenge Decks
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