Blinds and Antes

Blinds are the main obstacle that the player must overcome during a run in Balatro. For each selected Blind, the player has to meet or surpass the required score to beat it, otherwise they will lose the run. Defeating the Blind may earn some reward money as well.

An Ante is made up of three Blinds in succession: a Small Blind, a Big Blind, and a random Boss Blind. Special Boss Blinds called Showdown Blinds only appear on the final level of a run, at Ante 8. The player can choose to take on a Small or Big Blind, or to skip one or both and claim one or more Tags instead; Boss Blinds must always be played.

The score required to defeat a Blind is determined by the Ante level and Stake. If playing on the Plasma Deck ( Balance [[Chips|{{hl|blue|Chips}}]] and [[Mult|{{hl|red|Mult}}]] when calculating score for played hand <br> {{hl|red|X2}} base Blind size Win a run with any [[Decks|deck]] on the {{Stake|Blue}} difficulty or harder Plasma Deck.png), the score requirement is doubled. Generally, a run starts at Ante 1 and goes up an Ante level for every Boss Blind defeated. By completing Ante 8 and finishing the Showdown Blind, the run is considered "won". However, the player may continue afterwards in Endless Mode if they wish.

Small and Big Blinds have no other effects and can be skipped to receive a Tag. The score required is 1x base chips for the Small Blind and 1.5x base chips for the Big Blind. On Red Stake or higher, Small Blinds will give no reward money.

Boss Blinds are the last blind of an Ante, most of which require a score of 2x base chips. Boss Blinds have certain special effects that add difficulty to the round, for example:

• Inflicting negative effects on certain cards, including debuffed, face-down, and force-selected.
• Restricting the size or type of poker hand that can be played. Hands that don't meet the restriction can still be played but will not be scored or activate other effects.
• Change other values in the game, like hand/discard counts, hand size, and required score.

Boss Blinds are randomly selected. Each Boss Blind has a minimum ante in which it can appear, with Ante 1 (including Antes lesser than 1) having only eight possible bosses. Only the Boss Blinds with the fewest appearances will be selected—this means a Boss Blind will not appear again before all Boss Blinds have appeared once, including being defeated or rerolled.

Boss Blinds cannot be skipped, but there are other ways to avoid them:

• The vouchers Director's Cut (Reroll [[Blinds|Boss Blind]] {{hl|orange|1}} time per Ante, {{Money|10}} per roll Base Director's Cut.png) and Retcon (Reroll [[Blinds|Boss Blind]] {{hl|orange|unlimited}} times, {{Money|10}} per roll Discover 25 Blinds Upgraded Retcon.png) enable players to reroll Boss Blinds. Rerolling on Ante 8 (or a multiple of 8) will always roll a Showdown Blind, and other antes will always roll a normal Boss Blind.
• Luchador (Sell this card to disable the current [[Blinds|{{hl|orange|Boss Blind}}]] Uncommon Effect N/A (Passive) Luchador.png) and Chicot (Disables effect of every [[Blinds|{{hl|orange|Boss Blind}}]] Find this [[Jokers|Joker]] from the [[Spectral Cards|{{hl|sblue|Soul}}]] card. Legendary Effect On Blind Select Chicot.png) can disable the effect of Boss Blinds. For blinds with an extremely high score ( The Wall ( Boss The Wall.png) and Violet Vessel ( Showdown Violet Vessel.png)), the score will return to normal (2x base chips), while The Needle ( Boss The Needle.png) won't have its score increased.

Showdown Blinds are a special type of Boss Blind that appear at the end of the game (Ante 8). In endless mode, Showdown Blinds will appear again in Ante 16, 24, and 32.

Apart from their timing, they are otherwise identical to regular Boss Blinds (can be rerolled, disabled by Luchador (Sell this card to disable the current [[Blinds|{{hl|orange|Boss Blind}}]] Uncommon Effect N/A (Passive) Luchador.png) and Chicot (Disables effect of every [[Blinds|{{hl|orange|Boss Blind}}]] Find this [[Jokers|Joker]] from the [[Spectral Cards|{{hl|sblue|Soul}}]] card. Legendary Effect On Blind Select Chicot.png), and so on).

Blind	Name	Description	Minimum Ante	Score at least...	...to earn...	Matador-compatible?
	Small Blind	No special effects - can be skipped to receive a Tag	Any	1x base	$3	✗ No
	Big Blind	No special effects - can be skipped to receive a Tag	Any	1.5x base	$4	✗ No
Boss Blinds
	The Hook	Discards 2 random cards held in hand after every played hand	Any	2x base	$5	✗ No
	The Ox	Playing the most played hand this run sets money to $0	6	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The House	First hand is drawn face down	2	2x base	$5	✗ No
	The Wall	Extra large blind	2	4x base	$5	✗ No
	The Wheel	1 in 7 cards get drawn face down during the round	2	2x base	$5	✗ No
	The Arm	Decrease level of played poker hand by 1 (hand levels can go as low as Level 1, and are reduced before scoring)	2	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Club	All Club cards are debuffed	Any	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Fish	Cards drawn face down after each hand played	2	2x base	$5	✗ No
	The Psychic	Must play 5 cards (not all cards need to score)	Any	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Goad	All Spade cards are debuffed	Any	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Water	Start with 0 discards	2	2x base	$5	✗ No
	The Window	All Diamond cards are debuffed	Any	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Manacle	-1 Hand Size	Any	2x base	$5	✗ No
	The Eye	No repeat hand types this round (every hand played this round must be of a different type and not previously played this round)	3	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Mouth	Only one hand type can be played this round	2	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Plant	All face cards are debuffed	4	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Serpent	After Play or Discard, always draw 3 cards (ignores hand size)	5	2x base	$5	✗ No
	The Pillar	Cards played previously this Ante (during Small and Big Blinds) are debuffed	Any	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Needle	Play only 1 hand	2	1x base	$5	✗ No
	The Head	All Heart cards are debuffed	Any	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Tooth	Lose $1 per card played	3	2x base	$5	✗ No
	The Flint	Base Chips and Mult for played poker hands are halved for the entire round	2	2x base	$5	✓ Yes
	The Mark	All face cards are drawn face down	2	2x base	$5	✗ No
Showdown Boss Blinds (only appearing at Ante 8, 16, etc.)
	Amber Acorn	Flips and shuffles all Joker cards	8	2x base	$8	✗ No
	Verdant Leaf	All cards debuffed until 1 Joker sold	8	2x base	$8	✓ Yes
	Violet Vessel	Very large blind	8	6x base	$8	✗ No
	Crimson Heart	One random Joker disabled every hand (changes every hand)	8	2x base	$8	✗ No
	Cerulean Bell	Forces 1 card to always be selected	8	2x base	$8	✗ No

An Ante is made up of three rounds, each consisting of a Small Blind ( Standard Small Blind.png), a Big Blind ( Standard Big Blind.png), and a Boss Blind.

A run will always begin at Ante 1. After defeating the Showdown Blind in Ante 8, the run is won, but the player can choose to continue in Endless Mode to set a personal high score. Endless Mode begins from Ante 9 and purports to offer infinite Ante levels to ascend, with additional Showdown Blinds every eight Antes, but Ante score requirements also scale much faster. Under Blinds in the Collection, a list of the base score per Ante is shown up to Ante 16, although the player can reach higher Antes. Ante 0 can be reached by purchasing a Hieroglyph ({{hl|orange|-1}} Ante, <br> {{hl|blue|-1}} hand each round Base Hieroglyph.png) on Ante 1 (or Petroglyph ({{hl|orange|-1}} Ante, <br> {{hl|red|-1}} discard each round Reach Ante 12 Upgraded Petroglyph.png) on Ante 1 to reach Ante 0 a second time).

Green Stake and Purple Stake (or higher) will cause chip requirements to be higher. Playing on the Plasma Deck ( Balance [[Chips|{{hl|blue|Chips}}]] and [[Mult|{{hl|red|Mult}}]] when calculating score for played hand <br> {{hl|red|X2}} base Blind size Win a run with any [[Decks|deck]] on the {{Stake|Blue}} difficulty or harder Plasma Deck.png) doubles the Ante requirement for all stakes.

Before Endless mode (Ante 8 or lower), an Ante's chip requirement is derived from a fixed list. After Endless Mode (Ante 9 or higher), the chip requirement is calculated using the following formula:

$${\displaystyle \text{Chip Requirement}=\text{Ante 8 Requirement}\cdot {(1.6+{(0.75(\text{Ante}-8))}^{1+0.2(\text{Ante}-8)})}^{\text{Ante}-8}}$$

The chip requirement is then rounded to two significant digits.

A calculator for the score requirements for antes can be found here.

It is possible to reach Ante -1 by utilizing Yellow Deck ( Start with extra {{Money|10}} Discover at least {{hl|orange|50}} items from your [[Collection|collection]] Yellow Deck.png) and a Voucher Tag ( Voucher tag.png) skip tag. On a seed that has Hieroglyph ({{hl|orange|-1}} Ante, <br> {{hl|blue|-1}} hand each round Base Hieroglyph.png) in Ante 1, skip for the Voucher tag, beat the Big Blind, and then cash out. With slow game speed (recommended 0.5 or 1), quickly buy Hieroglyph before the Voucher tag activates, which will allow Petroglyph ({{hl|orange|-1}} Ante, <br> {{hl|red|-1}} discard each round Reach Ante 12 Upgraded Petroglyph.png) to spawn since the game checks for voucher availability after Hieroglyph has been bought. With the bonus econ from Yellow Deck, it is possible to buy both Vouchers, which bring players to Ante -1. A basic demonstration can be found here.

In Ante 39, the score requirement exceeds 2¹⁰²⁴ (1.8e308), which is the largest number that can be represented in double-precision floating-point format, causing the score to overflow to NaN (not a number). Scoring over 2¹⁰²⁴ points results in the score showing as naneinf (nan exponent infinity). Since nan is incomparable to any value, scoring even naneinf is not sufficient for beating a score requirement of nan (even with Mr. Bones (Prevents Death if chips scored are at least {{hl|orange|25%}} of required chips <br> {{hl|red|self destructs}} Lose {{hl|orange|5}} runs Uncommon Effect N/A (Passive) Mr. Bones.png)), meaning that at the current moment, Ante 39 is the highest Ante reachable in Endless mode without the use of glitches to skip antes. A player is considered to have "completed" or "beaten" endless mode if one scores naneinf on Ante 39.

• The scaling in Endless mode is faster than super-exponential, proportional to ${\displaystyle x^{x^2}}$(polynomial-exponential), where x denotes the current Ante. The common Endless build of Mime (Retrigger all card {{hl|orange|held in hand}} abilities Uncommon Retrigger On Held Mime.png)/ Baron (Each {{hl|orange|King}} held in hand gives {{xmult|1.5}} Rare Multiplicative Mult On Held Baron.png) with Perkeo (Creates a [[Negative|{{hl|edition|Negative}}]] copy of {{hl|orange|1}} random [[Consumables|{{hl|orange|consumable}}]] card in your possession at the end of the [[The Shop|{{hl|orange|shop}}]] Find this [[Jokers|Joker]] from the [[Spectral Cards|{{hl|sblue|Soul}}]] card. Legendary Effect N/A (Passive) Perkeo.png)/ Cryptid (Create {{hl|orange|2}} copies of {{hl|orange|1}} selected card in your hand Available from start. Spectral Cryptid.png) and Red Seal Steel kings can, theoretically, scale at a similar or faster speed (proportional to ${\displaystyle x^{x^2}}$). However, this would involve the constant addition of (presumably negative) copies of Blueprint (Copies ability of [[Jokers|{{Hl|orange|Joker}}]] to the right Win a run Rare Effect Blueprint.png) or Brainstorm (Copies the ability of leftmost [[Jokers|{{hl|orange|Joker}}]] Discard a {{ph|Royal Flush}}. Rare Effect Brainstorm.png) to the joker roster every Ante, a near-impossible feat in a normal game, unless using extremely tedious tarot-based infinite money strategies. (It is also possible to use Mime/Baron with Burglar to get ${\displaystyle x^{x^3}}$without Perkeo; see Guide: naneinf.) Regardless, in vanilla Balatro, the Ante 39 nan overflow will always end the run, meaning there is never any need to go to such great lengths to scale a build.
• Having Mr. Bones (Prevents Death if chips scored are at least {{hl|orange|25%}} of required chips <br> {{hl|red|self destructs}} Lose {{hl|orange|5}} runs Uncommon Effect N/A (Passive) Mr. Bones.png) is the only way to prevent losing an entire run if the player does not meet the score requirement of a Blind, as long as the player reaches 25% of the required score.

• The names Small Blind, Big Blind, and Ante are based on poker terminology.
• The symbols and names of most of the Boss Blinds are based on the letters of the Phoenician alphabet. The sole exception is The Flint ( Boss The Flint.png), which is an original creation by the developer, though it resembles the runic letter jera (ᛃ).
  • According to LocalThunk, the reason for inventing a new symbol for The Flint ( Boss The Flint.png) was to bring the total number of blinds from 29 to 30 for a neat Collection screen.^[1]
• The symbols and names of the five Showdown Blinds are based on alternate playing card suits: Hearts, Bells (replaces Diamonds in German decks), Acorns (replaces Clubs in German decks), Leaves (replaces Spades in German decks), and Vessels (replaces Hearts in Italian and Spanish decks).
• The name "Showdown Blind" for the five Boss Blinds that appear on Ante 8 comes from the game code, as this group is not named in any player-facing text. Because the game text does not name this group, the community also refers to them with unofficial names such as "Finisher Blind" or "Finale Boss Blind".
• The Arm ( Boss The Arm.png) used to be able to de-level played Poker Hands to level 0. This was changed in 1.0.0k.
• The name of every blind contains exactly two words each.
• The name of every non-showdown Boss Blind starts with the word "The".
• Balatro developer LocalThunk has given the reasoning behind the design of some Boss Blind effects in the Balatro Discord.
  • The Plant ( Boss The Plant.png) debuffs face cards because plants do not have faces.^[2]
  • The Needle ( Boss The Needle.png) requires precision in reference to the phrase "thread the needle".^[3]
  • The Wheel ( Boss The Wheel.png) has a chance-based effect similarly to The Wheel of Fortune ({{hl|green|1 in 4}} chance to add [[Foil|{{hl|edition|Foil}}]], [[Holographic|{{hl|edition|Holographic}}]], or [[Polychrome|{{hl|edition|Polychrome}}]] edition to a random [[Jokers|{{hl|orange|Joker}}]] Available from start. Tarot The Wheel of Fortune.png).^[4]
  • The Eye ( Boss The Eye.png) bans repeat hand types because it has observed what hands were played.^[5]
• Players can drag the icons of the blinds on the left panel, much like how they can drag jokers, consumables, and playing cards.
• When continuing interrupted games, the Blind icon, effects, and score requirements on the game interface may disappear (which is likely a bug). In this case, blind information can be viewed in the run info. It will recover after defeating the current Blind.

This information has been manually compiled. Some updates may not be included yet.