Playing Cards

The contents of the Red Deck with the default settings enabled (default face cards, high contrast mode off) and no modifications within the deck (playing cards added, destroyed, or modified).

Playing cards are a set of cards that the player uses to play a certain hand to achieve a certain score, with the help of Jokers and card modifiers. Most decks start with the standard 52-card deck, but the contents of the deck can be modified through the addition, destruction, or modification of playing cards. In most rounds, the default hand size (the number of playing cards per hand) is 8, though this may change under certain conditions.

The full contents of a deck (all of the currently available playing cards) can be viewed by clicking or tapping on the deck near the bottom right corner of the screen. There, they can see a left panel listing the deck's name and effect as well as the numbers of cards categorized into ranks and suits. To the right, all of the deck's contents can be seen.

When a playing card is used (and not discarded or remaining in the player's hand), there are mainly two states for playing cards:

Being played: a playing card that is used, but is not included in the overall score (except if Splash is used.) They are the extraneous cards that cannot be picked up through specific Poker Hands. Those cards are indicated from the lack of a "card pick-up" animation before scoring.
Being scored: a playing card that is used and is counted through the overall score, due to it being picked up by a specific Poker Hand. These cards are indicated by a small animation that elevates these cards before they get scored.

Items that modify decks

The following is a list of items (including decks) that modify playing cards or add or remove the contents of a standard 52-card deck.

Jokers

The following Jokers can permanently manipulate the contents of a deck. Most of them only modify a small part of a deck for each time they are used.

Marble Joker: adds a Stone Card to the deck each time a blind is selected.
DNA: adds a copy of a played card into the deck, as long as the first hand has a single card.
Sixth Sense: if first hand is a single played card with a rank of 6, it will be destroyed and have a Spectral card created.
Hiker: increases number of chips by +5 Chips for every played card.
Vampire: if an Enhanced card is played and scored, it will remove the enhancement and gain X0.1 Mult.
Midas Mask: every face card becomes a Gold Card card when scored.
Trading Card: as long as the first discard contains a single playing card, that playing card will be destroyed and the player will gain $3.
Certificate: at the start of a round, a playing card with a random rank, suit, and seal will be added to a deck.

It should be noted that there are some Jokers, such as the Blue Joker, Hologram, Erosion, Glass Joker, and the Stone Joker, whose effects depend on deck manipulation or the contents of a deck, but their effects by themselves do not add, modify, or remove playing cards by themselves.

Decks

There are a few decks that do not start as the standard 52-card deck. These decks include:

The Abandoned Deck: contains 40 playing cards at the start of the game, since it excludes the 12 face cards.
The Checkered Deck: contains 26 playing cards with the Spades suit and another 26 playing cards with the Hearts suit at the start of the game. It also does not start with any playing card with a Diamond or Club suit.
The Erratic Deck: the suits and ranks of this deck are completely randomized.

Challenge decks

These challenge decks start with a deck that is not the standard 52-card deck. Furthermore, some of them may also have Jokers or other items that can manipulate the deck:

15 Minute City ( ) has a single copy for each face card, but has Aces, 2s, and 3s excluded.
Mad World ( ) has only 32 cards, consisting only of cards between 2 and 9 (or, in other words, the player starts with no Aces, no face cards, and no cards with a rank of 10).
Medusa ( ) has the face cards replaced with Stone Cards. Furthermore, since this challenge has an Eternal Marble Joker, that Joker would add one Stone Card card every time a blind is selected, thus it continually manipulates the contents of the deck.
Double or Nothing ( ) adds a Red Seal on all playing cards, but permanently debuffs a playing card once it is scored.
Fragile ( ) turns all playing cards into Glass Cards while banning Jokers and other items that can help with adding non-glass cards or removing/modifying the Glass enhancement.

These challenge decks start with a standard 52-card deck, but have Jokers or other items that can manipulate the deck:

Bram Poker ( ) has an Eternal Vampire (which gains X0.1 Mult at the cost of the removal of a scored playing card's enhancement). It also has the Magic Trick and Illusion, which are two vouchers that can help with deck manipulation, since they allow purchasing playing cards from the Shop.
Monolith ( ) has an Eternal, Negative Marble Joker, which adds one Stone Card card every time a blind is selected.

Vouchers

Magic Trick can make playing cards purchasable from the Shop.
Illusion can make playing cards with an enhancement, edition (except Negative), or seal purchasable from the Shop.
Hone and Glow Up can make modified playing cards (with an enhancement, an edition, and/or a seal) show up more often, as long as Illusion is redeemed beforehand.
Overstock or Overstock Plus may have a chance to restock the Shop with a playing card, as long as there are empty slots before having either of these vouchers redeemed and at least the Magic Trick is redeemed beforehand.

Tarot cards

The Magician: allows up to 2 selected playing cards to be converted into Lucky Cards.
The Empress: allows up to 2 selected playing cards to be converted into Mult Cards ({{mult|+4}} Mult Card.png).
The Hierophant: allows up to 2 selected playing cards to be converted into Bonus Cards.
The Lovers: allows a selected playing card to be converted into a Wild Card.
The Chariot: allows a selected playing card to be converted into a Steel Card.
Justice: allows a selected playing card to be converted into a Glass Card.
Strength: allows up to 2 selected playing cards to have their ranks incremented by 1.
The Hanged Man: destroys up to 2 selected playing cards.
Death: allows for the selected playing card to the left to have the same rank and suit of the selected playing card to its right.
The Devil: allows a selected playing card to be converted into a Gold Card.
The Tower: allows a selected playing card to be converted into a Stone Card.
The Star: allows up to 3 selected playing cards to have their suits converted into Diamonds.
The Moon: allows up to 3 selected playing cards to have their suits converted into Clubs.
The Sun: allows up to 3 selected playing cards to have their suits converted into Hearts.
The World: allows up to 3 selected playing cards to have their suits converted into Spades.

Spectral cards

Familiar: destroys a random playing card in hand and adds 3 enhanced face cards instead.
Grim: destroys a random playing card in hand and adds 2 enhanced Ace cards instead.
Incantation: destroys a random playing card in hand and adds 4 enhanced numbered cards instead.
Talisman: adds a Gold Seal to the selected playing card in hand.
Aura: adds Foil ({{chips|+50}} Joker (Foil).png), Holographic, or Polychrome to the selected playing card in hand.
Sigil: converts all playing cards in hand to a random suit.
Ouija: converts all playing cards in hand to a random rank and reduces hand size by 1.
Immolate: destroys 5 playing cards in hand to gain $20.
Deja Vu: adds a Red Seal to the selected playing card in hand.
Trance: adds a Blue Seal to the selected playing card in hand.
Medium: adds a Purple Seal to the selected playing card in hand.
Cryptid: creates 2 copies of the selected playing card in hand.

Blinds

It should be noted that there are no blinds that add or destroy playing cards nor any blinds that can permanently affect playing cards, though some blinds can temporarily apply negative effects to playing cards during their particular rounds. This includes:

The House ( Boss The House.png): first hand of playing cards are drawn as face-down.
The Wheel ( Boss The Wheel.png): 1 in 7 of playing cards are drawn as face-down.
The Club ( Boss The Club.png): All playing cards with the Club suit are debuffed.
The Fish ( Boss The Fish.png): All playing cards are drawn as face-down after each hand played.
The Goad ( Boss The Goad.png): All playing cards with the Spade suit are debuffed.
The Window ( Boss The Window.png): All playing cards with the Diamond suit are debuffed.
The Plant ( Boss The Plant.png): All face cards are debuffed.
The Pillar ( Boss The Pillar.png): Playing cards that were played during an Ante are debuffed.
The Head ( Boss The Head.png): All playing cards with the Heart suit are debuffed.
The Mark ( Boss The Mark.png): All face cards are drawn as face-down.
Verdant Leaf ( Showdown Verdant Leaf.png): All playing cards are debuffed until one Joker is sold.
Cerulean Bell ( Showdown Cerulean Bell.png): Makes a random playing card force-selected.

Other

All Enhancements and all Seals can be applied only to playing cards. Furthermore, all Editions, except Negative, can be applied to playing cards.

The contents of a deck can be modified with the addition of playing cards from Standard Packs or from skipping a blind to obtain a Standard Tag ( Standard tag.png) (which opens a free Mega Standard Pack).

Settings

When a new player starts Balatro, there are two default settings for playing cards:

All of the face cards are set to the default face cards;
High contrast mode is disabled.

Once the player goes to the Options, they can click "Customize Deck" and choose different face cards of characters from other games and IPs, particularly among the ones introduced in the Friends of Jimbo updates. They can also tick the box that makes them have a higher contrast, though they can also modify that option through Settings > Game.

It should be noted that these settings apply across all profiles.

Gallery

The following is a gallery of default playing cards, in high contrast mode, and listed in the vertical order of the suits in Balatro's deck contents UI.