Checklists
All of Balatro's Blinds
Blinds are the equivalent of encounters you would usually expect from a roguelike. To claim victory over one, you need to achieve a specific score that escalates over the course of a run. There are three blinds per ante (Small, Big, and Boss) and you’re allowed to skip over Small and Big Blinds to claim whichever tag is beneath them, but you are not allowed to ever skip a Boss Blind.
Every Regular Boss Blind
Image | Name | Base | Description | Reward |
The Hook | 2X Base | Discard 2 random cards from your hand after each hand played. | $5 | |
The Ox | 2X Base | Playing your most played hand will set money to $0. | $5 | |
The House | 2X Base | The first hand of cards is drawn completely face-down. | $5 | |
The Wall | 4X Base | Extra large blind. | $5 | |
The Needle | 1X Base | Play only one, single hand. | $5 | |
The Wheel | 2X Base | 1 in 7 cards are drawn face-down throughout the round. | $5 | |
The Arm | 2X Base | Decrease the level of Hand you play by 1. | $5 | |
The Club | 2X Base | All Clubs are debuffed. | $5 | |
The Goad | 2X Base | All Spade cards are debuffed. | $5 | |
The Window | 2X Base | All Diamond cards are debuffed. | $5 | |
The Head | 2X Base | All Heart cards are debuffed. | $5 | |
The Fish | 2X Base | The cards drawn after you play a hand are drawn face-down. | $5 | |
The Psychic | 2X Base | Hands must have five cards. | $5 | |
The Manacle | 2X Base | -1 hand size for this round. | $5 | |
The Eye | 2X Base | Every hand played this round must be a different type, and not previously played this round. | $5 | |
The Mouth | 2X Base | Only one hand type can be played this round. | $5 | |
The Plant | 2X Base | All face cards are debuffed. | $5 | |
The Serpent | 2X Base | After playing a hand or discarding cards, you always draw 3 more cards. | $5 | |
The Pillar | 2X Base | Cards played previously this ante are debuffed. | $5 | |
The Tooth | 2X Base | Lose $1 per card played. | $5 | |
The Flint | 2X Base | The base chips and Mult for playing a poker hand are halved this round. | $5 | |
The Mark | 2X Base | All face cards are drawn face-down. | $5 | |
The Water | 2X Base | Start the round with no discards. | $5 |
Every Finale Boss Blind (appears at every Ante at an interval of 8)
Image | Name | Base | Description | Reward |
Verdant Leaf | 2X Base | All cards debuffed until 1 Joker sold. | $8 | |
Crimson Heart | 2X Base | One of your jokers is disabled on every hand. | $8 | |
Cerulean Bell | 2X Base | Forces 1 card to always be selected. | $8 | |
Amber Acorn | 2X Base | Flips and shuffles all Joker cards. | $8 | |
Violet Vessel | 6X | Very Large Blind. | $8 |
The Most Dastardly Blinds
There are 28 different boss blinds to experience (with 5 of them designed solely as a final boss for each run). Whenever you begin a run, and each time you leave a shop after clearing an Ante, you are allowed to look ahead and see which Boss Blind you can expect at the end of the new Ante. Here are some Boss Blinds you should heed extra mind to as you progress through any given run.
5. Metascaling ruiners (The Ox, The Tooth, The Arm)
While these don’t provide any debuffs that will tangibly affect your gameplay (excluding The Arm debuffing leveled up hands), it can still be painful to ruin your economy if you need either multiple hands to defeat a Blind, or have been playing towards one singular hand for a run.
If you spend all your money before The Ox and The Tooth then the money they steal can be effectively ignored.
4. Base score altering Blinds (The Wall, The Needle, The Flint, Violet Vessel)
While not having to worry about weird debuffs altering your play can be a breath of fresh air, if you haven’t sufficiently scaled, or need to do wacky combos that require multiple hands to chain together to reach big numbers, then these three Blinds can be arduous. The Wall and Violet Vessel are essentially checks to see if you’re strong enough to overcome a large score requirement, and The Needle is the inverse in seeing if you can piece together one singular hand to get over a Boss Blind that shares the same scoring size as a Small Blind.
3. Debuffers (The Club, The Goad, The Window, The Head, The Plant, The Pillar, Verdant Leaf)
While becoming too reliant on any given strategy can be alright once you’ve found your stride, sometimes certain bosses can punish you hard if you’re not careful in planning your deckbuilding. If your deck isn’t large and varied enough to get around The Pillar, consider skipping either Small, Big, or both Blinds before reaching it!
2. Face Down Draws (The House, The Wheel, The Fish, The Mark)
Planning your plays around your current and future hands is a key fundamental to finding success in your Balatro runs. However there are bosses that can flip that basic understanding on your hand by turning certain cards over. There are ways to figure out which cards are flipped face down if you sort the card by rank or suit, but you may need to make some wonky plays or discards to figure out exact cards in hand.
1. Play altering Blinds (The Hook, The Psychic, The Eye, The Mouth, Cerulean Bell, Crimson Heart, The Serpent)
These Blinds can force you to play in awkward ways that could ruin a run if you aren’t careful. The Eye and The Mouth are fair examples of this dichotomy, both punish you for either being over reliant on a single hand, or make you suffer for being adaptable piecing together multiple different hands. Judging what your playstyle is and seeing if you can make small adjustments in time to prepare for the blind is a much needed skill to find success.
One bonus note for The Serpent is that your usual maximum hand size is ignored while you challenge it, which means you can turn its augment against you into a huge benefit if you only need to play or discard a few cards each round.