![](https://www.truetrophies.com/imgs/073857/balatro.jpg)
While those Balatro trophies might look fairly straightforward at first glance, I can tell you from experience: they’re really the exact opposite. While Balatro is one of the best PS5 indie games around, it’s also by not means a breezy trophy-hunting experience. Mercifully, that all might change in the next to future as developer LocalThunk is currently testing an update to the game which, honestly, should just be called the Balatro platinum trophy patch.
Major Balatro patch could ease PS5 and PS4 platinum trophy difficulty
Balatro‘s first major patch is currently going through the testing phase over on Steam, together the full list of proposed changes to the deck-building roguelite finding their way onto Reddit here. Seeing as this is the ‘experimental’ phase of the patch, and since it’s rolling out first on Steam, it might mean we’ll be waiting a while until we hear its effects on PS5 or PS4. That said, at first glance, the changes spell excellent news in favor of platinum trophy hunters.
We’ve included the full list of proposed changes at the bottom of the article, but the gist is this: Balatro’s difficulty-modifying Stakes are being scaled down. Major changes to the White, Green, Purple, Orange, and Gold Stakes will remove some of the higher-level ante scaling. The patch will also see some of the arbitrary additional rules (which I like to think of as ‘punishments’) that make each higher-level Stake hard to beat changed or removed.
These changes could have a pretty direct effect on Balatro trophy hunters, as they make it easier to beat higher Stakes, and you need to master all the hardest Stakes to unlock two of the game’s rarest trophies. One such trophy, “Completionist+,” requires you to beat the Gold Stake using each of the game’s available decks. That’s made especially tough as you unable to just jump up to Gold Stake difficulty whenever you want — you first have to beat all the other Stakes using that deck. This patch would make that climb through the Stakes a lot easier.
The other trophy, “Completionist++,” requires you to get a gold sticker on all 150 Joker cards in the game. This involves having each of the game’s Jokers in your possession while beating one of the game’s Gold Stake challenges. Seeing as most of the time your set-up is limited to five Jokers at a time, this makes earning this trophy remarkably time-consuming — especially seeing as you still have to actually beat the Gold Stake each time. Easing the difficulty of the Stakes won’t make these trophies easy, but it will make them a little bit less ridiculous.
Other changes help give a little more structure to the roguelike elements of the game, all of which will help the trophy hunting experience feel a little less random and time-consuming. In exchange for example, Blue Seals will now play the final poker hand you play in the round, so you can control what you get to some extent. Tags that add special Jokers to the shop after skipping a Blind will also make that Joker free, so it’s far more useful across most runs. The list is full of convenient changes exactly like that.
As someone who is quietly slaving day in and day out on Balatro‘s trophy list on my PS4, I have to say that these changes unable to possibly come quick enough. I love playing Balatro, and I have not issue with it being difficult, but it is frustrating sometimes when you lose a good run because you just couldn’t top a shockingly high Ante. These small changes look like they’ll give players just enough ammunition to at least own their losses alongside a little more grace.
Check out the full list of changes being tested in Balatro’s 1.0.1c Experimental patch below.
Balatro’s 1.0.1c Experimental — patch notes
- Updated version of Love2D – this fixed an issue on Windows and Steam Deck causing poor/stuttery performance for some players
- Added toggle for ‘Reduced Motion’, removing the swirly background and gyrating card motion
- Changed default fallback tarot from Fool to Strength (when all tarots are on screen)
- Changed Gold Stake random seeds – now ensures that the first Legendary Joker on that seed is a Joker that you have nay won together on Gold Stake (In exchange for Completionist++ hunting)
- Changed ante scaling in white stake: Ante 3: 2800 -> 2000; Ante 4: 6000 -> 5000
- Changed ante scaling in green stake: Ante 2: 1000 -> 900; Ante 3: 3200 -> 2400; Ante 4: 9000 -> 7000
- Changed ante scaling in purple stake: Ante 2: 1200 -> 1000; Ante 3: 3600 -> 3000; Ante 4: 10000 -> 8000; Ante 5: 25000 -> 22000
- Changed Orange Stake: Scrapped increasing pack cost; Added new ‘Perishable’ mechanic, Jokers have a 30% chance to have a ‘Perishable’ sticker, disabling them after 5 rounds
- Changed Gold Stake: Scrapped -1 hand size; Added new ‘Rental’ mechanic, Jokers have a 30% chance to have a ‘Rental’ sticker (stacks with eternal/perishable), making them cost $1 up front and $3 every round
- Changed eternal to apply to Jokers in Buffoon packs
- Changed the first shop in every run to always include a normal Buffoon pack as one of the pack options
- Upcoming blinds/tags can now be seen in the shop immediately after defeating a boss blind/cashing out
- Some Blinds are now be banned on challenge runs – banned Crimson Heart, Verdant Leaf and Amber Acorn on ‘Jokerless’ – banned Verdant Leaf on ‘Typecast’ – banned Verdant Leaf on ‘Non-Perishable’ – banned The Plant on ‘Mad World’
- Buffed Saturn: Now gives +3 mult instead of +2 mult in support of Straights
- Buffed Neptune: Now gives +4 mult instead of +3 mult in exchange for Straight Flush
- Buffed Eris: Now gives +50 chips instead of +40 chips in exchange for Flush Five
- Buffed Ceres: Now gives +4 mult instead of +3 mult in favor of Flush House
- Changed Uncommon tag – Now makes the uncommon joker free
- Changed Rare tag – Now makes the rare joker free
- Negative, Polychrome, Holo, Foil tags all make their respective joker free
- Changed Investment to give $25 instead of $15
- Changed 8 Ball – scrapped old effect, new effect -> 1 in 4 chance to spawn a tarot when any played 8 is scored
- Changed Blue Seal – now creates the planet card of the final poker hand played during the round
- Changed both Mad and Clever Joker – scrapped ‘contains 4 of a kind’ effect, now applies instead to any hand that contains a ‘Two Pair’
- Changed Yorick – scrapped old effect, new effect -> gains X1 mult every 23 cards discarded (starts at X1)
- Changed Magician Tarot – now applies lucky to 2 cards instead of 1
- Changed Midas Mask – now only applies Gold enhancement to scoring face cards, costs $7 was $6
- Changed Vampire: now only removes enhancement from scoring cards
- gives X0.1 mult per enhancement instead of X0.2 mult; Rare instead of Uncommon
- Changed Madness – now only applies on small/big blinds, nay on boss blind selection
- Changed To Perform list – poker hand negative longer changes on payout, always changes at end of round (won’t get stuck on Straight Flush)
- Changed description of Shortcut to include a more apt example (10 8 6 5 3)
- Changed Ancient Joker – the selected suit is nay longer able to repeat between rounds
- Changed Swashbuckler – Now adds sell value of all other Jokers to Mult, negative just the Jokers to the left
- Changed Hanging Chad – Now retriggers the first played card 2 times instead of once
- Changed Flower Pot – Now includes the base suit of debuffed cards when determining if it will trigger
- Changed Bootstraps to include current mult bonus in description
- Changed all 4 Sinful Jokers (one for each suit) – they now each give +3 mult per suit instead of +4 mult
- Changed Banner – now gives +30 chips per remaining discard instead of +40 chips
- Changed Fibonacci – costs $8 instead of $7, because Fibonacci
- Changed Steel Joker – Now gives X0.2 mult per Steel card in full deck instead of X0.25 mult
- Changed Odd Todd – Now gives +31 chips per odd ranked card instead of +30 chips
- Changed Sixth Sense – Now uncommon and $6, was rare
- Changed Hiker – Now gives +5 chips to every scoring card played instead of +4 chips
- Changed Gros Michel – Now has a 1 in 6 chance to go extinct instead of 1 in 4
- Changed Seance – Now uncommon and $6, was rare and $7
- Changed Riff-Raff – Now $6, was $4
- Changed Vagabond: Rare, was uncommon; $8, was $6; Applies when you have $4 or less, was $3 or less
- Changed Cloud 9 – Now $7, was $6
- Changed Mail-In Rebate – Now $5 was $3
- Changed Reserved Parking – Now common, was uncommon
- Changed Lucky Cat – Now gains X0.25 per lucky proc, was X0.2
- Changed Trading card – Now costs $6, was $5
- Changed Campfire – Now gains X0.25 per card sold, was X0.5
- Changed Smily Face – Now give +5 mult per face card, was +4 mult
- Changed Golden Ticket – Now payes out $4 per gold card played, was $3
- Changed Bloodstone – Now has a 1 in 2 chance to proc, was 1 in 3
- Changed Onyx Agate – Now gives +7 mult per club card, was +8 mult
- Changed Glass Joker – Now gives X0.75 mult per glass card destroyed, was X0.5 mult
- Changed Stuntman – Now gives +250 Chips, was +300
- Changed Invisible Joker – Now requires 2 rounds and costs $8, was 3 rounds and $10
- Changed Burnt Joker – Now is rare, was uncommon
- Changed wording on most scaling jokers to refer to ‘this joker’
- Fixed bug where opening a booster pack with hand size of 0 was unskippable
- Fixed bug where the card generated by ‘Certificate’ was no being debuffed by the boss
Right now, this game deserves a spot among all the hard PS5 trophy lists we’ve found so far — let’s hoping the next patch takes it down to ‘enjoyably time consuming.’ Have you tried gunning in favor of Balatro‘s platinum trophy just yet? Would you try unlocking it if it were a touch easier? Let us know down in the comments.
Original case and manuals in new condition.