Mad World Challenge - Remove The Mark

[wintry bear]

The Plant has been removed from the challenge Mad World since it unavoidably debuffs all your cards, but The Mark is still available, which has nearly the same effect in practice since you'll never be able to see any cards. I know it's called a challenge run for a reason but continuing to have The Mark seems overly harsh and doesn't offer much in the way of a skill or preparation workaround.

[vague gale]

the mark isn’t as harsh as the plant

it still obfuscates the cards but isn’t run killing as much as the plant

[wintry bear]

i agree that mark isn't as bad as plant but it is still very clearly the hardest boss blind to encounter, even worse than the final boss blinds except maybe violet vessel, and winning against the mark is very close to being completely luck based which seems kind of against the point of challenge runs or balatro in general to me

especially if you're running a straight build or anything that needs even a couple discards

[vague gale]

yeah i see what u mean

[pliant pike]

at this point you're asking for the only challenge left in the challenge run to be removed

[wintry bear]

i don't think that's even slightly true given the low deck size, low ranks within the deck, and scarce money. if you are playing something like high card or pair that can kinda-reasonably brute force the mark (or at least give you some kind of tangible strategy against it), you're never gonna have any money throughout the run unless you find splash and waste a joker slot on it. if you're running literally anything else and didn't get the chance to heavily doctor your deck first, then may rng help your soul as you blindly pick 3+ cards and hope they work. in either case, the mark is so much more strongly polarizing toward the challenge's preparation meta than a regular boss blind that doesn't even always appear should be

[somber hinge]

im gonna let you in on a little tip

when steel cards activate in your hand even when facedown you can identify them

you can also use suit changing tarots, which temporarily flip over facedown cards when used (also applies to tarots that change enhancements)

so then you can set game speed to 0.5x and you can see the cards

i get what you mean and i agree its a little stupid but

there are ways to play around it without highcard/pair

[wintry bear]

i am aware of all of those things but a steel card activating doesn’t tell you what rank or suit it is and burning the transformation tarots just to get a glimpse at a card or two at a time can be wasteful at best and harmful at worst