Old
Upgrade the level of the first discarded poker hand each round
New
The first time 5 cards are discarded in a round, upgrade that poker hand by 2 levels
Justification
- I'm a newer player, but I have watched some gold stake games and from what I've seen, Burnt Joker is decent for midgame High Card builds... and pretty terrible for most other things. The two main problems with using it for Flush, Straight, etc. are that you have to either draw your hand immediately or throw away hand(s) getting to it, THEN risk the run by discarding it.
- Of course, if you have a lot of deck fixing its easy to draw a hand for Burned, but by that point in the run one level doesn't do much.
- This rework aims to improve it by making it viable for other builds as a whole, making the reward more worthwhile for later antes and the risk more tolerable for earlier antes.
- There's still some risk involved, since if you do use a discard before burning you can only discard up to 4 cards, and you still have to rely on drawing your hand twice.
- It also makes Burnt Joker a little bit more unique since it would be the only double leveling mechanic. It may be a little too OP with that tacked on, but it needs something more than just the discard change imo.
This is my first attempt at balance discussion in Balatro. I don't expect this to be perfect, but I think I'm onto something here.