Opening Act - $5 Rare

[gentle ferry]

Guaranteed to draw a [most played hand] on the first hand of round

This won't guarantee the rank of the hand pulled, just that it will be of the hand type most played. It will not draw the impossible, though (such as drawing a full house of Jacks and Kings on Abandoned deck)

[rough arrow]

what if the most played hand is a 5oak but there isnt 5 of every rank bc i destroyed one in shop

[gentle ferry]

Then the joker just goes when first hand drawn

[alpine prism]

uhh

this can be solved by making it most played hand of the round

is there even a joker that uses your most played hand across all runs

anyways i like the idea if its the most played hand of the run

[gentle ferry]

Obelisk, technically

It resets when you play your most played hand

Oh, across runs? No

And this joker wouldn't either

It's implied that no joker/card/Boss effect is across runs

[alpine prism]

then im not sure how you even brought up the full house example on abadoned deck

[gentle ferry]

Just the first thing I could think of for "the impossible"

Like, if you only had 2 of each rank in your deck and your most played hand type this run was a three of a kind, it wouldn't magically make a 3rd copy of a rank

[abstract tinsel]

The Ox kinda does

But that isnt a joker

Oh wait you said across all runs

Nvm

[alpine prism]

ic this is like a contingency for if a hand can no longer be played due to deckfixing

i like this

maybe ill try figuring out how to mod it lol

[gentle ferry]

it wont

[alpine prism]

it wont what

[gentle ferry]

it won't materialize a random card

Just based on what's already in your deck

[alpine prism]

yeah ik

[gentle ferry]

oh wait, I misinterpreted your post

[alpine prism]

@gentle ferry does this have any blueprint compatibility to be taken in mind or is it unduplicatable

[stone arch]

I think it can be compatible. Like imagine if the first Opening Act gives you a jack king full house then the blueprint gives an Ace 5s full house, all as your first draw

[alpine prism]

i see so if its like a pair , it would basically draw a two pair
if its a three of a kind of jacks, it would draw another a three of a kind of probably like 7s maybe

but for stuff like flushes and shortcutless straights

it would exceed normal hand size limit

[stone arch]

unless you have 10 handsize it wouldnt work

yeah

[alpine prism]

im probably gonna make it like discard x amount of cards then like find a way to make it draw random cards that create the desired hand (where x is the most played hand's required card number)

lmfao what if the most played hand is a high card

[stone arch]

it could be reworked to guarantee something like a straight or flushes after your first discard if you have at least 40% of the required cards to make said hand

like you discard some cards but leave 2 diamonds in hope for a flush and opening act guarantees that a diamond flush will be drawn

[alpine prism]

i think thats way harder to make

[stone arch]

bluewhy

[gentle ferry]

No compatibility

With copying

I was thinking the code works like this:

1. Shuffle the deck normally
2. Determine the most played hand type (for the rest of this example, assume it is a Straight)
3. Select the first card at the top of the deck (assume it's an 8)
4. parse the rest of the deck and find the cards compatible with the most played hand (say up next is a Jack, then a 10, a 9, and finally a 7)
5. Reorganize those 5 cards to be at the top of the deck
6. Deal those cards, then draw from the deck as normal

@umbral river why don't you like this?

[odd canopy]

guarantees make balatro unfun
its a game about luck, why are you removing the luck

[alpine prism]

its a joker

to get that joker of itself is luck

like oops all sixes is as big of a luck removing example as it could get

[frosty jetty]

Completely eliminates the point of deckfixing and discards

[alpine prism]

i dont see how thats a problem for a rare joker

jokers of themselves can be forms of deckfixing

[frosty jetty]

Jokers help deckfix, but don't ever go all the way

You always supplement with tarots and whatnot

This just lets you bypass the core gameplay of making sure you can draw the hand you need

[alpine prism]

its not the exact hand btw its the poker hand

[frosty jetty]

Most builds only need the poker hand

or you'll have built so that that is the only possible poker hand

[alpine prism]

not really true for extensive deckfixing when you try to hit that steal red seal king of hearts polychrome spam

[frosty jetty]

That's a High Card build, which this Joker doesn't apply to

You pick this Joker up when you've already semi-built to a specific hand type

[alpine prism]

you get the point im trying to make tho, exact cards do matter for seals, enhancements and whatnot

[frosty jetty]

But Joker scoring, which the builds this Joker is for tend to use, tends to only care about things like ranks and suits--which, by the time you'd pick up this Joker, you've built your deck so that the most likely--or for 5oak/flush 5, possibly only--possible hand is the one that you want

Honestly this Joker is kinda winmore

[robust nebula]

i dont like the "gurrantees draw of hand" joker ideas entirely because isnt deckfixing and stuff like shortcut and four fingers how you improve consistency? not just getting it handed for free

[frosty jetty]

You pick it up when you've deckfixed to the point that it's not possible to make your most played hand out of cards you don't like (Which you probably already did for a 5oak/flush five build), and this takes you over the edge by letting you draw it immediately and not worry about getting rid of the rest of the cards

[robust nebula]

also this being for most played hand means this cant really pivot which i find is boring

at least a bit

actually jokers rhat fuck with draws in general feel weird

[frosty jetty]

fucking with draws feels modded tbh

[robust nebula]

since no vanilla joker does that

[frosty jetty]

i'm gonna ⚙️ it but i'm keeping the because ⚙️ implies that it'd be good in a mod

[robust nebula]

and the most id see a vanilla joker do is push 2 aces to the front as like a cheaters sleave or something

not something this widely applicable

thats another issue with this actually

it just makes what you already played most easier to play

which is winmore or stupid

or both

[gentle ferry]

It's not total removal

This only works once for the opening draw and it doesn't guarantee ranks

[odd canopy]

as stated before, most builds dont need ranks

[gentle ferry]

Fibonacci and hack?

Ride the bus?

[odd canopy]

paredolia?

[gentle ferry]

Those are builds that get use out of specific ranks

this joker isn't going to hand you the key to one-shot every single blind

you'll have to make this work with deckfixes, tarots, and other jokers

this just means you aren't going to be up shits creek without a paddle

[frosty jetty]

If you build to a rank, nine times out of ten it's a 5oak or Flush Five build

And if either of those are your most played hand, unless you've made some atrocious deckfixing decisions, the rank is guaranteed

[forest oriole]

That sounds too complicated, I think it should be incompatible personally

Also, what if your most played hand type is a 5 card hand and your hand size is less than 5

[alpine prism]

well my attempts in modding this are going very well so far

just a tiny quirk i noticed is that a hand type is technically capable of drawing another hand type by sheer luck

a straight or a flush could draw a straight flush by accident lmao

same thing with 5oak and flush five, or full house and flush house

well i havent seen one of those happen yet but its possible in theory

[crude oxide]

yes. Trading card is very strong but it still doesn't do it for you like this. I love trading card because as you progress with it you start to get a feel of how it's helping you

[crude oxide]

exactly

[alpine prism]

may not be the most balanced but i think its funny and i like it so i made it

[alpine prism]

should this stay as a neat quirk or do i try to fix it

@gentle ferry

[gentle ferry]

Do try fixing it

If I have a straight build and I have Straights at Lvl. 12 but Straight Flushes at Lvl. 2 I would prefer getting a "worse" hand

[alpine prism]

gotta make anti-flush checks then to make sure its not "upgraded" by stupid luck

also i must mention

this does NOT take into account whether or not four fingers or shortcut is present

[gentle ferry]

Probably easier to ignore them

Actually, could I see your code?

my limited programming experience is in Java so I might not immediately get it but I've also heard Lua is human-friendly

[alpine prism]

its dogshit but sure

[alpine prism]

https://github.com/dervorce/Dapper-s-Opening-Act/blob/main/main.lua

[gentle ferry]

OK nevermind I have no idea how Lua works

So when does that "rigged" message pop up?

When the joker can't get you your most played hand?

[alpine prism]

when it succeeds

[gentle ferry]

I see

[alpine prism]

since it "rigs" the deck to give you the hand you want

although right now it just discards then draws as i have no idea how to change the order of which decks draw from

[gentle ferry]

Really? I would've thought the cards in your deck would be an array or something you can pull from

[alpine prism]

they are but im not sure if the order actually matters, i tried putting the cards at the top and bottom of it but they didnt get drawn first so i have no idea how to rig the deck drawing rng

[alpine prism]

fixed it

[alpine prism]

well this is basically ready now except for one thing

@gentle ferry our joker is kinda artless

[ashen pewter]

please jimbo i need this

[gentle ferry]

I imagine the art would be jimbo playing a rock guitar or something

[knotty monolith]

"but guys, this doesn't work in pair build" ahh joker, apart from that, I gotta say it's not that bad, after considering the pros and cons I think I like this joker

[gentle ferry]

Given that @alpine prism was kind enough to make this a real mod so it can be field-tested

[alpine prism]

yeah im just waiting for like someone to make a sprite to use for it

[alpine prism]

well since art isnt going to shit itself into existence and im dogshit at drawing stuff it which default sprite should i copy?

[spring solar]

Lowkey my problem with this is it either does nothing (pair/hc is most common), or your deck is so well fixed already that you can consistently play big hands and don’t need this

If 4oak is your most played hand already then you don’t need a joker to get you a single 4oak

[alpine prism]

it aint that true or false

from my testing it just makes getting big hands consistently easier

[gentle ferry]

Hack, maybe

[alpine prism]

i got 4 more aces of hearts meaning i could do a flushfive and then i just siffled through until i got them enough then never had to worry about discarding several times for it and sometimes not getting it at all

but to be fair i did do my run around it, i never let a hand get more than like 4 plays i had to spread it out to make the flush five easier to get

[alpine prism]

well there it is

[gentle ferry]

hell yeah

And if I wanted to test this out, I just gotta download a file from your github

?

[alpine prism]

hold on

gotta actually update it

so right

i forgot to mention

you know how i said this discards then draws

[gentle ferry]

Yeah?

[alpine prism]

well it turns out to properly rig the deck, it cant be done due to an issue in SMODS itself, an issue recently fixed but unreleased, so i made 2 versions of the joker, and to use the version that rigs the deck instead of discard-to-draw you gotta go to smods/main and download that dev versopm

[gentle ferry]

Good to know