Balatro: how to unlock and use the Plasma Deck

How to unlock the Plasma Deck in Balatro, and how to use it effectively

The different decks in Balatro let you tackle your run in any way you want. The basic decks give you a lot of simple advantages, but once you start unlocking the more advanced decks, things start to get weird. Case in point, the Plasma Deck, which says it “Balances Chips and Mult”, which isn’t clear what it means at first.

However, this effect can make it ridiculously powerful if you know what you’re doing, so we’ll explain how to unlock the Plasma Deck in Balatro and how to use it effectively.

Balatro: what does the Blank Voucher do?

How to unlock the Plasma Deck in Balatro

The Plasma Deck can only be unlocked by Balatro's best players / Playstack

To unlock the Plasma Deck you must win a run with any deck on Blue Stake difficulty. To unlock higher difficulty levels, you must first win a run on the previous difficulty level. Although it’s worth noting, it will only unlock the higher difficulty for that particular deck – not all of them.

What does the Plasma Deck do in Balatro?

The Plasma Deck can massively boost your multiplier if you set your deck up right / Playstack

The full description of the Plasma Deck reads: “Balance Chips and Mult when calculating score for played hand. X2 base Blind size”.

What this means is that your Chips and Multiplier will be equalized after calculating your score.

For example, if you play a standard pair, your score is 10x2 = 20, but the Plasma Deck would add those two numbers together and divide them between both sides of the equation, turning it into 6x6 = 36. However, it also takes into account whatever cards you played and any Joker effects, meaning you can quickly climb to ludicrous heights.

Since, in most scenarios, your multiplier will usually be smaller than your chips, it will massively boost your hand scores. However, you have to be careful how you build your deck, as stacking multipliers on multipliers may eventually cause the balancing effect to hinder you in the long run.