How the Red Card works in Balatro

In Balatro, Red Card is a Joker that gains power whenever you skip Booster Packs. Specifically, it adds +3 Mult each time you skip a pack after opening it. This means you must purchase a Booster Pack and then choose not to take any of the offered cards for the effect to trigger. For Mega Booster Packs, which offer two choices, you can skip one of the two cards to activate Red Card, but the bonus can only be triggered once per pack, not per card.

Red Card shines in strategies where you can afford to buy packs solely to skip them, allowing the Mult bonus to stack over time and significantly boost your score potential. It pairs well with Jokers or Vouchers that increase your income or reduce pack prices, making it easier to fuel this skip-based scaling. However, it comes with tradeoffs—skipping valuable cards may hinder your deck-building, and at higher stakes, the cost of buying packs just to skip them can outweigh the benefit. Red Card is a slow-burn scaling Joker that rewards long-term planning, economy management, and restraint.