How does ante work in Balatro?

Ante is an important concept in poker and in the poker-like, Rogue-lite game Balatro. In order to interact with your cards and your jokers properly, you might want a short description of ante and other poker terms that Balatro often uses.

What is ante in Balatro?

Ante is the up-front bet you need to place in order to play a round of poker, but it means something a little bit different in the poker-like game Balatro. An ante is a round of play; each round is made of three different blinds (levels). An ante is made up of a Small Blind, Large Blind, then a Boss Blind. The Small and Large Blinds are both basic levels, but Boss Blinds have a special debuff that effects your hands, your cards, or it can massively raise the needed score to win.

Related: Balatro Joker Tier List – All Cards Ranked

All Boss Blind debuff possibilities in antes

Whenever you complete an ante, a new ante will begin with another Small, Large, and Boss Blind with higher scores required to win. The new ante's Boss Blind will also have a different debuff than the first ante. Here is a list of all the possible Boss Blinds.

• Arm: Decreases the level of Hand you play by 1
• Club: All Club cards are debuffed
• Eye: Every hand played this round must be a different type, and not previously played this round
• Fish: The cards drawn after you play a hand are drawn face-down
• Flint: The base chips and Mult for playing a poker hand are halved this round
• Goad: All Spade cards are debuffed
• Head: All Heart cards are debuffed 2x base
• Hook: Discards 2 random cards from your hand, after each hand played 2x base
• House: The first hand of cards is drawn completely face-down
• Ox: Playing your most played hand will set money to $0
• Manacle: -1 hand size for this round
• Mark: All face cards are drawn face-down
• Mouth: Only one hand type can be played this round
• Needle: Play only one, single hand. 1x base
• Pillar: Cards played previously this ante are debuffed
• Plant: All face cards are debuffed
• Psychic: Hands must have five cards
• Serpent: After playing a hand or discarding cards, you always draw 3 more cards
• Tooth: Lose $1 per card played
• Wall: Extra large blind 4x base
• Water: Start the round with no discards
• Wheel: 1 in 7 cards are drawn face-down throughout the round 2x base
• Window: All Diamond cards are debuffed

During the final ante in any run, ante level 8, will have a Final Boss Blind with its own selection of possible dubuffs. These are:

• Amber Acorn: Flips and shuffles all Joker cards
• Crimson Heart: One of your Jokers is disabled on every hand
• Cerulean Bell: The Blind forces 1 random card in your hand to be selected, at all times
• Verdant Leaf: All cards debuffed until 1 Joker sold
• Violet Vessel: Extremely large blind 6x base

For more Balatro, check out Balatro Blank Voucher: What is it for? on Pro Game Guides.