Green Joker is a Common Joker that provides Additive Mult to all played hands. It is one of many scaling Additive Mult Jokers which grows in power with specific actions, gaining +1 Mult whenever a hand is played and scored. This very strong and unconditional strength is offset by a noticeable downside: it loses -1 Mult whenever a card(s) get discarded - either by the player or game mechanics, which currently only applies in the case of The Hook Boss Blind. It starts at, and will never go below, +0 Mult.
Green Joker is often touted as one of the best Common Jokers in the game, primarily for its strength in the foundational early Antes of a run, which snowballs into huge power later as long as the build is not dependent on discarding cards. This is largely a nonissue, as hands are strictly superior to discards anyway regarding point scoring, and can only prove troublesome when the player's money pool is weak. Assuming it is obtained at the start of Ante 2, with an average of 3 hands played per round and no discards, Green Joker will give +60 Mult going into the Finisher Blind, equivalent to three fresh Popcorns.
This Joker cannot receive the Perishable sticker.
Synergies[]
Decks[]
Green Joker works with any Deck, with its strength being more pronounced the earlier it is acquired into the run. Decks that have noteworthy synergy include:
- Blue Deck: An extra hand means Green Joker can reach even greater heights by the end of the run. At the very worst, if the player's build is strong enough that a few High Cards are sweeping the Blinds, it translates to an extra $1 at the end of each round.
- Green Deck: This deck benefits from this Joker mainly in the early game when money is low and all hands are used to scale Green Joker, taking advantage of the $1 gained per unused discard. However, other decks would be able to provide more money long-term if the player holds $25 and continues using all hands to scale Green Joker.
Poker Hands[]
Green Joker works best with hands that can be reliably made without discarding and also played repeatedly, with the rarer hands being less and less reliable. Green Joker wants weaker hands earlier anyways so it can scale more per round, as ending the Blind in one hand will make it scale to about the same size as a fresh Popcorn by the end of a run, far inferior to its usual capabilities.
This means it works best when playing:
Another possible strategy is to scale up one of the stronger hands like Straight or Four of a Kind, then use all but one of the hands as makeshift discards to try and craft that hand, leading to an even stronger end result. This strategy can lead to very high scores, and works best when paired with Jokers like Acrobat and Dusk, but it is a lot less reliable and may necessitate discards, thereby weakening Green Joker.
Jokers[]
- Chip Jokers help Green Joker form an important core that can bolster the strength of most, if not all hands, very reliably. Banner is the most obvious choice, giving +30 Chips for each unused discard in the round; in the same rarity, however, Blue Joker is more favorable at higher difficulties, as it is not affected by the -1 discard penalty of Blue Stake and higher, and would not be having its power significantly dampened by discards. Other reliable options include Square Joker for consistent scaling, and Stuntman for an extraordinary boost at a negligible downside for builds Green Joker is oriented towards anyway.
- Multiplicative Mult Jokers are key, not only to powering through the higher Stakes, but to amplifying this Joker's strengths, and many of them synergize very well with it. Some examples include:
- Acrobat: With its X3 Mult boost triggering on the final hand of the round, it can be easier to use when playing large volumes of hands, as is optimal in this Joker's case. It can also lead to much more explosive plays with bigger hands.
- Card Sharp: Giving a strong X3 Mult boost if the poker hand was scored previously in the round, it is almost impossible not to benefit from it due to the ease of simply playing multiple High Cards.
- Hologram: High Card/Pair builds do not necessarily care about overall consistency or individual card quality as much, as most of the scoring is sourced from the Jokers as well as the Planet scaling. This allows the player to very easily take advantage of Hologram's fast scaling rate.
- Ramen: An unconditional X2 Mult boost, it and this Joker go together greatly, as they are only weakened by discards - something the player would not be doing in the first place in ideal scenarios if they had both.
- Vampire: While it does not scale as fast as it would in builds playing full 5-card hands when paired with Green Joker (as a general rule of thumb), it is still a great option to consider, as it removes mostly insignificant buffs for much more generally useful Multiplicative Mult boosting.
- Delayed Gratification: Paying out $2 per discard at the end of the round as long as none were used, this Joker helps significantly with the economy problems playing large amounts of hands usually incurs, while being cheaper to acquire than more generic alternatives. It is slightly less valuable past Black Stake due to the -1 discard penalty.
- Burglar: Forming the best synergy with this Joker by a country mile, trading in discards for an extra three hands provides a huge power ceiling boost, allowing this Joker to reach even higher levels of Mult before key points in the run. It also gives more consistency to finding stronger hands, which can be leveraged to an effect mentioned in the Poker Hands section. However, it does turn off synergy with Banner and Delayed Gratification, so consider other options if these are key to the current build.
- Matador: It can pay out tremendously if the right Boss Blind is encountered, as just playing repeated High Cards of debuffed cards (for example) can net $24 or more, enough to approach the default interest cap on its own. Only do this if the scoring provided by other sources is sufficient, however.
- Space Joker: With the high volumes of hands Green Joker builds play, this can help to periodically tune the scaling even higher.
- Vagabond: Another very seamless synergy, generating a Tarot Card after every hand played as long as no more than $4 are held. Creating 3 or more in a single round can lead to very rapid deck enrichment and manipulation, allowing pivots into much stronger hands that will appreciate the sea of Mult that Green Joker will give.
Vouchers[]
- Grabber and Nacho Tong give additional hands per round, allowing Green Joker to scale even higher.
Anti-Synergies[]
Decks[]
- Black Deck: While the added Joker slot allows Green Joker's power to be lifted up more by Multiplicative Mult Jokers, the -1 hand penalty is too burdensome, meaning it will not scale at the same pace without at least an entire extra Voucher (Grabber), on top of the fact that the repeated playing of hands will only exacerbate the Deck's economy issues.
- Red Deck: The +1 discard bonus is completely redundant to a Green Joker build, which should only be using discards in emergencies anyway.
- Anaglyph Deck: Skipping Blinds to get extra Tags means not getting those extra Mult points on this Joker, which, in very extreme circumstances, could spell the player's demise. Given the power of stacking Tags, however, this is usually a nonissue.
Jokers[]
Green Joker has anti-synergy with any Joker related to using discards in almost every circumstance. This includes Jokers such as:
Another anti-synergy arises from Troubadour, which makes the player play one hand short, thus making Green Joker scale slower.
Blinds[]
- The Hook: This boss blind counters Green Joker's scaling potential as it discards 2 random cards every hand played, causing only a net neutral at the end. It is recommended to try to win as fast as possible against The Hook so players can have some money leftover as they cannot scale Green Joker against this boss blind.
Trivia[]
- This Joker has a direct counterpart in Ride the Bus: both are Additive Mult Jokers that gain power whenever a hand (regardless of type) is played, and both have ways to lose their power as well, which encourages the player to not perform a specific action (using discards in this Joker's case, or playing face cards in the other's).
In other languages[]
Language | Name | Notes |
---|---|---|
Chinese (Simplified) | 绿色小丑 | |
Chinese (Traditional) | 綠色小丑 | |
Dutch | Groene Joker | |
French | Joker vert | |
German | Grüner Joker | |
Indonesian | Green Joker | |
Italian | Jolly verde | |
Japanese | グリーンジョーカー | |
Korean | 그린 조커 | |
Polish | Zielony Joker | |
Portuguese (Brazilian) | Curinga Verde | |
Russian | Зеленый джокер | |
Spanish (Spain) | Comodín verde | |
Spanish (Latin America) | Comodín verde |