Someone just discovered that Balatro's 'Misprint' joker has been sending us secret messages this whole time
The smudged card isn't just dealing out random mults—it can also help you cheat.
Misprint is sort of an average joker in Balatro. The card, which looks like it got badly streaked coming out of the color printer, offers a random multiplier between 0 and 23, which averages out at 11.5. That's not a bad mult in the early game, but I rarely buy Misprint anymore, and when I do, I usually don't hang onto it for very long. There are far better jokers out there.
However. Misprint has been hiding a naughty little secret all this time, and it's apparently taken seven months since Balatro launched for someone to finally notice it. When you look at it, Misprint isn't just cycling through a random multiplier, it's also trying to help you cheat. Watch closely, and it will reveal the rank and suit of the next card you'll be dealt.
The tip comes to us from streamer BelenosBear, who appears to have gotten it from a someone in their chat. The viewer, AllineVayn, told BelenosBear that while you're playing a blind, "the description of misprint can show something like #@11D which means the top card of your deck is Jack (11) and Diamond (D).
"shits actually crazy," AllineVayn added.
And it's true. Shit is actually crazy, and Misprint does actually reveal the rank and suit of the next card in your deck. You don't even have to be using Misprint at the time. While you're playing a blind, go to your collection, page through your jokers, and find Misprint. It'll be flashing its randomizer, and every now and then, it'll also flash a sequence revealing the next card. Here's a gif I took, slowed way down to see it easier:
See? Misprint predicted "#@9D," and sure enough, the next card I was dealt was the nine of diamonds. Try it yourself, or watch BelenosBear's video below.
As a cheat, Misprint's psychic abilitity probably isn't super helpful most of the time, but I can definitely see a few instances—like trying to cobble together a flush or five-of-a-kind on your last hand—where it would definitely be useful.
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I think the more important takeaway from this is we now know there are secrets in Balatro. Surely, there's more than just the one! What else are those other 149 jokers hiding?
Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.
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