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The Arm round
Screenshot by GameSkinny

How to Beat The Arm Boss Blind in Balatro

Here's how to beat the Arm, which reduces the levels of your hands.

Each round of Balatro has a boss with a different ability designed to make them harder to beat when compared to the Small Blind and Big Blind. However, the Arm is a major source of frustration. So, here’s how to beat the Arm Boss Blind in Balatro.

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How to Defeat The Arm Boss Blind Easily in Balatro

Each hand you play against The Arm Blind goes down a level. So, there are two primary strategies for beating The Arm. The first is to play hands that you rarely use. This way, the downgrade on them isn’t as much of an issue in future rounds while you work to get Planet cards to regain their levels.

Default values for each hand
Screenshot by GameSkinny

How to Beat The Arm in as Few Hands as Possible

The second way is to play a hand you have a lot of Multipliers and bonuses, so you can end the round using as few hands as possible. That way, you limit how many levels those hands go down while playing against The Arm Blind. You still have the bonuses active, so those hands aren’t as useless as they could be after going against the Arm. This is what I did.

I had a Joker that gave me bonus Chips for each face card played. Then, I had a Joker that added Multipliers for Pairs. I also leveled my Two Pair before the Arm came up. So, I was able to play a Two Pair with face cards and end the round in a single hand.

It’s important to remember that the decrease in hand-level you play against The Arm isn’t just for that round. I didn’t realize this the first time I went against it. But depending on the level of your hands going into the fight, The Arm can ruin your run with the reductions. As such, be careful about choosing your strategy and the hands you play. After this round, you must use Planet cards to increase their levels.

But that’s how to beat The Arm Boss Blind in Balatro. To an extent, there’s RNG involved because you might face it early in your run. And that can ruin it by making your hands almost worthless afterward. From here, check out our guide hub as we continue to add content to it to help you progress through the game.


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Author
Image of Melissa Sarnowski
Melissa Sarnowski
Melissa Sarnowski has been working as a gaming writer professionally for two years, having been at GameSkinny for over a year now as a horror beat writer. She has an English degree from University of Wisconsin - Madison. While she focuses on all things horror, she also enjoys cozy games, MMOs like FFXIV and WoW, and any and everything in between.