What do Stone Cards do in Balatro & How to Use Them Effectively

Stone Cards in Balatro are a type of card that nominally, don’t do anything special on their own, but there are some ways you can use them to great effect. In this article, I’ll go over what Stone Cards do in Balatro and how you can use them effectively.

What is the Effect of a Stone Card in Balatro and How to Get it?

In reality, a Stone Card is just an “enhancement” to an existing card, so to get a Stone Card, you’ll probably be offered an option to change one of your cards into a Stone Card. If you are keen on doing this, try to get rid of a low-rank card.

The effect of the Stone Card is that it gives you +50 chips bonus to your played hand. That’s it. However, the “played” part implies that you must play it to benefit from its bonus. This naturally opens up quite a few questions, because you can only play five cards. If you decide to play a Stone Card (that doesn’t have a rank or suit), you are limited to only playing four cards. So, are there any good uses for Stone Card in Balatro? Perhaps.

Best Uses for Stone Card in Balatro

In my opinion, the Stone Card is pretty limited in its potential. Due to its technical limitation, you can only use the Stone Card with the following cards:

• High Card
• Pair
• Two Pair
• Three of a Kind
• Straight (if you have the Joker “Four Fingers” that allows you to form a straight with 4 cards only)
• Flush (if you have the “Four Fingers” Joker)
• Four of a Kind
• Straight and Royal Flush (if you have the “Four Fingers” Joker)

In regular circumstances, this leaves out the likes of:

• Straight
• Flush
• Full House
• Straight Flush
• Royal Flush

So, you’re denying yourself the chance to play most of the strong hands (barring Four of a Kind). However, if you level up those “lower-ranked” hands with the Planet cards and have a handful of Stone Cards, then you can make some great plays, but don’t expect them to be consistent. Unless, of course, you get the “Marble Joker” that adds one Stone Card each round to your deck, or the “Stone Joker” that gains +25 Chips for each Stone Card in your deck. If you can get all of this in your deck through magic tricks, you won’t lose the run, I suppose.

Thank you for stopping by GameSkinny, and if you want to read more about Balatro, I recommend you browse our Balatro section where you’ll find stuff such as how to get a Cavendish Joker and how to get a Flush House.