Vouchers are one of the most impactful systems in Balatro, yet many players treat them as an afterthought. Every shop visit after defeating a boss blind refreshes your voucher slot, and since each voucher's effect is permanent for the entire run, a single smart purchase can define your entire strategy. With 32 vouchers split into 16 base-and-upgrade pairs, knowing which ones to prioritize and which to ignore makes the difference between a failed run and a high-ante victory.

How Do Balatro Vouchers Actually Work?

Before ranking anything, it helps to understand the system. According to the Balatro Wiki on Fandom, vouchers appear in the shop and restock after your first completed round of each ante, after defeating the boss blind, or by claiming a Voucher Tag and skipping a blind. Each voucher costs $10, and upgraded "dependent" vouchers cost an additional $10 but require you to purchase the base version first.

All 32 vouchers have an equal chance to appear, and an unpurchased voucher stays in the shop on restock. If you somehow exhaust all 32 vouchers in a run (or spam the Voucher Tag), only Blank Vouchers will fill the remaining slots. No voucher can be purchased twice in the same run under normal conditions.

This structure means your decisions compound over time. Grabbing the right base voucher early unlocks a powerful upgrade later, so thinking two steps ahead is essential.

The S-Tier Vouchers: Always Buy These

These vouchers deliver strong value in virtually every run, regardless of your deck or joker setup.

Antimatter (Upgrade of Blank)

Antimatter grants +1 Joker slot, and joker slots are the most precious resource in Balatro. More jokers means more scoring potential, more flexibility, and more room to build around powerful combos. The catch is that you must first purchase Blank (which does nothing on its own) ten times across different runs to unlock Antimatter. Once unlocked, this is a near-automatic buy whenever it appears. The Antimatter voucher is always displayed with a negative edition effect in-game, a visual quirk that mirrors the negative joker mechanic.

Grabber and Nacho Tong

Grabber permanently adds +1 hand per round, and its upgrade Nacho Tong adds another +1 hand per round. Extra hands mean more opportunities to score, more chances to hit your target poker hand, and more resilience against bad draws. Together, these two vouchers give you two additional hands per round for just $20 total. That is exceptional value at almost any point in a run.

Paint Brush and Palette

Paint Brush adds +1 to your hand size, and Palette adds another +1 hand size. A larger hand means you see more cards each draw, which directly improves your ability to form strong poker hands. Hand size increases are universally useful and scale with almost every joker strategy.

Overstock and Overstock Plus

Overstock adds a third card slot to the shop, and Overstock Plus bumps that to four slots. More shop slots means more jokers, more tarot cards, and more packs available each visit. The Overstock Plus upgrade also immediately restocks any empty card slots when purchased, which is a nice bonus. According to the Balatro Wiki, the unlock condition for Overstock Plus requires spending a total of $2500 at the shop, so it may not always be available early.

Overstock Plus adds a fourth slot

The A-Tier Vouchers: Buy Most of the Time

These vouchers are strong but slightly more situational than the top tier.

Wasteful and Recyclomancy

Wasteful gives +1 discard per round permanently, and Recyclomancy adds another +1 discard. Discards let you cycle through bad hands, fish for your target hand type, and activate discard-based jokers. If your build relies on any discard synergy at all, these are must-buys. Even in neutral builds, extra discards add safety.

Clearance Sale and Liquidation

Clearance Sale reduces all cards and packs in the shop by 25%, while Liquidation cuts prices by 50%. Cheaper packs mean more booster purchases per ante, which accelerates joker acquisition and card upgrades significantly. Note that Liquidation also reduces the sell value of your current jokers, so factor that in before purchasing if you plan to sell jokers for cash.

Reroll Surplus and Reroll Glut

Reroll Surplus cuts reroll costs by $2, and Reroll Glut cuts them by another $2. If you reroll shops frequently to hunt for specific jokers or consumables, these vouchers pay for themselves quickly. They are less valuable in runs where you rarely reroll.

Seed Money and Money Tree

Seed Money raises your per-round interest cap to $10, and Money Tree raises it to $20. If you are playing an economy-focused build or naturally accumulate large gold reserves, these vouchers dramatically increase your passive income. They are weaker if you spend money aggressively each round and never hold large stacks of gold. Note that both vouchers do nothing when using the Green Deck, which already has its own interest mechanics.

Telescope

Telescope ensures that Celestial Packs always contain the Planet card for your most-played poker hand. If you are committing to a single hand type (like Flush or Straight), this voucher locks in consistent Planet card upgrades, which directly raises your scoring ceiling. Its upgrade, Observatory, gives Planet cards in your consumable area an X1.5 Mult bonus for their specified hand, which is powerful but niche.

Telescope locks in Planet cards

The B-Tier Vouchers: Situational Buys

These vouchers are worth purchasing when specific conditions are met in your run.

Hieroglyph and Petroglyph deserve a special mention. Reducing the ante count by one shortens the run, which can be strategically useful in high-stake runs, but the trade-off of losing a hand or discard per round is painful. These are advanced tools, not general-purpose buys.

The C-Tier Vouchers: Rarely Worth It

These vouchers have narrow use cases and should generally be skipped unless you are building specifically around them.

• Tarot Merchant and Tarot Tycoon: Tarot cards appear 2x and 4x more often in the shop. Only relevant if your build actively needs constant tarot access.
• Hone: Foil, Holographic, and Polychrome cards appear 2x more often. Useful for edition-focused builds but too passive for most runs.
• Observatory: X1.5 Mult from Planet cards in your consumable area. Strong in a dedicated Planet-stacking build, but requires Telescope first.
• Retcon: Unlimited boss blind rerolls at $10 each. Powerful situationally but expensive and requires Director's Cut first.

The D-Tier Vouchers: Skip These

These vouchers are considered poor investments by the community across dozens of ranked tier lists.

• Glow Up: Foil, Holographic, and Polychrome cards appear 4x more often. The effect sounds impressive, but edition upgrades rarely justify the $10 cost over other options.
• Planet Merchant and Planet Tycoon: Planet cards appear more frequently in the shop. Planet cards are usually accessible enough through Celestial Packs that boosting their shop frequency adds minimal value.
• Illusion: Playing cards in the shop may have Enhancements, Editions, or Seals. Currently bugged in v1.0.1o-FULL (seals do not apply), and even when working correctly, the randomness makes this unreliable.
• Magic Trick: Allows playing cards to be purchased from the shop. Useful only in very specific card-manipulation builds.
• Tarot Tycoon: 4x tarot frequency is overkill unless you are running a dedicated tarot engine.

What's the Best Voucher Purchase Order?

If you want a practical priority framework, here is how to approach voucher decisions across a run:

1. Antes 1-3: Prioritize Grabber, Paint Brush, and Overstock to establish hand size and shop access advantages early.
2. Antes 3-5: Pick up Wasteful and Clearance Sale to improve discard flexibility and reduce shop costs.
3. Antes 5-7: Invest in upgrades like Nacho Tong, Palette, and Overstock Plus now that their base vouchers are active.
4. Late Game: Antimatter whenever available, Telescope if committed to one hand type, and Seed Money or Money Tree if your gold reserves are consistently high.

This order is not rigid. If Antimatter appears early and you can afford it, grab it immediately. The extra joker slot is worth almost any sacrifice.

Full Voucher Reference Table

For the full mechanical breakdown of every voucher effect, the Balatro Vouchers Fandom Wiki is the most thorough reference available, including unlock conditions and edge case notes for each pair.

If you want to dig even deeper into the numbers and edge cases, the Balatro Wiki voucher reference covers additional mechanical details worth bookmarking.

For more guides covering Balatro strategies, joker builds, and deck advice, browse the full guides library at GAMES.GG to keep improving your runs.