Joker Combo Advisor

A Steamodded mod for Balatro that recommends joker combos while you play:

• Hover any joker in the shop or a Buffoon Pack and a Combo Advisor tooltip appears next to its description, naming which of your current jokers it synergizes with and why ("Mime: retriggers cards in hand"), so you learn the mechanics rather than just the verdict. Famous pairs get hand-written explanations; everything else is phrased from the synergy tags. Jokers with no current synergy teach instead what to pair them with ("Looking for: Tarot cards" / "Offers: face cards"). Strong picks also get a "Strong pick for this build!" callout and pulse periodically in the shop so you can spot them without hovering.
• Combo discovery: the first time you field a famous pair together, a "New combo!" toast fires and the pair is permanently inked into the catalog — until then its cards sit face-down with a "???" caption, so filling in the Combos tab becomes its own collection hunt.
• Theme discovery: assembling any synergy theme for the first time — one joker that provides it plus another that wants it — fires a "Theme explored!" toast, badges that theme's catalog page, and counts toward a per-tab progress line ("3 of 10 themes explored").
• Anti-synergy warnings: known traps get a red "Clashes" line when a hovered joker fights one you own (Ride the Bus + Pareidolia, Vampire vs Steel Joker…), and destructive jokers (Ceremonial Dagger, Madness, Stencil) carry a "Caution" line in the shop. Warnings never change the score — they just stop a bad buy.
• Consumable advice: shop consumables and booster packs get the same treatment — a Planet card or Celestial Pack names the owned jokers it feeds ("Feeds: Constellation"), Arcana supply points at Fortune Teller, and a Standard Pack warns you when it would shrink Erosion's Mult. Quiet unless one of your jokers actually cares.
• Sticker cautions: a perishable sticker on a scaling joker (Ride the Bus, Hologram…) means its gains die with the 5-round timer, and a rental sticker on a money joker can eat its whole payout — both get a red caution in the buy area, per card, only when the sticker is present.
• Partner highlight: while you hover a joker, the owned jokers it combos with pulse gently on the board, so the names in the tooltip are matched to cards by eye.
• Hover a joker you own to see its active combos with the rest of your lineup — and, when your board is full, a "weakest combo piece" flag on the joker contributing least to the build, so you know the natural cut when something better shows up.
• Browse the synergy catalog any time: a purple Combos button in the run HUD (under Run Info / Options) opens it in an overlay, and the same tabs live under Mods > Combo Advisor. The Combos tab shows the famous pairs as card duos with their explanation once fielded; Engine / Economy / Hands tabs page through each synergy theme with a one-line explanation of the mechanic and its Sources and Payoffs as real cards — hover any card for its normal description tooltip. All of it is generated from the same database the advisor scores with. Jokers you haven't discovered yet show face-down (no spoilers) unless the profile has used the game's own Unlock All setting, in which case everything is shown.
• Progress tab: completion bars for famous pairs fielded and themes explored per group, plus the pairs fielded in the current run.
• Post-run combo recap: the win and game-over screens list the famous pairs you fielded during that run.

How recommendations work

synergies.lua tags all 150 vanilla jokers with what they give a build (e.g. retrig_scoring, gold_gen, xmult) and what they want (e.g. faces, probability, money). Two jokers score:

Signal	Points
Famous explicit pair (Baron + Mime, Midas Mask + Golden Ticket, …)	+4
Each gives tag the other wants (both directions)	+2
Generic engine complement (+Mult/+Chips source with an ×Mult joker)	+1

A shop joker is recommended (pulses) when its total score against your owned jokers reaches the configured threshold (default 4). Partners with a pairwise score of 2+ are listed in the tooltip, strongest first. The generic +1 counts once per shop candidate — not once per owned joker — so it can nudge a near-miss over the line but never carry a recommendation by itself; a pulsing card always has at least one nameable partner.

Settings

In-game: Mods > Combo Advisor > Config. Changes persist across sessions.

• Pulse recommended jokers in shop — turn the visual pulse on/off.
• Show combo tooltip on owned jokers — the "Active combos" section on jokers you already hold.
• Highlight combo partners on hover — the on-board partner pulse.
• Flag weakest joker when board is full — the sell advisor line.
• Learning mode — hides the verdicts (pulse, "Strong pick!", the weakest-joker flag) while keeping all the explanations and warnings, for players who want to learn the synergies rather than be told what to buy.
• Touch mode — larger advice text and buttons for phone screens.
• Recommendation threshold — 2 (chatty) to 8 (only slam-dunk combos).

Defaults live in config.lua.

Works with other mods

Each integration gates on the other mod's presence — if it isn't installed, nothing happens and nothing is logged.

• Fusion Jokers — hover any joker that is a fusion component and the advisor names the fusion it feeds, its cost (discounts included), and what you are still missing: "Fuses into Diamond Bard ($12) — still needs Rough Gem". In the shop it answers the buy-side question instead: "Buy to fuse into Diamond Bard ($12 to fuse)". Because fusing consumes its components, a ready fusion also tells you what you'd give up — "Fusing drops combos with: Smeared" — which is the one thing the FUSE button can't tell you itself.
• JokerDisplay — a live (2 combos) counter under every joker, toggleable in the config tab.
• Too Many Jokers — its collection search also matches synergy tags, so you can search for money, Hearts, or held-card retriggers.

Installation

1. Install Lovely and Steamodded (follow their READMEs).
2. Copy this whole folder into your Balatro Mods directory:
   • Windows: %AppData%/Balatro/Mods/
   • Linux (Steam/Proton): ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/2379780/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/Balatro/Mods/ (or the same path under ~/.steam/steam/, or ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/... for Flatpak Steam)
   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Balatro/Mods/
3. Launch Balatro. The mod should appear in the in-game Mods menu. If something goes wrong, check the Lovely log (Mods/lovely/log/ next to the game, or the console window on launch).

Extending it

• Add or fix a synergy: edit synergies.lua. Give a joker a tag with j('j_key', {gives...}, {wants...}), or add a famous pair to the PAIRS table at the bottom. Modded jokers can be added the same way using their full key (e.g. j_mymod_cooljoker) — unknown jokers simply score 0.

• From another mod: if your mod adds jokers, teach the advisor about them at load time (any point after Combo Advisor has loaded):

  if JCA then
      -- gives/wants use the tag names from synergies.lua
      JCA.register('j_mymod_cooljoker', {'xmult'}, {'faces'})
      -- optional: opts {no_generic = true} if the generic
      -- "+Mult feeds the multiplier" logic misreads your joker
      JCA.register('j_mymod_slotless', {'xmult'}, nil, {no_generic = true})
      -- famous pair (+4, discoverable, shown in the Combos tab);
      -- keep the blurb under ~34 characters
      JCA.register_pair('j_mymod_cooljoker', 'j_pareidolia',
          'every card becomes a face for it')
      -- known trap: warning-only red tooltip line
      JCA.register_clash('j_mymod_cooljoker', 'j_vampire',
          'drains the enhancements it needs')
  end
  

  Unknown tags are dropped with a JCA: log line instead of erroring, so a typo in your registration can never break a load.

• Tune sensitivity: use the in-game Config tab, or change the defaults in config.lua.

Files

File	Purpose
JokerComboAdvisor.json	Steamodded mod metadata
main.lua	Scoring engine, hover tooltip, shop pulse, config tab
synergies.lua	Tag database for all 150 vanilla jokers + famous pairs
config.lua	Default settings (persisted by Steamodded once changed in-game)