JokerComboAdvisor/AUDIT.md

Synergy database audit

Generated by lua audit.lua --write. Do not edit by hand.

test.lua is the gate (it fails on what is broken). This is the map: it reports what is merely suspicious, and records what we already decided so the analysis does not get redone from scratch every session.

Totals

Jokers in the database	150
Famous pairs	32
Clashes	22
Cautions	15
Themes	29
Jokers in no famous pair	108

Jokers the advisor is silent about

These give nothing but engine roles (Mult/Chips/xMult) and want nothing, so they score at most the generic +1 against any joker in the game. That is a legitimate answer for some of them -- but it should be a decision, not an accident.

	count
Silent, reviewed, staying that way	20
Silent, but a lead worth chasing	12
Silent and never looked at	0

Leads worth chasing

Unverified. Check each against the Lovely dump before acting on it -- a wrong synergy is worse than a missing one.

• j_baseball — xMult per Uncommon joker owned. We have no rarity tag, and adding one for a single payoff may not earn its keep.
• j_card_sharp — xMult when the hand type was already played this round -- it rewards repeating one hand, which is exactly what Obelisk punishes. Clash?
• j_ceremonial — positional like Blueprint: it DESTROYS the joker to its right. JCA.copy_source already reads board order -- the same machinery could warn "will destroy your Baron" before it eats something irreplaceable.
• j_chaos — free reroll each shop; see j_flash
• j_erosion — +Mult per card BELOW 52 in the deck, so it is the inverse of card_gen: DNA/Marble/Certificate permanently shrink it. Likely CLASHES, and possibly a synergy with anything that destroys cards (Trading Card).
• j_flash — +Mult per shop reroll. Chaos the Clown grants a free reroll each shop, which would give both of them a reason to exist (Chaos is inert today).
• j_green_joker — +Mult per hand, -Mult per discard: Burglar removes discards entirely. Same shape as the existing Burglar + Mystic Summit pair.
• j_obelisk — resets on your most-played hand, so it fights every hand-type build. Has a CAUTION already; the pairwise clashes may be worth adding.
• j_ramen — xMult decays per card discarded, so Burglar (zero discards all run) stops the decay dead. Likely a famous pair.
• j_ring_master — Showman allows duplicates in the pool. Enables copy/duplicate strategies, but we have no tag for "shop pool" effects and inventing one for a single joker is probably not worth it.
• j_square — +Chips on exactly-4-card hands; Four Fingers makes 4-card flushes and straights playable. Needs a tag that does not exist yet.
• j_supernova — Mult scales with times the hand was played; see j_card_sharp

Reviewed, and deliberately silent

• j_cavendish — the reward for Gros Michel dying, not a partner
• j_chicot — disables the boss blind; no joker interaction
• j_credit_card — lets you go negative; a money buffer, not a combo
• j_diet_cola — sell for a Double Tag; tags are outside our model
• j_glass — wants GLASS cards, and no vanilla joker creates them. Same trap as Steel Joker: enhance_gen is too coarse a tag to use here.
• j_gros_michel — self-destructs; the trap is a CAUTION
• j_half — +Mult on small hands; no joker cares
• j_ice_cream — decays; the trap is a CAUTION
• j_joker — plain +Mult; interacts with nothing
• j_loyalty_card — xMult every 6 hands; no joker interaction
• j_luchador — sell to disable a boss; no joker interaction
• j_misprint — random +Mult; interacts with nothing
• j_mr_bones — death insurance; no joker interaction
• j_mystic_summit — already paired with Burglar (zero discards, max Mult)
• j_popcorn — decays; the trap is a CAUTION
• j_red_card — +Mult per skipped booster; no joker interaction
• j_ride_the_bus — scales on face-free hands; the traps are CLASHES
• j_steel_joker — wants STEEL cards. The only enhance_gen givers make Gold (Midas) and Stone (Marble), so tagging it enhance_gen would invent a synergy that does not exist. No vanilla joker creates Steel cards. Leave it alone.
• j_stuntman — big chips, -2 hand size; the trap is a CAUTION
• j_throwback — xMult per skipped blind; no joker interaction

Tag health

A tag with one member can never fire (it takes two jokers to make a synergy). A tag with two is fragile: drop either joker and the theme dies.

tag	givers	wanters	jokers	theme?
card_gen	3	2	5	yes
clubs	3	4	4	yes
copy_target	10	3	13	yes
diamonds	2	2	2	yes
discards_up	2	8	10	yes
enhance_gen	2	2	4	yes
faces	1	9	10	yes
flush	5	4	6	yes
four_kind	2	1	2	yes
gold_gen	1	1	2	yes
hand_size	3	4	7	yes
hands_up	1	1	2	yes
hearts	2	2	2	yes
joker_gen	1	3	4	yes
money	15	3	17	yes
pair	4	3	4	yes
planet	3	3	3	yes
probability	1	7	8	yes
retrig_held	1	4	5	yes
retrig_scoring	6	16	22	yes
sell_value	2	2	4	yes
spades	2	3	3	yes
spectral_gen	2	2	2	yes
stone_gen	1	1	2	yes
straight	7	6	8	yes
suit_flex	1	11	12	yes
tarot_gen	6	2	7	yes
three_kind	4	3	4	yes
two_pair	3	3	3	yes

Load-bearing jokers

The jokers that appear in the most scoring relationships. If one of these is mis-tagged, the error is spread across the whole database.

joker	partners scoring >= 2
j_sock_and_buskin	18
j_dusk	16
j_hack	16
j_hanging_chad	16
j_selzer	16
j_smeared	16
j_splash	16
j_to_the_moon	16
j_bootstraps	15
j_bull	15
j_four_fingers	12
j_seance	12

Jokers with no partner scoring >= 2 anywhere in the game: 30