What does the Blank Voucher do?
Buying the Blank Voucher turns on the ability to find the Antimatter Voucher. It’s true that on its own, in a vacuum, the Blank Voucher does technically do nothing. You buy it and it just sits there in your inventory. However, buying this voucher unlocks a different voucher, the Antimatter Voucher, which can now appear in future shops. As a note, you must buy a total of 10 Blank Vouchers in the game to unlock Antimatter. The Blanks themselves will not allow you to find Antimatter until you’ve reached that achievement. To put it another way, you cannot buy the Antimatter Voucher if you don’t buy the Blank Voucher first. Just to be clear, you will not automatically see the Antimatter Voucher in the next shop—it will just be added to the pool of potential Vouchers that can appear at random. The 10 Blank Voucher purchases can happen over the course of any number of runs. It’s not like you have to buy all 10 in one run.
Why is the Antimatter Voucher so good?
It grants an extra Joker slot, which is unfathomably powerful. Balatro, at its core, is about buying the right Jokers to score enough points to win each ante. An extra Joker slot may sound like small potatoes, but it’s unironically as powerful an upgrade as you can get. Going from 5 to 6 Jokers enables so many more combos, tricks, and synergies since you now have another slot to play around with. The more Jokers you have, the more chips and mult you can add to each hand you play. There’s literally no downside.
When It Makes Sense to Buy the Blank Voucher
You’re playing for an endless run. Access to the Antimatter Voucher is pretty essential in an endless run where you’re trying to see how far you can push your score. The extra Joker enables some downright ridiculous combos and power upgrades, so it’s worth buying if you plan on seeing how far you can take your deck. Still, only buy the Blank Voucher if you can afford it and you aren’t at risk of losing the next round without a Joker buy.
You’re early on in a non-endless run. Blank Voucher is a “buy now, reward later” kind of purchase, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to buy it if you’re in the sixth or seventh round of a non-endless run. You just won’t get that many chances to find the Antimatter Voucher after buying the Blank, and even if you do, you won’t have that many shops to visit to find an extra Joker that matters. If your goal is to beat Ante 8, it’s unlikely that a Blank Voucher bought after Ante 4 or so is worth your time unless you’re rolling in money.
You have double tags. If you’ve got any double tags, your odds of finding the Antimatter Voucher go up considerably. Find a Voucher tag and hit it. The double tag(s) will go off, and you’ll get a good look at a bunch of new Vouchers. Even if you don’t see the Antimatter Voucher right away, you’re removing a lot of other Vouchers from the future pool, so the odds are increasing dramatically.
You have money to spare. Blank Voucher is definitely one of those things in Balatro that you should buy if your economy is online and you’re not struggling to make money with each hand. It’s just a $10 investment, which isn’t a lot if you’re reliably making plenty of money. On the other hand, if your options are buying the Blank Voucher and potentially losing the run because you didn’t buy a Joker you might need for the next round, skip the Voucher.
You’re at full build but might struggle to end the game. If your deck feels like it’s maxed out on whatever it’s trying to do, but you are just barely scraping by, a Blank Voucher purchase is a great potential out. The Antimatter Voucher will give you an extra slot, which may end up being the extra juice you need to win the game.
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