The most important aspect that beginners tend to ignore in Balatro is the direction they want the build to go. Balatro isn’t a game where you can stick with one strategy and expect wins.

Even if you can’t change the cards you’re dealt with, you must curate strategies on the go. Spectral cards, being one of the most impactful cards in the game, help massively in such scenarios.

You can drastically change the playing deck and focus on a winning strategy. It’s fair to say that these cards are situational and heavily depend on which phase of the game you’re in.

Some spectral cards are potent in the early Antes, while others can be used anytime to refine the deck. Let’s review the 10 best spectral cards in Balatro and see what they hold for us.

10 Medium

Adds Purple Seal To 1 Selected Card

I know some players vouch highly for this card, and I’m not saying it’s bad at all. Once you apply the Purple seal on a card, if you discard it, you’ll end up with a Tarot card.

There’s a catch though: if you discard a card, you probably don’t want to use it.

Having the Purple seal on cards is easier to benefit from in the early game, but when you’re in the mid-to-late game Antes, Discards become valuable. You can’t risk messing a good hand by discarding cards just for the sake of Tarot cards.

That’s why I recommend using the Medium Spectral card in the early game Antes, where you’re still figuring out a strategy.

9 Familiar

Destroy 1 Random Card In Hand, Add 3 Enhanced Face Cards

Usually, many Jokers focus on face cards. These Jokers apply multiple effects to face cards, and you can solely focus on building a face card-focused deck.

Face cards’ base chips are higher than numbered cards, and you can improve them with seals, enhancements, and Tarot cards. If you’re into playing Face card-focused decks, I highly recommend going with Familiar to add a few extra enhanced face cards.

With more variety in face cards, you can choose to destroy vanilla ones and stick to duplicating enhanced ones. However, the RNG plays a crucial role.

You may end up with less potent enhancements on the cards and may not gain much from the Spectral card’s effect.

8 Wraith

Get A Rare Joker, Lose All Your Money

Having high-tier Jokers is invaluable. You can stick to basic Common Jokers and expect to win games in a row. Jokers with unique effects will boost your numbers and help you achieve Antes’ targets.

That’s where Wraith comes to shine. You don’t want to use this Spectral card in mid- or late-game Antes because maintaining a good in-game economy is crucial to roll for better Tarot, Joker, and Planet cards.

However, if you get your hands on the Wraith Spectral card when you have around $5-$10 bucks, you should go for it. It can be the gateway for a Rare Joker that could help you figure out a better direction for your playing deck.

7 Talisman

Add Gold Seal To 1 Selected Card

The in-game economy matters a lot. You can’t expect to win runs with low funds unless you have Jokers who rely on maintaining low funds.

With a Gold Seal on a card, you earn an extra $3 bucks on scoring it, and if you’ve got Jokers that can retrigger the said card, you’ll be compounding money over time.

You need better Jokers and cards, which translates into needing to reroll the shop to have a decent chance of getting those. With more money, you can reroll shops and buy Celestial, Arcana, and Spectral packs to tweak the deck and benefit from their effects.

6 Trance

Adds Blue Seal To 1 Selected Card

I like how Balatro gives you options to pick from. You can pick a Spectral card focusing on Jokers or go with something Planet card-specific like the Trance Spectral card, which adds a Blue Seal to a selected card.

Trance creates a planet card for your final hand in the last round. Though you have to hold the card with Blue Seal in your hand, you can level up poker hands if you’ve got multiple cards with Blue Seals.

You’ll get more chips and multipliers, so your poker hands will passively level up as you play. If you end up with the Trance Spectral card in early Antes, I highly recommend using it.

5 Deja Vu

Adds A Red Seal To 1 Selected Card

Quite a unique name, Deja Vu, with a unique effect, the Red Seal. This seal retriggers the card one more time.

The red seal will massively influence the bonus effects when you’re in the late game with powerful Jokers and enhanced cards.

Retrigging a Polychrome-enhanced or Steel card in the late game is invaluable. Unless you’re going with a specific strategy focusing on Tarot or Planet cards, it’s best to go with the Red seal.

You can’t go wrong with Deja Vu unless you have a Joker that removes the enhancement or run into a Boss blind that disables its effect.

4 Ectoplasm

Add Negative Effect To Random Joker For -1 Hand Size

When I started Balatro, I always used strategies that didn’t reduce the hand size. But as I learned more about the game, I realized it doesn’t matter much. Having an extra Joker at the cost of a reduced hand size is a pretty solid investment.

Sometimes, your Joker slots are full, and you run into a good Joker that can synergize with your current Joker. Having an extra Joker slot for the exact moment can change the game.

Make sure to use this Spectral card when all of your Jokers can work together. Since the RNG applies the negative effect to a random Joker, you want to ensure it goes to a decent one, not some random common Joker that does nothing and gives a minor effect to the playing cards.

3 The Soul

Adds A Legendary Joker

There are some crazy Jokers in the game, which significantly boost numbers, and Legendary Jokers are the ones to aim for.

These Jokers have potent effects, which can even disable Boss Blinds and give a Multiplicative effect to cards. Just retaining one Legendary Joker could be a massive bonus to your playing cards.

That’s why I recommend using the Soul Spectral card whenever you can get your hands on it.

2 Cryptid

Create Two Copies Of 1 Selected Card

It can be quite slow to make copies of a card with the Death Tarot card or the DNA Joker, but if you use the Cryptid Spectral card on an enhanced card, you’ll instantly get two copies of it.

I highly recommend using the Cryptid Spectral card on a card of your choice to give more direction to the build.

That’ll help you pinpoint a solid way of playing hands, and you can reduce the number of redundant cards in the deck.

1 Aura

Add Foil, Holo, Or Polychrome To 1 Selected Card

The Spectral cards are powerful, but the RNG complicates things. To have a Spectral card with a guaranteed effect is a blessing. That’s why Aura is a top-notch Spectral card.

I can’t stress enough how good the Aura Spectral card is. A chance of having extra chips or multiplier on a card is invaluable, especially when chasing big numbers.

You can further duplicate the enhanced card using Cryptid and make the build stronger. When played right, this unlocks the road to the run of your dreams in Balatro.