Balatro: all Legendary Jokers and how to unlock them

Originally posted on Video Games on SI | By Ryan Woodrow | Last updated Feb 29, 2024 5:04 AM ET

Jokers are the lifeblood of any Balatro run. If you don’t get a good lineup of Jokers to give you extra chips, multipliers, and multiplication of those multipliers, then you can kiss any chance of winning your run goodbye. Thankfully, Balatro has no shortage of Jokers for you to build your run around, with 150 to choose from.

There are five Jokers though, that stand on a higher pedestal than all the rest. Named for the famous Jesters of history, these Legendary Jokers have some incredible abilities. We’ll go through them all and how you can unlock them.

How to unlock Legendary Jokers in Balatro

The Soul Spectral card allows you to unlock Balatro's Legendary Jokers.Playstack

All five Legendary Jokers have to be unlocked in the same way, which is by using The Soul Spectral card.

If you haven’t already encountered them, Spectral cards are rare and mysterious cards that often have great boons, but at the cost of a debuff. However, The Soul’s effect is very straightforward: “Creates a Legendary Joker.”

When using this card, you will be randomly given one of the five Legendary Jokers in the game, and once you receive one of them via The Soul card, it will be permanently unlocked for future runs. So, if you want all five, you’ve got to buy Spectral Packs whenever you can to get the best odds of pulling The Soul and getting a new Legendary Joker.

List of Legendary Jokers in Balatro and their effects

Legendary Jokers have some of the most powerful effects in Balatro, but often with a twist.Playstack

Here is a list of what each Legendary Joker does:

Canio – Gains x1 Mult when a face card is destroyed (starts with x1 Mult)
Triboulet – Played Kings and Queens each give x2 Mult when scored
Yorick – x5 Mult, but alas, only after using 23 discards
Chicot – Disables the effect of every Boss Blind
Perkeo – Create a Negative copy of 1 random consumable card in your possession at the end of the shop