[photon]

You do need a decent few jokers to get past 8 but nothing crazy rare, you just have to play to the strengths of the first one or two to get a build that works together going. I found that trying to work towards builds that rely on just a pair worked well when I was starting out. Pairs are easy to make compared to most other hands and instead I rely on the jokers' properties to scale my score. There's a joker that gives +20 multiplier when 3 or less cards played, goes great with pairs. Same with the one that gives chips when you have discards remaining, no need to discard to find a pair.

I assume you know generally how the score gets calculated and the difference between a + multiplier and an X multiplier.. you will eventually need some X multipliers to get up there in score.

Economy is pretty important too, it makes finding things easier or adjusting your deck easier. I really try to keep above 10 coins so I'm getting some decent interest. Plus lets you take advantage of the arcane packs and the Hermit which doubles your $$.

Focus on your hand you want to build on and use the planets to increase the level of that hand, that's pretty important (again depending on your build).

Eventually you want to either manipulate your deck to increase your score with cards that have chips/multipliers when they score or with steel cards that increase your score when held in hand.. or deleting cards you don't want to increase the chance you draw what you need.

Skipping blinds is really tempting but the benefit has to be there.. I rarely do it unless it's something really good like a rare Joker and I don't have a build going, or my economy is poor and everything in the next shop is free.

Always know what the boss is, some bosses can destroy a build. There's one boss that reduces the level of a hand.. which I thought ok that's fine but no it PERMANENTLY reduces the level for your whole run!! Sometimes the wrong boss comes and that's all.

I've won with all the basic decks and am currently trying to get through the higher difficulties to unlock the rest.. when you unlock yellow it gets a bit easier cause that starts with a free $10 which makes it easier to get going.

Keep at it and you should eventually improve.

My best hand is 1,600,000,000, eventually you need to create an engine that repeats things over and over to get the crazy scores but I find generally that's not needed to win the 8th ante though it's getting harder on the harder stakes.