Understanding Balatro Hand Leveling With Planet Cards
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Full bio →The Balatro calculator uses each hand type’s Level 1 (un-leveled) base Chips and Mult, since leveled values vary run to run. Here’s exactly how much each Planet card adds per level, so you can calculate your actual leveled values.
The Per-Level Increase for Every Hand Type
| Hand Type | Planet Card | Mult per Level | Chips per Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| High Card | Pluto | +1 | +10 |
| Pair | Mercury | +1 | +15 |
| Two Pair | Uranus | +1 | +20 |
| Three of a Kind | Venus | +2 | +20 |
| Straight | Saturn | +3 | +30 |
| Flush | Jupiter | +2 | +15 |
| Full House | Earth | +2 | +25 |
| Four of a Kind | Mars | +3 | +30 |
| Straight Flush | Neptune | +4 | +40 |
| Five of a Kind | Planet X | +3 | +35 |
| Flush House | Ceres | +4 | +40 |
| Flush Five | Eris | +3 | +50 |
A Royal Flush doesn’t have its own Planet card — it levels up alongside a regular Straight Flush, sharing Neptune.
How to Calculate a Leveled Hand’s Base Values
Leveled Base Chips = Level 1 Base Chips + (Chips per Level × (Hand Level − 1))
Leveled Base Mult = Level 1 Base Mult + (Mult per Level × (Hand Level − 1))Example: A Flush played 4 times with Jupiter (or a Level 4 Flush from any source) — starting from the Balatro calculator’s Level 1 base of 35 Chips / 4 Mult:
Leveled Base Chips = 35 + (15 × 3) = 80
Leveled Base Mult = 4 + (2 × 3) = 10Using Leveled Values With the Balatro Calculator
The Balatro calculator uses Level 1 values automatically when you select a hand type. To account for a leveled hand, calculate the leveled base Chips and Mult using the formulas above, then enter the difference as flat Chips and flat Mult bonuses — since the calculator’s flat-bonus fields are designed for exactly this kind of additive adjustment. For the Level 4 Flush example above, that means entering +45 flat Chips (80 − 35) and +6 flat Mult (10 − 4) alongside any joker bonuses.
Higher-Ranked Hands Level Up Faster
Notice the per-level increases generally get larger for harder-to-achieve hands — Flush Five (Eris) gains +50 Chips per level, more than 5x High Card’s (Pluto) +10. This is intentional: harder hands reward more investment when you do manage to level them, which is part of why late-run “engine” builds that consistently play a specific high-value hand type benefit disproportionately from leveling it.
Black Hole: Leveling Every Hand at Once
The Black Hole spectral card upgrades every poker hand type by 1 level simultaneously, rather than targeting one hand type the way a Planet card does. This is valuable for flexible builds that don’t commit to a single hand type, though it spreads the leveling benefit thin compared to repeatedly leveling one specific hand with its matching Planet card.
Plan Your Build Around Leveling
Since leveling compounds with card chip values, flat joker bonuses, and xMult all in the same formula, see Balatro calculator for planning high-score builds for how hand leveling fits into an overall scoring strategy, and Balatro calculator examples for the full math on a leveled hand combined with joker bonuses.