Balatro Blueprint & Brainstorm: Combo Guide & Incompatible Jokers

Blueprint copies the joker to its immediate right. Brainstorm copies the leftmost joker in your row. Both are Rare, both cost $10 — the two most expensive buyable jokers — and both shine for the same reason: they duplicate your single best effect. Copy an X Mult or retrigger joker and the payoff is enormous; copy the wrong thing and you wasted a slot.

How each one works

Both copy the active, per-hand effect of their target — they re-run its scoring trigger. They cannot copy passive modifiers (hand-size changes, economy at end of round, hand-rule changes). A joker with both kinds of effect is copied only in part: Stuntman gives +250 Chips (a trigger Blueprint copies) and −2 Hand Size (a passive it ignores).

What they can't copy: the 29 incompatible jokers

These jokers do nothing when copied — they have no per-hand scoring trigger. Don't park Blueprint to their left or Brainstorm with one in the leftmost slot.

Most are economy jokers (Golden Joker, Rocket, Gift Card), hand-rule jokers (Four Fingers, Shortcut, Splash, Pareidolia) or utility jokers (Showman, Mr. Bones, Chaos the Clown) — none of which "score."

What to copy instead

The rule of thumb: X Mult or retrigger beats +Chips or +Mult.

• X Mult jokers multiply your whole score, so a second copy multiplies again. Copying a joker that gives ×3 turns into ×3 then ×3 — a far bigger jump than copying a flat +Mult.
• Retrigger jokers make scoring cards score twice. Copy Mime (retriggers all cards held in hand), or Sock and Buskin / Hack / Seltzer, and every retrigger doubles.
• Baron gives ×1.5 Mult per King held in hand — copying it with held Kings scales explosively.

Because Blueprint keeps copying whatever was on its right when you hit Play, you can slide it onto your best joker right before scoring, then move it for the next hand.

Stacking Blueprint + Brainstorm

Each copier added to a target stacks one more copy of that effect. With Blueprint, Brainstorm, and a second Blueprint all pointed at the same joker, you get the original plus three copies — four instances of the effect.

Placement matters for ordering: put the high-value joker on the left, have Brainstorm copy it as the leftmost, and chain Blueprints to its left. Blueprint can also copy Brainstorm itself, which is how the copies daisy-chain.

The Naneinf setup

The famous "Naneinf" (NaN / near-infinite) score uses:

• Plasma Deck (balances Chips and Mult, so a runaway Mult drags the whole score up),
• Baron (×1.5 Mult per King held in hand),
• Mime (retriggers held cards), and
• multiple Blueprint / Brainstorm copies of both.

Held Kings retrigger through stacked Mimes and multiply through stacked Barons, and on the Plasma Deck the result balloons past what the score counter can display. Test smaller versions of the chain in the score calculator before committing a run to it.

Two tricks worth knowing

1. End-of-round Mime stacking. During your final scoring hand, move every Blueprint and Brainstorm onto Mime to multiply end-of-round payouts from Gold cards and Blue Seals.
2. Chance is rolled per copy. Copying a chance-based joker like Space Joker rolls its odds independently for each copy — copies don't all trigger together.

Keep reading

Joker

Blueprint — full stats and effect.

Joker

Brainstorm — full stats and effect.

Tool

Score Calculator — model a Blueprint/Brainstorm stack before you build it.

Guide

All 15 Decks — how to unlock the Plasma Deck for the Naneinf setup.