Balatro is getting just a little bit easier in the next patch, and you can try it now

rockpapershotgun.com:

The deck-fixing roguelikelike poker of Balatro is chuffing excellent, no doubt, but my main criticism has been that the higher difficulty modes are just a bit boring. Having beat them myself, I didn't find them a fun or interesting challenge as much as an annoying one that required too much to go right. I'm glad to hear that they're being tweaked in an upcoming patch, which you can now test in a public beta on Steam, and even the lowest difficulty setting will be tweaked. Other changes include improved (hopefully) Steam Deck performance, balance tweaks, and better Joker-related Tags.

Developer LocalThunk expects to properly launch the patch in a week but you can try it in beta now. LocalThunk shared the 1.0.1c experimental patch notes on Balatro's Discord, which were then reposted to the game's Reddit board for your reading convenience. Many jokers will be buffed or depowered, so do go see what's happening with your favourites (I'll tell you what's happening with your favourite: Gros Michel "now has a 1 in 6 chance to go extinct instead of 1 in 4").

Beyond individual cards, the White Stake (base difficulty level) will become a little easier, reducing the score scaling on Ante (floor, I guess, to use a dungeon crawling analogy) 3 and 4. Climbing the difficulty ranks, Green and Purple Stakes will also reduce scaling on several Antes. Orange Stake will thankfully removing the boring problem of card packs getting more expensive each Ante, and in place give jokers "a 30% chance to have a 'Perishable' sticker, disabling them after 5 rounds." And right at the top, Gold Stake will remove the -1 hand size penalty, replacing it with a 'Rental' system which gives jokers a 30% chance to have a sticker "making them cost $1 up front and $3 every round".

I'll have to play a few hands to see how that shakes out but I like the sound of this approach to difficulty. I'll take fiendish obstacles over reduced options. Escalating prices make you customise your deck less and smaller hands