You can find multiple modifiers and particular keywords while playing Balatro, a difficult card game with roguelike elements that make it highly repayable with increasingly challenging goals. A keyword you may encounter but not quite understand is called the Double Tag.
The Double Tag is a keyword that has a chance to appear during your run of Balatro, but when you hover over the item, it doesn’t detail how it works. You might not know what you’re doing with it and why it might be worth your time to go out of the way to grab it. When you do learn about it, the Double Tag could change how you think about using your deck. Here’s what you need to know about how the Double Tag works, and what it does for you in Balatro.
How the Double Tag works in Balatro
When you have a Double Tag in Balatro, it will copy the next selected Tag you grab during your run. The Tags referenced by the Double Tag relate to the choice to Skip Blinds as you make your way toward the Boss Blind, the one you cannot skip in Balatro. The types of Tags you add to your Balatro run vary as you play through the game, so it might be better for your deck than another with a different deck.
Some Tags are immediate effects, and are not ones you might want to pair with the Double Tag. For example, there’s a Tag in Balatro where you immediately reroll the Boss Blind for the current set. If you have the Double Tag feature, the Boss Blind is rerolled twice in a roll. You might have wanted the first one, but you’ll be forced to use the second one.
On the other hand, you can get the Polychrome Tag, which the next base edition shop Joker is free and becomes Polychrome, and you get this twice with the Double Tag. If you have room for two Jokers, this could be a fantastic addition to your build, as the Polychrome edition of a Joker gives you a x1.5 Multiplier every time you score a hand.
The Double Tag is a great feature to add to your deck, but it forces you to think about how to best use it during your playthrough. Grabbing it immediately and waiting for a good Tag to copy and use can be problematic. There are risks and rewards to holding on to the Double Tag until you find the perfect combination.
The downside to grabbing a Tag to your Balatro deck is skipping the store you get when you complete a round. Skipping the store means you immediately go into the subsequent encounter and can’t use any money. If you’re already low on money and have enough Jokers in your deck to meet the upcoming Chips requirement to clear it, you should be fine. It all comes down to luck and having the correct cards in your hand to score high enough.
There are 24 Tags you can unlock in Balatro. Unlike the Jokers, they do not have specific unlock requirements. Instead, you must find them while playing the game, and choose to Skip Blind when they appear. If you’ve been avoiding the Skip Blind choice during your playthroughs, this might explain why you have so many to unlock. You can review them in the main menu, alongside the many Boss Blinds, Tarot Carts, Planet Cards, Spectral Cards, and much more.
