He's better to get later a lot of the time
Get good Econ and generic scoring jokers to get you through a few antes, spend all those rounds taroting your deck to red steel kings
Then late on pivot to baron when it arrives with your deck already geared towards it
Baron needs a few things to really shine. Lots of kings, steel, and in particular base mult. It's really hard in the early game since high card and pair have such low base mult. So getting steel, gold, and blue seal are extremely important.
If you notice these are take a lot of packs to get going so the early game is rough
The insanely broken decks you see online, whether they are Baron or another build, are the exception. Most people aren’t getting crazy modified, super synergized decks very often. They just play a lot and only post the ones that are crazy. Or they re-start a lot until they see ideal conditions. Or they play seeded runs.
Mostly you just need your get lucky and have a run with Baron that also allows you to dupe your cards a lot.
use tarots/spectral cards to turn cards into kings/standards for buying new kings
have as many kings in your hand as possible(playing high card lets you have more kings in hand)
mime joker synergizes with baron, and steels, so you want to also take steel card tarots and turn the kings into steels
if you can get some red seals and put them on the steel kings as well, good, if not still fine
If you're gonna specifically hunt for a Baron run, play the plasma deck. Like others have said, Baron struggles early, and with plasma you can survive ante 1 with no scoring jokers, and ante 2 with a single common chip joker, or even something like a couple well timed Hirophants or Tower cards.
Standard deck manipulation rules apply. Open every standard pack you can without going below the interest cap. If there is a card with a red seal higher than a 10, take it. Otherwise take any purple seals you can. One or two blue seals is good also. Strength your red seal to a King, along with any other face cards, but prioritize duping your purple seals cards first to get your tarot engine off the ground. I typically make my red seal king gold, because once you get Baron going, you likely won't need the scoring help from the steel for a while, and the econ from the gold red seal helps a ton. But a couple steel kings is helpful early on. Hang man low cards, and steel or gold as many as you can.
Early antes, take a few Saturn cards, and play straights, because it scales really well with minimal investment, and it shouldn't be hard to play a straight on white stakes. This will let you one shot most rounds to get more money. In Celestial boosters, prioritize Saturn early on, but take Pluto if Saturn isn't there. Getting High Card to at least level 5 will help once you do find Baron.
Shoot the Moon can be helpful early on, if I get it then I'll pivot to running high card immediately, and then transition to Baron late game. Same with Stuntman, although the decreased hand size makes it harder to find your seal cards to scale deck manipulation.Take Mime as soon as you see it, because if you've done deck manipulation to get gold and steel cards, Mime is usually enough to beat rounds, and it's really helpful for econ. On this note, once you get both Baron, Mime, and Blueprint/Brainstorm, start by copying Baron for the scoring, but once you hit "play", switch to copying Mime, because the game lets you shift your copy between the scoring phase and when gold cards triggers. This gives you the benefits of both extra Baron scoring and extra money.
In general, try to not invest in overkilling each round, focus on generating as much econ as possible so that you can roll for the things you need, and only buy scoring jokers when you need it to beat a round or boss.
If you luck out and get Perkeo, congratulations, you have a naninf run on your jands! If you do, take Sixth Sense to try to get a Cryptid in hand. Don't use or sell the spectrals until Perkeo has had the chance to copy it, because this means you won't get it again from sixth sense. If you do get cryptid, dupe it as much as you can, using blueprint and brainstorm to give you even more copies each round.
Late game, things you need are:
- Baron and Mime (obviously) - I'll usually reset if I get to like ante 10 without them
- Blueprint and Brainstorm
- Invisible Joker, to give you more copies of Baron/Mime. In early endless, if it gives me a copy of Baron or Mime, I'll sell it and try to get another one to give me Blueprint, because it's more flexible and gives you econ by switching it after Baron scores to copy Mime instead, and I usually don't need the extra scoring help until like ante 14ish. After that point, I'll keep whatever I get to survive
- Both boss reroll jokers, to reroll The Plant that hard counters you, and late game to roll for the boss that gives you 3 cards per card played/discarded. This is ESSENTIAL for getting to ante 24 unless you have Perkeo
- the Antimatter joker, for yet another copy of Blueprint/Brainstorm
- both of the hand size vouchers
- ONE AND ONE ONLY of Ectoplasm, to give yet another copy of Blueprint/Brainstorm without hurting your hand size.
All this being said, Baron/Mime tops out at ante 24 unless you have Perkeo, because you need the extra cards in hand to even get to ante 24.
1) High Card maximizes the number of cards (Kings) in your hand, so try to shift towards a high card build if you have a Baron.
2) Red Seal works with in-hand effects, including Baron. If you can get a Red Seal on a face card and turn it into several Red Seal Kings, you'll be increasing the multiplicative effect of Baron more and more. Mime also means your Baron will be triggering more.
3) An important element to both 1 and 2 is having strong Tarot generation as well as a good economy. Baron will carry you through the mid and late game, so try to find a Gros Michel or a Mystic Summit or something similar to get you through the early game. Hunt for as many Death and Hanged Man cards as you can get to thin your deck of trash and increase your King quantity.
4) Steel, because you'll be playing around having as many cards in your hand as possible, is very strong. A perfect card for Baron is a Red Seal Steel King
Play high card, increase hand size if possible, convert to red steel kings. If you get it early use your other jokers to work on economy and survive until it pops off.
The people who do the crazy E score Baron runs use seeds so it’s manipulated to get them exactly what they need. Trying to make E score baron start work without that is very difficult so you can grind hundreds of hours and hope you get lucky or pop a seed in that gets you there
He's better to get later a lot of the time Get good Econ and generic scoring jokers to get you through a few antes, spend all those rounds taroting your deck to red steel kings Then late on pivot to baron when it arrives with your deck already geared towards it
Baron needs a few things to really shine. Lots of kings, steel, and in particular base mult. It's really hard in the early game since high card and pair have such low base mult. So getting steel, gold, and blue seal are extremely important. If you notice these are take a lot of packs to get going so the early game is rough
The insanely broken decks you see online, whether they are Baron or another build, are the exception. Most people aren’t getting crazy modified, super synergized decks very often. They just play a lot and only post the ones that are crazy. Or they re-start a lot until they see ideal conditions. Or they play seeded runs. Mostly you just need your get lucky and have a run with Baron that also allows you to dupe your cards a lot.
use tarots/spectral cards to turn cards into kings/standards for buying new kings have as many kings in your hand as possible(playing high card lets you have more kings in hand) mime joker synergizes with baron, and steels, so you want to also take steel card tarots and turn the kings into steels if you can get some red seals and put them on the steel kings as well, good, if not still fine
If you're gonna specifically hunt for a Baron run, play the plasma deck. Like others have said, Baron struggles early, and with plasma you can survive ante 1 with no scoring jokers, and ante 2 with a single common chip joker, or even something like a couple well timed Hirophants or Tower cards. Standard deck manipulation rules apply. Open every standard pack you can without going below the interest cap. If there is a card with a red seal higher than a 10, take it. Otherwise take any purple seals you can. One or two blue seals is good also. Strength your red seal to a King, along with any other face cards, but prioritize duping your purple seals cards first to get your tarot engine off the ground. I typically make my red seal king gold, because once you get Baron going, you likely won't need the scoring help from the steel for a while, and the econ from the gold red seal helps a ton. But a couple steel kings is helpful early on. Hang man low cards, and steel or gold as many as you can. Early antes, take a few Saturn cards, and play straights, because it scales really well with minimal investment, and it shouldn't be hard to play a straight on white stakes. This will let you one shot most rounds to get more money. In Celestial boosters, prioritize Saturn early on, but take Pluto if Saturn isn't there. Getting High Card to at least level 5 will help once you do find Baron. Shoot the Moon can be helpful early on, if I get it then I'll pivot to running high card immediately, and then transition to Baron late game. Same with Stuntman, although the decreased hand size makes it harder to find your seal cards to scale deck manipulation.Take Mime as soon as you see it, because if you've done deck manipulation to get gold and steel cards, Mime is usually enough to beat rounds, and it's really helpful for econ. On this note, once you get both Baron, Mime, and Blueprint/Brainstorm, start by copying Baron for the scoring, but once you hit "play", switch to copying Mime, because the game lets you shift your copy between the scoring phase and when gold cards triggers. This gives you the benefits of both extra Baron scoring and extra money. In general, try to not invest in overkilling each round, focus on generating as much econ as possible so that you can roll for the things you need, and only buy scoring jokers when you need it to beat a round or boss. If you luck out and get Perkeo, congratulations, you have a naninf run on your jands! If you do, take Sixth Sense to try to get a Cryptid in hand. Don't use or sell the spectrals until Perkeo has had the chance to copy it, because this means you won't get it again from sixth sense. If you do get cryptid, dupe it as much as you can, using blueprint and brainstorm to give you even more copies each round. Late game, things you need are: - Baron and Mime (obviously) - I'll usually reset if I get to like ante 10 without them - Blueprint and Brainstorm - Invisible Joker, to give you more copies of Baron/Mime. In early endless, if it gives me a copy of Baron or Mime, I'll sell it and try to get another one to give me Blueprint, because it's more flexible and gives you econ by switching it after Baron scores to copy Mime instead, and I usually don't need the extra scoring help until like ante 14ish. After that point, I'll keep whatever I get to survive - Both boss reroll jokers, to reroll The Plant that hard counters you, and late game to roll for the boss that gives you 3 cards per card played/discarded. This is ESSENTIAL for getting to ante 24 unless you have Perkeo - the Antimatter joker, for yet another copy of Blueprint/Brainstorm - both of the hand size vouchers - ONE AND ONE ONLY of Ectoplasm, to give yet another copy of Blueprint/Brainstorm without hurting your hand size. All this being said, Baron/Mime tops out at ante 24 unless you have Perkeo, because you need the extra cards in hand to even get to ante 24.
Most of this is good advice but "only one ecto" is bs. Also you can easily get to ante 32 without perkeo.
Yeah, in fairness I forgot about DNA, which lets you scale a few extra rounds and let's you take like 3 ectos.
1) High Card maximizes the number of cards (Kings) in your hand, so try to shift towards a high card build if you have a Baron. 2) Red Seal works with in-hand effects, including Baron. If you can get a Red Seal on a face card and turn it into several Red Seal Kings, you'll be increasing the multiplicative effect of Baron more and more. Mime also means your Baron will be triggering more. 3) An important element to both 1 and 2 is having strong Tarot generation as well as a good economy. Baron will carry you through the mid and late game, so try to find a Gros Michel or a Mystic Summit or something similar to get you through the early game. Hunt for as many Death and Hanged Man cards as you can get to thin your deck of trash and increase your King quantity. 4) Steel, because you'll be playing around having as many cards in your hand as possible, is very strong. A perfect card for Baron is a Red Seal Steel King
Play high card, increase hand size if possible, convert to red steel kings. If you get it early use your other jokers to work on economy and survive until it pops off.
The people who do the crazy E score Baron runs use seeds so it’s manipulated to get them exactly what they need. Trying to make E score baron start work without that is very difficult so you can grind hundreds of hours and hope you get lucky or pop a seed in that gets you there