they/them
Fact: i tend to ramble in a vain attempt to make it look like i know what i'm talking about
I agree the econ jokers are in an odd spot (I usually store them all the way on the left), but the Ceremonial Dagger has to eat the Egg.
Most of the other weird joker order shenanigans are caused by Baseball Card, so blame Jim Joker, not me.
Also, Jimbo needs to be in position 149. For optimal reasons.
This is the objectively correct order to put the jokers in. You should be aiming for this exact setup in every single run.
::: spoiler Image Transcription One of every Joker from the game Balatro in a specific order with labelled categories. Each Joker has a number that refers to its position.
Jokers 1 to 10 are in a category named "The Bluestorm Machine". They are Blueprint, Hallucination, Perkeo, Cartomancer, Burnt Joker, DNA, Triboulet, Mail-In Rebate, Hiker, and Brainstorm.
Jokers 11 and 12 are in a category named "In-Hand Chips Jokers". They are Scary Face and Odd Todd.
Jokers 13 and 14 are in a category named "In-Hand Chips & Mult Jokers". They are Scholar and Walkie-Talkie.
Jokers 15 to 20 are in a category named "In-Hand Mult Jokers". They are Even Steven, Smiley Face, Wrathful Joker, Lusty Joker, Gluttonous Joker, and Greedy Joker.
Jokers 21 and 22 are in a category named "PHOTOCHAD". They are Photograph and Hanging Chad.
The face of Glass Joker can be seen through the hole in the Hanging Chad.
Jokers 23 to 29 are in a category named "Flat Chips Jokers". They are Ice Cream, Sly Joker, Wily
As others have said, Balatro does not lie to you - the listed odds are always right. But there are some ways to stack the odds in your favor outside of the obvious deckbuilding.
Namely, if you are holding a certain Joker, Planet, Tarot, or Spectral card, you will never see another copy of that card anywhere else through normal means. I'm also fairly certain Jokers, Planets, Tarots, and Spectrals that are currently in the shop offerings will not appear in their respective packs in the shop.
What this means is that you can slightly influence what you get by holding cards you don't want. This is less useful for Jokers and Spectrals, but if you're holding 2 Tarot cards and there are 2 in the shop, opening an Arcana pack gives you a 1/18 chance for each Tarot to be the one you're looking for instead of a 1/22. Same goes for Celestial Packs, but there aren't that many Planets, which makes the odds that much better.
This also means if you win with the hand you want to level up and have a Blue Seal card in hand, you should use the Planet before you cash out and go to the shop so that it can appear again.
The only exceptions to this that I can think of are having the Telescope voucher, which 100% guarantees that a Celestial Pack will have your most played hand's Planet, having a Showman, which can even make the same card appear twice in one pack, or the Invisible Joker, which can show up again after you've sold it even if you keep the duped joker around.
On getting PhotoChad set up, my only advice is to pick up Riff-Raff (or skip for 2 common Jokers if you're feeling real desperate) if you already have one of the two, and try to use Tarots to make your deck lean towards face cards. Similar advice for Lucky Cards - either get lucky and pick up Oops! All 6s or anything that retriggers cards, or don't rely on them hitting to survive the next two seconds.
Finally, the Wheel never hits, except when you have a food joker that dies next round. Then it guaranteed hits on the food joker. /s
p.s. You say you'll be "starved for either chips or mult" on Plasma? Unless I'm reading you wrong, the whole thing with Plasma is you don't need to worry about getting both numbers up; you've gotta go all in on Chips early, since it's easy to get a lot added with a few Jokers, then pivot to Mult late game if you can.