I find Planets are more powerful with better hands. A pluto for instance is nearly useless early game, but a single saturn can get you through the first two antes on its own.

I had a run on nebula deck today where I made it to ante 6 just slamming saturns and straights over and over, no scoring jokers.

Eventually you need X mult to make it to ante 8, but I think you can usually get away with as little as 2X mult if you are hitting saturns.