Queen’s Blood is one of several mini-games that can be played in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, however, it’s surprisingly in-depth and rewarding with its own quest line to complete. Upon beginning your journey, you’ll slowly learn the card game as you progress, picking up new cards at vendors that significantly impact your chances of winning each match. We’re going to go over the basic overview of Queen’s Blood and how to build the best deck for early game.
In this guide, we’ll highlight which Queen’s Blood cards are the best to pick up in the early game as well as how to properly utilise their various buffs on the board. For the most part, you don’t need to worry too much about getting the most powerful cards right out the gate (as they come with some negatives that we’ll discuss shortly). Instead, you’ll want cards that offer you advantageous skills and can cover boards with relative ease.
A Basic Overview of Queen’s Blood
Queen’s Blood is a deck-building card mini-game that you can play in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. You and your opponent start with 15 cards in a deck that are played on a 5×3 board (five cards in hand). Each card comes with a power level (indicated in the top right of the card) and a pawn requirement (indicated in the top left of the card). Your objective is to tally up points using the cards’ power levels to win the total amount of points in each row. The player with the most amount of points wins.
Matches will automatically start with one pawn on each of the three rows on either side of the board. The pawn requirement in the top left of a card indicates that you can place that card in a space occupying the same amount of pawns. A table at the bottom of the card shows you how many pawns will then spawn around that card relative to the cards’ pawn requirement, allowing you to place down higher-level cards to rack up points.
Finally, most cards come with various buffs and skills. This is perhaps the most important thing to understand about Queen’s Blood and should be your priority when building a deck.
Properly Using High-Level Cards
On the subject of high-level cards (mainly cards that have power levels of 3 or above), you don’t need this right away because most of them require two or more pawns to place – remember, you only have one pawn at the start. When a game starts, you’ll be able to swap out any amount of cards in your hand to redraw new cards from the deck, so make sure you get rid of your high-level cards in hand upon starting to get lower-level cards that let you then branch out more pawns on the board.
Building The Best Early Game Deck
Once you’ve let the Queen’s Blood rules sink in, it’s time to start building optimal decks that can carry you through the early game (and possibly into the mid-game as well). It’s important that you prioritise cards with great buffs first. The aim of the game is to occupy spaces that afford you the most amount of points while not limiting your freedom to place cards on the board.
Here’s a list of cards that you can acquire in the early game of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth that we think are must-haves for building an effective deck:
- Cactuar: One of the first cards you can acquire after beating Nene in Kalm. It costs 1 pawn and has a power level of 1, but its buff allows it to raise the power of allied cards by 3 while it’s in play – a handy skill for early game.
- Crystalline Crab: After defeating Ned in Kalm, you get the Crystalline Crab which costs 1 pawn and has a power level of 1. Like the Cactuar, it also raises the power of allied cards by 2 while it’s in play.
- Chocobo & Moogle: You get the Chocobo & Moogle card after completing the side quest “A Rare Card Lost” in Kalm. With a cost of 1 pawn and a power level of 1, it allows you to further raise the power of enhanced allied cards by 1. When you pair that with the Crystalline Crab and/or Cactuar, you can easily rack up big points.
- Phoenix: Phoenix can be bought from Thorin’s Card Shop after reaching Junon. It’s not the most popular card, however, its buff is circumstantial. With a cost of 3 and a power level of 4, it’s not an easy play but it’s buff states that when destroyed, it will raise the power of allied cards in affected tiles by 5. If you use Phoenix as a sacrifice – and with clever card placement – the cost of buffing allied cards is much more rewarding overall.
- Titan: A must-have high-level card for early to mid-game, Titan can be bought from Thorin’s Card Shop. Titan costs 2 with a power level of 5, making it one of the most powerful cards to play for just a couple of pawn slots. Furthermore, it automatically raises position ranks by 2.
- Ifrit: Ifrit is won after beating the tournament on the Shinra-8 ship in Junon. With a cost of 3 and a power level of 5, it’s a tough play but similar to Chocobo & Moogle, it can raise the power of enhanced allied cards by 2, making it good for synergising with other cards in play.
- Devil Rider: Devil Rider can be bought from any vendor as part of the Queen’s Blood Booster Packs (specifically the Suppressive Strikers Pack). It doesn’t have any buffs but with a cost of 2 and a power level of 4, it’s a pretty strong card to have in the early game.
- Archdragon: Found in the Weird & Wicked Pack from the Booster Packs, the Archdragon costs 1 with a power level of 3. However, it’s ability to the lower the power of enemy cards on affected tiles by 3 makes it a fantastic card to directly lower your opponent’s points.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is available for PS5. Make sure you also check out our guides on all romance options and relationships, how to raise your relationship levels and how to skip the opening Nibelheim chapter if you’ve already played the demo.
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