How to Play Queen’s Blood in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Queen’s Blood has become one of the most popular minigames in not just the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series, but possibly in the entire Final Fantasy franchise. To the point where a lot of people are calling for it to become its own separate game with online PvP capability.

And as such, even though it has been over a year since FF7 Rebirth released, we have decided to publish our own guide on how to properly play it, what cards are available and how to get them, and what strategy is best to ensure an easy win in almost any match.

So what exactly is “Queen’s Blood”?

Queen’s Blood is an advanced strategy-based card game introduced in the FF7 Remake Saga’s second entry: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

It’s introduced at the beginning of Chapter 2 as a purely optional side-activity. Each village and town has 3 – 4 opponents waiting around for Cloud to indulge them. Each town’s opponents will be more difficult than the last. But don’t worry, you’ll be able to buy or unlock better cards as you progress through the world. As such, Queen’s Blood is also one of the few minigames introduced early on in the game that cannot be 100% completed until right before the last chapter.

Within the story, the game was created by a man named Lidrehl Balmon, which will turn out to have been big mistake on his part as you’ll experience through playing the game.

There are 30 regular opponents scattered throughout the world map that you’ll run into as you progress. As well as some special ones like the ones part of the tournament onboard the Shinra 8 ship. Some notable ones include—

A bird

A dog

A talking dog

A talking dog

(in a very convincing soldier disguise)

Spoiler: Potential Queen’s Blood Contenders
(Tap to reveal)Show Less

How do you play Queen’s Blood?

Queen’s Blood is exclusively a 1v1 game, where both players draw 5 cards each at the beginning of the game— as well as 1 additional card each turn— from a deck of exactly 15 cards. The deck can be built and edited between matches. You’ll be able to keep up to 6 different decks at any given time. Which is a great addition since some matches— mostly the gimmick matches at The Gold Saucer— will most likely require you to completely rethink your strategy and build a new deck from scratch.

The board has 3 rows of 5 tiles. Each of which can be won by gaining more points than the opponent. Once the game ends, whoever has the most points in total across all three rows will be the victor.

You can only place cards on tiles that you currently control. Which you can tell by the presence of a green chess-pawn-like marker. Tiles with red markers are currently controlled by your opponent. Any of your opponent’s tiles that have no card in them can be overtaken by you, and vice-versa.

There are three denomination levels possible on your tiles. Visually indicated by the number of markers present. Level 2 and Level 3 tiles will allow you to place even more powerful cards. Naturally, the most powerful cards are usually level 3 and to place them will often require you to think ahead a little.

There are a total of 145 cards in the base game, each with different power levels and abilities. Some cards have special abilities that can either weaken or strengthen cards that have already been placed, including your opponent’s cards. But the primary function of most cards are to unlock new tiles for yourself.

As both players work their way to the middle, it becomes a competition on who can unlock the most tiles for themselves as this will play some role in how many points you can get.

Queen’s Blood Ranks

As you progress through the story and win more matches, you’ll start to rise in rank. The ranks don’t affect your ability to play regular matches, but not having a high enough rank will prevent you from doing certain special matches, like the ones connected to the Lidrehl Balmon side-plot. It will also prevent you from completing certain gimmick matches at The Gold Saucer.

Best strategy to win almost any match

Like in any strategic game, there are always some ways to ensure victory. And Queen’s Blood is no exception.

Tonberry King + Mindflayer

If you want to build a deck that will absolutely destroy any opponent, your first goal would be to obtain the Mindflayer (x2) and The Tonberry King (x2) cards.

One of these cards can’t be obtained until you reach Costa Del Sol. So this strategy will only really be relevant from that part and onward.

The Mindflayer card lowers the power of allied and enemy cards by 1 while in play. The “while” is important here, because that means the effect works continuously and not just upon initially placing it. If you place a power 1 card on any of the affected tiles, it will be instantly destroyed.

The Tonberry King card increases in power by 2 points whenever another allied card is destroyed. And the effect is stackable, so if three of your cards are destroyed, it increases by 6 points. Already here you can see how powerful these two cards are when working together.

The Mindflayer is obtained by defeating Michaela in the village named “The Crow’s Nest” in the Junon region. It can be a good idea to do this one before going up to upper Junon, because as soon as you board the Shinra-8, you won’t be able to go back to Junon until you’ve completed a few tedious activities as well as some key story progression in Costa Del Sol.

The Tonberry King is obtained by completing the challenge “Kingly Clash” at the Card Carnival in Costa Del Sol. The Card Carnival is a series of puzzles using Queen’s Blood cards as opposed to the regular 1v1 matches.

Once you have both cards, add them to your deck along with a bunch of power 1 cards. Place both the Tonberry King and the Mindflayer on tiles where they don’t interfere with each other, then purposely destroy as many of those power 1 cards as you can.

See the clip below for an example of what this looks like in practice.

RNG will dictate your probability of drawing both these cards at the beginning of the game. Which will give some balance and require you to think a little differently if you don’t draw them right away or through the first subsequent draws. If you want to cheese it however, you can just pause and restart the game until you get the draw you want.

Tonberry King + Mindflayer + Great Malboro

Even combining Tonberry King and Mindflayer will become less and less effective as you progress and the difficulty of each match increases. That’s when it becomes time to introduce the bazooka that is the Great Malboro card.

The Great Malboro card is obtained by defeating Zhijin in the Gongaga Village. It is an incredibly powerful card that will lower affected allied and enemy cards by 6 points. Most likely destroying all of them if you place it early enough in the match.

By continuing to place power 1 cards on the tiles affected by the Mindflayer card, you’ll easily keep control of the center tile. And once you’ve gotten the center tile to a high enough level (level 3), you can place the Great Malboro and take control of the entire 4th column.

This strategy is so effective that it makes even The Shadowblood Queen herself shiver in fear as you can see in the screenshot below.

All Queen’s Blood Cards in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

There are four types of cards in the game:

• Regular cards. On these the power level and what tiles they unlock is the only thing that matters. Most of the cards introduced early on will be regular cards to help you understand the basic mechanics before things get more… complicated.
• Enhancement cards. These cards may enhance themselves or other cards on affected tiles depending on specific factors. Check the list further down for more specific examples.
• Weakening cards. These cards behave mostly the opposite of enhancement cards, by weakening cards on affected tiles.
• Replacement cards. These cards can be used to replace cards you’ve already placed. They can be particularly useful for taking back control of tiles that your opponent has taken from you.

Below you can find a complete list of all the cards in the game, their abilities (if any), and where to obtain them. This list is sourced from IGN Wikis

Tip: Use CTRL + F on desktop or “Find on page” on mobile if you’re looking for a specific card