Queen's Blood
The tavern card game that will quietly become the reason you stop doing the main story. Here's how to stop losing.
How a match actually works
Each player owns a 3×5 grid. You start with one rank‑1 tile in the middle of each of your three rows. A card costs pawns equal to its rank to play, and you can only place it on a tile you own at that rank or higher.
- Most cards drop pawn tiles onto adjacent squares (shown by the little arrows). Those tiles raise in rank each time a pawn lands on them — that's how you afford your rank‑2 and rank‑3 cards.
- A row's score is the total power of the cards you control in it. Win a row by out-scoring your opponent there; win the match by taking 2 of 3 rows (ties on rows push, total score breaks a 1–1–1).
- You draw to a hand of 5, get one free mulligan before the match, and draw 1 per turn. Passing is allowed; if both players pass, the match ends.
- Card effects fire in categories: enfeeble (− power, can destroy at 0), enhance (+ power), replace/add, and on-play / on-destroy triggers.
Early deck: lane rush
Your first real deck should be cheap and wide. The goal is to claim territory before your opponent can, then drop one big card into a locked lane.
- ~10–12 rank‑1 cards that add 2+ pawn tiles (basic troopers, small beasts). These are your engine.
- 3–4 mid finishers (rank 2–3) with high power or a destroy effect for the lane you're winning.
- 1–2 utility cards: something that buffs on placement, or an enfeeble to clear a fat enemy card.
- Deck size is 15. Keep the curve bottom‑heavy — a hand with no rank‑1 play is a dead turn.
Turn-by-turn habits
- Turns 1–2: spend on pawn spread, not power. Push tiles toward the row you intend to dominate.
- Concede one row early. You only need 2. Don't pour cards into a lane the AI already owns.
- Count the score before you place. If you're ahead in a row and it's nearly full, stop feeding it — reinforce a contested one.
- Hold one destroy/enfeeble for their big drop. Killing a 5‑power card mid‑lane swings the whole row.
- Last turn = pure power math. Play wherever adds the most controlled power, effects be damned.
Building your collection early
- You get your starter deck and first cards in Kalm — talk to everyone; several NPCs there play you and there's a shopkeeper selling packs.
- Across the Grasslands, look for NPCs with a card icon over their head. Beating one usually awards a card; some hand you a card just for chatting.
- Card-shop vendors appear at Chocobo Stops and in towns — buy singles you're missing, especially cheap pawn-spreaders.
- There's a match-tracking questline (the "Queen's Blood" side quest) that follows a travelling player around the world — it feeds you stronger cards region by region. Pick it up when it appears.
If a specific opponent wrecks you, note which row they always win and rebuild to trade it away instead of fighting for it. Deck edits are free and instant.
Browse all 145 cards & build a deck ↗ — filter by rank, ability or pawn spread, and check the curve.
Queen's Blood Advisor
Set the board and your hand. It runs a depth-limited alpha-beta search over a full rules engine — ported from the open-source kylelawrence/queensblood implementation — playing out your move, the opponent's reply and your follow-ups, then ranks the lines. By default the opponent fights back with a spread of strong cards; point it at a known deck for a sharper read. The evaluation is match-aware — it knows how late the game is, spots rows that can no longer flip, and will tell you when holding your hand beats any placement. Load a full deck and tick Monte-Carlo draws for a slower read that averages the search over sampled orderings of the cards you've yet to draw. All 145 cards are simulated: pawn spread, on-play & continuous effects, destroy / add-card / self-scaling / replace cards, spawns, and lane bonuses.
1 · The board
■ you · ■ opponent · number on a pawn tile is its rank · number on a card is its current power
2 · Your hand up to 5
Opponent's known cards optional
Cards of theirs you can actually see — added on top of the model above, so the search knows they definitely hold them.
3 · Recommendation
Card library (all 145) & custom cards
⚠ = ability not fully simulated (treated as a plain body).
Add a custom card
Click cells to paint the pattern relative to the card (centre). Switch between painting pawn tiles and effect tiles.
Combat & Party
Rebirth's fights reward aggression with information. Assess, exploit, pressure, stagger, delete.
The core loop
- Build ATB with normal attacks and unique actions. Abilities, spells and items all spend ATB — basic attacks are just the wind-up.
- Assess every new enemy (Assess Materia). It shows elemental weakness and what raises Pressure — the game literally tells you the plan.
- Exploit the weakness to pile on Pressure. A pressured enemy takes more stagger damage and is interruptible.
- Stagger for the burst window. Stack stagger‑damage boosts (Tifa's chain, certain abilities) before you pop the big hits.
Synergy Skills — free value
- Hold R1 (guard) + a face button for that character's partnered move. Costs no ATB, usable any time.
- Every use pushes the Synergy Ability gauge up — fire them between attacks; they're your fastest route to the big team moves.
- Each carries a rider: ranged pokes build ATB safely, counter/dodge ones (Counterfire, Slip & Slide, Ninja Bazooka) give i‑frames, magic ones (Spell Blade) hand your caster free MP or an instant cast, Iron Defense / Bodyguard give an invuln stance or cover.
- First landing of each pair's skill also nudges that ally's affinity.
Materia priorities (early)
- Assess on someone at all times.
- Elemental linked to your dominant attack element (weapon) or a defensive element (armor) for zones that spam one type.
- Magic / HP / MP Up as you get them — flat, boring, always good.
- ATB Boost, First Strike, Steal for utility. Enemy Skill if you like collecting.
- Healing/revive on more than one character — don't single‑point‑of‑failure your medic.
Synergy Abilities — it's about the buff
Charging: spend ATB on abilities and spells that show the small synergy icon. Both characters in a pair must be charged before the ability lights up. Cost climbs with each use within a fight (blue pips) — the first one each battle is cheapest, but don't hoard so hard you never fire one.
Unlocking: in Folio, gated by party level — pairs open at Party Lv 2, 5 and 8. Build around the three characters you actually run.
The combined hit is big, but the team-wide buff is the reason to press it. There are four, and you pick the ability whose buff you need right now:
- Limit +1 timing — your next Limit Break fires one tier higher. Use when the Limit gauge is nearly full.
- Free MP setup — cast with no MP for the window. Line it up before an Aerith / magic burst.
- Stagger extend timing — stagger lasts longer and takes more damage. Only worth it once the enemy is already staggered.
- +3 ATB anytime — three instant bars for the whole party (“United Refocus”). Opens a stagger or digs you out of trouble.
Synergy Abilities worth chasing
- United Refocus (+3 ATB) — the workhorse. Cloud+Aerith, Cloud+Barret, Tifa+Aerith, Barret+Red XIII, Yuffie+Barret and more all have a version. Rarely the wrong call.
- Relentless Rush (Cloud+Tifa) and the other stagger-extenders — Avalanche Two-Step (Barret+Tifa), Sweet-and-Sour Salvo (Aerith+Barret), Ringmaster (Red+Aerith): save for the stagger window and your whole burst multiplies.
- Synchro Cyclone (Tifa+Cloud), Arcane Blast (Barret+Aerith), Mystic Multiplication (Yuffie+Aerith) — free-MP windows for a spell dump.
- Firework Blade (Cloud+Aerith), Bestial Barrage (Tifa+Red), Maelstrom Strike (Cloud+Yuffie) — Limit‑level boosts to fire an upgraded Limit.
Exact names shift a little between guides — check your party's Folio in-game. Full list & unlock levels: RPG Site.
Folio & respec
Spend SP on Synergy unlocks first, then survivability nodes (HP, MP), then the character's signature branch. Respec is free and unlimited — rebuild for a hard fight, then rebuild back. There's no wrong permanent choice here.
Party notes
- Cloud — toggle Punisher Mode when enemies come to you (huge counters); switch back to move.
- Barret — ranged anchor, best answer to flyers; Overcharge on cooldown.
- Tifa — build her stance with Whirling Uppercut / Omnistrike; her stagger multipliers are the best in the game.
- Aerith — place a Ward and cast from inside it; keep distance, let ATB build passively.
- Red XIII — guard to fill Vengeance gauge, then switch to Vengeance stance for burst.
Full dossier per character ↗ — mechanic, abilities, Synergy pairs, who to pair them with.
Summons
- The Summon gauge only fills after the first stagger — then spend 1 ATB (medium) or 2 (large) to call one in as a temporary fourth fighter.
- Feed it ATB while it's out; when its gauge empties it fires its ultimate automatically. Line that up with a stagger window.
- Clear a region's three Divine Intel shrines before its Chadley summon fight — each eases the fight a tier and levels the summon, and the reward is the same at any difficulty.
- Early picks: Ifrit / Shiva by weakness, Titan for non-elemental, and Chocobo & Moogle's wind actually helps against Titan himself.
Summons Atlas ↗ — every summon's unlock, shrines, abilities, stat lean, and a pick-by-situation table.
Boss compendium — open a leg to see its bosses (names are spoilers)
Weakness tags are the fast plan. The universal rule: stagger beats raw DPS — if a boss feels spongy you're skipping its Assess entry. Exact chapter numbers vary by guide; these are grouped by leg.
Grasslands & Junon leg
- Scorpion Sentinel Lightning — break a front leg, then the core; hide behind cover for the tail laser.
- Materia Guardian Fire Earth AoE — destroy the arms; jump or be airborne to clear the ground wave.
- Midgardsormr Ice — batter the Cranial Dome with Blizzard; Aerith carries this; leave Fire at home.
- Rude & Elena Wind / Lightning — split the elements between them; dodge the unblockable named moves.
- Mythril Golem Lightning — break the head to open it to physicals, then focus the core.
- Terror of the Deep Lightning Bubble — pop the bubble on a trapped ally; block the big wave, don't dodge it.
- Roche Fire — parry or dodge, punish the recovery; Fire builds stagger fast.
- VR: Titan Wind and Phoenix — kill adds / interrupt the empower, then burst.
Corel to Cosmo Canyon leg — heavier spoilers
- Jenova Emergent no weakness — range it with Barret + spells; manage the tentacle spawns; sidestep the laser.
- Grasptropod Lightning — Lightning abilities; dodge the poison mist and the missile volley.
- Dyne Fire — fight from cover; avoid the mines and the paralysis shot.
- Anuran Suppressor Lightning — flip the tank with a Limit, then wreck the legs.
- Custom Valkyrie Lightning / Wind — it's easiest to pressure during Cooling Protocol.
- Gigatrice Fire / Poison — ranged attacks while it flies; keep Fire on it.
- Specimen H1024 Ice — heavy damage right after Mako Ingestion interrupts and pressures it.
- Crimson Mare Mk. II Lightning — destroy the arm weapons to expose the pilot.
- Gi Nattak no weakness — kill Soul Flames before they curse you; apply Poison immediately.
- VR: Alexander Lightning (drop both arms, Esuna the karma), Kujata (element rotates — exploit the current one), Bahamut Arisen (Synergy Abilities clear the particles).
Nibelheim to endgame — heavy story spoilers
- Galian Beast Fire — stack Deprotect / Deshell; dodge liberally, it's aggressive.
- Diabolic Variant Ice — destroy the right arm; deal with the low-HP clones.
- Yin & Yang Fire — stagger one head to open the other; Cait Sith's kit shines here.
- Forgotten Specimen shifts — alternate physical and magic damage to match its swapping resistance.
- Roche (rematch) no weakness — parry the normals, dodge the named moves.
- Abzu Fire — bait Ferocious Charge into a wall for a free stagger.
- Rufus & Darkstar no weakness — kill Darkstar first; Braver punishes Rufus's reloads.
- Red Dragon Ice — break the scorched pillars, cripple the wings to ground it, avoid Crimson Breath.
- Turks rematches — Reno/Rude lean Wind / Fire, Tseng/Elena Ice / Lightning; interrupt their Synergy attacks.
- Demon Gate no weakness — dump your whole ATB bar to pressure it during Encroach.
- Jenova Lifeclinger no weakness — rotate party members; Breach strips the Barrier.
- Sephiroth Reborn no weakness — multi-phase; survive Heartless Angel with a heal ready; finish in the Tempus Finis stagger.
- VR: Odin — dodge nearly everything, spam ATB commands, keep revives up — it's a Gigaflare check.
Minigames
The ones you'll actually meet in the Grasslands and Junon. The truly cursed ones come later — flagged below.
Chocobo Catching Grasslands+
- Start at the ranch tutorial, then each region has its own wild chocobo with a gimmick.
- Move cover to cover, crouched. Watch the ears — ears up means it heard you; freeze.
- Grasslands' bird is distracted while eating — close the gap then, and avoid the crunchy foliage that spooks it.
- Catching a region's chocobo unlocks its traversal ability (climb, glide, etc.) — do it early, it makes everything else faster.
Piano Kalm, then more
- Left stick / right stick play notes; shoulder buttons are sustain and pedal dynamics.
- There's a simplified control scheme in the options if the full one fights you — no shame, rewards are the same.
- Use Practice until the timing bar feels natural, then do a scored run. Sheet music is the reward; more unlocks as you travel.
Fort Condor Junon
- Lane defense with a rock‑paper‑scissors of unit types: Vanguard > Ranged > Defender > Vanguard. Match your deploy to what's incoming.
- Take out the enemy's outpost structures first — they cut off reinforcements and give you board control.
- Bank ATB for the commander ability and drop it on a cluster.
- Difficulty tiers are optional — the story only needs the first board.
3D Brawler Junon
- Pure read‑and‑react: the opponent telegraphs high / mid / low. Block the matching height, then punish with the opposite.
- Don't mash. One clean block‑punish per exchange beats a flurry that eats a counter.
- Guard‑break when they turtle; back off when they're aggressive.
Junon Parade March Junon story
- Rhythm drill: hit each prompt on the beat, watching a couple of steps ahead rather than at the icon.
- There's a shooting segment — prioritise accuracy over speed.
- Your score sets a reward tier and a small perk later. A mid score is totally fine on a first run.
Dolphin Leapfrog Under Junon
- Time each jump prompt as you leapfrog the floats toward the cannon.
- Late is better than early — wait for the reticle/prompt to settle before you press.
Reward targets — what to actually aim for
| Minigame | Where | Aim for | Payoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Piano | Kalm, then 5 more spots | A-rank | the 6 Piano Outreach songs each pay a 2–3★ materia from Dorian — real upgrades, not trinkets |
| Junon Parade | Ch. 4 story | 100,000+ | top reward tier, plus two trophies (also tag every patrol trooper) |
| Fort Condor | Junon, then more | clear every board | 5 Party EXP per stage (20 total), sheet music, and a Junon Protorelic |
| 3D Brawler | Junon → Gold Saucer | first clear each foe | a set reward + Gold Saucer Points (rematches pay less); beating Sephiroth is a trophy |
| Chocobo Racing | Gold Saucer (later) | 1st place → Gold Cup | Chocobo gear + GP; the Gold Cup is a trophy |
| Gears & Gambits | Cosmo Canyon (later) | complete it | it is the Cosmo Canyon Protorelic; Hard Mode adds a trophy |
| Queen's Blood | everywhere | climb the ranks | new cards + a prize at the top (see the Queen's Blood tab) |
Most Gold Saucer games pay GP. The GP exchange is where a chunk of the game's manuscripts and accessories live — so the low-effort ones (Cactuar Crush, Galactic Saviors) are still worth a few runs.
Coming later — don't worry about these yet
Gears & Gambits Chocobo Racing G-Bike Cactuar Crush Galactic Saviors 3D Brawler (advanced) Card Carnival Box Buster Piano (hard tracks)
These unlock around Gold Saucer and the regions past Junon. Bookmark the pain for later.
Region Checklists
Every open region runs the same set of activities. Learn the pattern once; the map stops being noise. Tick items as you go — they sync to the Tracker.
Want to know which region opens in which chapter (and what's time-locked)? See the Chapter Line ↗.
The repeatable pattern (every region)
- Remnawave Towers — do these first. Each one reveals a slice of the map and its nearby activities, plus tunes into a chocobo signal.
- Lifespring — light platforming to a spring, inspect the glowing spots, then a short fight. Lore + rewards.
- Divine / World Intel — scan environmental points (flora, crystal formations, creature tracks) for Chadley. Filling a category unlocks a Combat Simulator battle — every VR fight, its reward and unlock, as a tracker ↗.
- Fiend Intel — Assess the region's new monsters, then clear Chadley's combat assignments against them.
- Chocobo Stops — repair to enable fast travel, restock, and buy region‑specific chocobo gear and cards.
- Protorelic — a multi‑step side quest unique to each region, flagged by purple "?" points. Each region runs it as a different minigame; the whole chain leads to Gilgamesh. Fine to leave half‑done and return — walkthrough of all seven chains ↗.
- Moogle — find the moogle den, play Moogle Mosey (herd them calmly — running scatters them), earn Moogle Medals for its shop.
- Side Quests — the NPC ones raise party affinity, which decides your Gold Saucer date later. Do the ones for characters you like — or plan a specific date with the affinity planner ↗.
You do not need 100% per region to progress. Clear towers + a chocobo, grab fast‑travel, do what's fun, move on. You can return any time.
Grasslands ~30 intel points
Your first sandbox, around Kalm. Gentle terrain, good place to actually learn the loop above without pressure. Catch the chocobo here early — it makes the region trivial to sweep.
What's here: ~6 Lifesprings · 3 Sanctuaries (Divine Intel) · 6 combat assignments + 1 Classified fight (Quetzalcoatl) · 6 Chocobo dig sites · 1 Moogle · plus the towers and the Protorelic chain.
Junon ~24 intel points
Coastal region below the big cannon city. Introduces Fort Condor and the 3D Brawler, and the terrain gets more vertical — its chocobo ability helps you reach the higher intel points. The Junon parade is a story beat, not open‑world.
What's here: 5 Remnawave Towers · 4 Lifesprings · 3 Sanctuaries · ~12 combat assignments · 4 Protorelic points · 7 Chocobo Stops. (The Junon chocobo needs the Stuck in a Rut side quest.)
How much is in each region
Total intel points (towers + lifesprings + sanctuaries + assignments + dig sites + protorelic + moogle + classified, combined). Handy for judging whether to fully clear a region now or push the story.
| Region | Intel points | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Grasslands | ~30 | the tutorial sandbox |
| Junon | ~24 | the smallest of the big regions |
| Corel | ~30 | desert + mine cart country |
| Gongaga | ~28 | the mushroom-jump nightmare |
| Cosmo Canyon | ~30 | adds Gears & Gambits |
| Nibel | ~23 | compact, mountainous |
| Meridian Ocean | ~4 | a small bonus stretch |
Series totals: ~32 towers · ~32 Lifesprings · ~18 Sanctuaries · ~32 combat assignments · ~10 dig sites · ~28 Protorelic points · 7 Moogles · 6 Classified fights. Guides count a few of these slightly differently.
Progress Tracker
A single view of everything above. Saved in this browser — close the tab and come back, it'll remember.
This is an early-game checklist — Grasslands and Junon plus the systems that carry the whole game. It is not a 100% completion list; it's a "have I actually engaged with everything" list.