Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is lastly right here and it’s fairly nice! It’s a deep and vibrant action-RPG which rewarded me with lovely sights, touching character developments, and moments of tactical genius throughout the a number of dozen hours I invested in it. But for all of its strengths and weaknesses, the best factor it gave me was a brand new card sport: Queen’s Blood. First launched as a distraction within the opening hours, I shortly realized how a lot a) I beloved it and b) it informs lots of Rebirth’s aspect content material. With that in thoughts, I’ve taken on each challenger thrown my approach, starting from the typical hobbyists to robots and Chocobos, and discovered a factor or two within the course of. Now, I hope to impart some recommendation to any newcomers trying to get good on the card sport that’s sweeping the world of FF7 Rebirth. Here’s what I’ve received for y’all.
Hold off on the center
The single biggest piece of recommendation I can provide, particularly beginning off, is to delay taking the center column. Queen’s Blood is a sport about elevating energy ranges in lanes as a lot as it’s a sport of territory growth. Though you’ll discover relative success in being aggressive if you first begin enjoying (I gained my first sport this fashion), that technique shortly begins to break down with out some particular tactic in thoughts. Slapping down playing cards wherever you may is the equal of enjoying checkers. And what do you need to play? Chess. Knowing that, persistence turns into a secondhand advantage. Waiting to your opponent to assert the center with the intention to swoop in and power them onto their again foot is sort of at all times the precise play. Be ready for a little bit of a backwards and forwards, understanding that so long as you’ve received head in your shoulders and a good choice of playing cards available, enjoying the sluggish sport is the absolute best transfer. By the time I discovered this, I used to be profitable each sport with out resets and climbing by way of the Queen’s Blood ranks.
Buy playing cards in all places you go
I do know this seems like the obvious recommendation however cash is form of tight early on in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I used to be notably stingy and ignored just a few early outlets in favor of transmuting supplies I discovered within the open world. However, outlets everywhere in the sport characteristic extra than simply your primary potions, antidotes, gear, and materia. A choose few normal shops, in addition to some specialised distributors, additionally promote booster packs for Queen’s Blood. Buying them at about 500 gil a pop is the quickest solution to begin constructing a considerable sufficient assortment of playing cards to have some selection in your decks. Otherwise, you’ll be left incomes a single card each time you win a match—if there’s even a card up for reward, which some quest-related Queen’s Blood bouts don’t characteristic. All the booster packs have enjoyable themes, and a few of my most useful playing cards got here from these extremely easy-to-miss assets.
Replacements playing cards are your greatest good friend
You gained’t get alternative playing cards for some time, however when you do unlock them they’ll change into the defining ingredient of your Queen’s Blood deck. Replacement playing cards are precisely what they sound like: they have to be positioned on high of playing cards you’ve already performed, at which level they destroy and change them on the sphere. You would possibly suppose it’s a reckless transfer to sacrifice the potential acquire of extra space to double down on a spot you’ve already claimed, however alternative playing cards are a good way to juice your lane’s energy on a budget. Unlike playing cards that want a certain quantity of tokens to be performed, alternative playing cards use something already in play as a token, that means you should utilize low-level fodder (like a Mandragora, which additionally grants you a minion when you play it) to broaden your territory, and then change it with one thing that’s doubtlessly extra highly effective and has a distinct sample, granting you much more territory or tokens to tug out higher-level playing cards.
Replacement playing cards change into a key fixture in high-level Queen’s Blood, and your AI opponents will use them even once they’ve run out of area on the board to get one over on you. You’ll suppose you’ve received them on the ropes after which they’ll change half their discipline with extra highly effective monsters that’ll trounce you. In order to be ready for these back-and-forths, it’s greatest to begin getting used to enjoying with alternative decks early and build up complimentary synergies. Speaking of which…
Don’t be afraid to make use of prebuilt decks
The deck you begin off with shall be effective sufficient for a rank or two, so you may depart it alone, however quickly sufficient you’ll have to begin constructing your individual decks to maintain competing. It might be intimidating—particularly if you’re simply beginning out—to make a deck the place every little thing appears to work in tandem. After all, you’re nonetheless studying the mechanics of Queen’s Blood by way of many of the early ranks. I didn’t really feel like I had a agency sufficient grip on the sport till the event in Chapter 6, so don’t really feel dangerous about it taking some time. An simple solution to get pondering, although, lies within the prebuilt decks.
There’s an choice to type by way of and use quite a lot of prebuilt decks made with synergies in thoughts that’s buried in Rebirth’s menus. The sport by no means even makes reference to the choice so far as I do know. At the pause menu, go over to the choice referred to as “Card Decks” to get began. There, you’ll see a variety of slots for separate, customized decks. Hitting triangle to edit a given deck will take you into the cardboard choice, at which level you’ll discover a immediate on the underside of the display screen to hit the PS5’s begin button (the one with the three strains) to “Craft Prebuilt Deck.” Getting extra playing cards unlocks extra potential prebuilts, so go nuts going through each participant and shopping for each booster pack to see all the probabilities.
Experiment with synergies to see what works greatest for you
Except for absolutely the remaining sport of Queen’s Blood, there’s all kinds of viable methods and methods to construct your deck, particularly should you use the pre-built decks as references for these synergies. You could make a deck totally about buffing your individual playing cards, which might be complemented very effectively by the Chocobo and Moogle card you get fairly early on, a Cactuar, and Ifrit, whose energy is raised by 2 for each enhanced ally card. Smack a Loveless card—which raises the facility of every little thing in a fringe round it when it’s performed—proper in the midst of all of them, and also you principally have the deck that carried me by way of many of the ranks.
It’s not the one profitable construct, although. Shiva can present the idea for a robust defensive deck, for instance, and Shinra troopers are a useful basis for a deck centered on growth and territory. If you need to get actually loopy, attempt synergizing monsters that destroy indiscriminately—like a Bomb card—with Midgardsormr or Tonberry King, which grows in energy proportional to the variety of ally playing cards destroyed. You don’t want to fret about profitable each lane as long as those you do get quantity to increased than your enemy’s whole rating. There are even playing cards that’ll improve the quantity of factors you get in a lane should you win it. Min-max the sport to hell and again as a result of it’s constructed for all these methods, which makes it that rather more enjoyable to experiment with.
If you need a extra simple development, I’d emphasize a buff-heavy growth deck for the primary a number of ranks earlier than introducing some playing cards with damaging/debuff talents for the center ranks. The second you unlock alternative playing cards, begin filtering them in. You gained’t remorse it.
With that stated, I feel you all know sufficient now to get on the market and begin whooping some Queen’s Blood gamers. Just bear in mind to take it sluggish and at all times be changing; you’ll be flying by way of the ranks very quickly. Then possibly, simply possibly, Square Enix will make a standalone Queen’s Blood sport and we are able to face off to see who’s actually the very best.
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