FF7 Rebirth: How to beat the Shadowblood Queen in Queen’s Blood

Queen’s Blood is a surprisingly fully-featured card game that you can play with NPCs throughout Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and the final battle is particularly difficult.

The Shadowblood Queen is by far the toughest Queen’s Blood challenge in the game, and she only becomes available to fight after you’ve taken out the other 29 ranked combatants. She cheats, meaning you’ll need a special deck to take her down.

In this guide, we’re breaking down the exact deck and strategy that we used to take down the Shadowblood Queen in FF7 Rebirth’s Queen’s Blood. Make sure to read through our list of all Queen’s Blood cards, and don’t ignore events like Costa Del Sol’s Card Carnival, where you can earn some valuable and powerful cards.

What to know about Shadowblood Queen – FF7 Rebirth

You’ll already be fully aware that a rank one card can be placed on a rank one pawn, a rank two card can be placed on a rank two pawn, and so on. The Shadowblood Queen doesn’t care. She can summon cards of any rank on any pawn she owns, and she even starts the game with the Shadowblood Queen card already placed.

All of her cards spawn spaces that enfeeble the cards of both players, and that will also power up the Shadowblood Queen. But that’s okay, because we can use that strategy to our own advantage, too. Since the rules for this battle have been thrown out of the window, we’re building a deck specifically designed to counter her strategy.

Best deck build to beat Shadowblood Queen – FF7 Rebirth

We used the following deck build to take down the Shadowblood Queen in Queen’s Blood. Don’t worry too much if you don’t have every card included here: the most important cards are the two Rictus cards, Chimera, and Gi Nattak.

• Death Claw
• Skeeskee x2
• Reapertail
• Bahba Velamyu
• Rictus x2
• Loveless
• Bomb
• Chimera
• Joker
• Emerald Witch
• Midgardsormr
• Griffon
• Gi Nattak

Rictus raises its own power by 1 every time an ally or enemy is enfeebled, and with the Shadowblood Queen’s strategy, this puts you in a good position.

The Chimera card has a similar feature, where its power is raised by 2 for every enfeebled enemy.

The final important card, Gi Nattak, replaces a card on the field, but grants that card’s power to the allies directly above and below it. This is key to triumphing against the Shadowblood Queen.

Strategy to beat Shadowblood Queen – FF7 Rebirth

The key cards in this build are Rictus, Chimera, and Gi Nattak. The two Skeeskee cards are also very useful to set things up, but they’re not our primary focus for this strategy. Here’s the short version: we’re going to win the top and bottom rows, while abandoning the middle row to the Shadowblood Queen.

The ideal starting draw features at least one Rictus and a Chimera — you might need to restart a few battles before getting the draw you need. Your first column should start with a Rictus at the top, followed by a Chimera in the middle slot, and a second Rictus in the bottom slot. This is good because the Shadowblood Queen’s encroaching enfeeblement rarely reaches your rear row, so these cards should be safe.

That’s the most important part out of the way — with your rear row reinforced, it’s a matter of playing your best until the right moment strikes. Use cards like Skeeskee to try and win back spawns on the board, while Emerald Witch and Loveless can give your rear row some necessary buffs. If you somehow manage to get enough pawns, Midgardsormr is a great addition to any row, and Bomb can, of course, blow away enemy cards, when in the correct position — make sure not to harm your rear row!

You will eventually draw Gi Nattak, and you shouldn’t necessarily play it immediately — though you may be pushed into a situation where you have to. With each passing turn, the two Rictus cards and the Chimera will be building in power thanks to the enfeeblement debuffs the Shadowblood Queen places down. The Chimera will build power at twice the rate, and when the time is right, you can use the Gi Nattak card to replace the Chimera, giving its power to the two Rictus cards.

In our final battle, our Chimera had a power of 12 – though it could potentially go much higher – and when added to the totals of our two Rictus cards, it amounted to totals of 19 in the top row, and 17 in the bottom row. That’s just with the one card in each row, and in our battle, Gi Nattak immediately succumbed to enfeeblement.

Bahba Velamyu is only rank one but can enfeeble enemies on death, meaning it can further stack the power of Rictus. Reapertail also works similarly, and both are useful in staving off the Shadowblood Queen until she runs out of cards to play. Eventually, with two supercharged Rictus dominating the top and bottom rows, you should have them powered up enough to trump the opponent’s Shadowblood Queen card in the center row. We finished the game with 23 in the top row and 22 in the bottom row for a total of 45, beating the middle row’s 33.