Shardtail Queen

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**Shardtail Queen** is the Exiled Champion  of the Hellhorned .

Her Starter Card is Queen's Impling.

## Lore

*In my dreams, I see a demon more powerful than any of the Hellhorned. One with sharded tail and control over all imps. Did she save the Hellhorned from total destruction, this forgotten Queen?*

### Battle Quotes

* *My tail wasn't always this beautiful, but it was always this deadly.*
* *But what has become of our Blessed Titan Fhyra?*
* *My great Grrrg, do you still suffer in this nightmare?*
* *Come to me, my children!*
* *The Hellhorned are immortal because of me! Besides, having a tail is better.*
* *Kneel!*
* *Hyah!*
* *Bow to your Queen!*
* *Implings, to me!*
* *I will strike with the souls of the damned!*
* *Hellhorned, to me!*
* *The millenia have not been kind to you, my children.*
* *Come to me, my children!*

## Upgrades

**Rally:** +15.

 Imperialist

**Action:** Kill all Imp units. Deal 20 damage per Imp to enemy units.

**Action:** Kill all Imp units. Deal 30 damage per Imp to enemy units.

 Imp Parade

**Resolve:** Add a **Queen's Impling** to your hand.
Imp units cost -1 on this floor.

**Resolve:** Add a **Fledgling Imp** to your hand.
Imp units cost -1 on this floor.

**Resolve:** Add a **Fledgling Imp** and a **Welder Helper** to your hand.
Imp units cost -1 on this floor.

## Strategy

### Royalty

Difficult to use on its own but scales with Tomb, Imp, or Burnout strategies. Rally triggers activate when summoning additional (non-Morsel) units. To center a Royalty run off disposable Imps, it requires both the means of generating more imps to place (such as Imp Parade or Endless) and to get rid of them efficiently (such as Imperialist or other Sacrifice cards), as neither aspect can reliably allow enough Rally triggers without support.

### Imperialist

A strong, if risky, direction to take the Shardtail Queen. So long as you do not run out of Imps, and are able to protect them until she can use her action, she can devastate entire waves of foes at a time. However, this requires her to be on the lower levels, and usually to avoid putting the Imps in the front row in order to help them survive enemy attacks (though making her Quick, such as by using a Wildwood Tome for instance, makes her immediately trigger her action). Furthermore, it requires a very significant number of Imps in the deck to be activated reliably, though taking a rank or two in Imp Parade can help alleviate this.

Despite all of these drawbacks, even a single Imperialist rank can massively increase any Imp-based deck's power by clearing the level of Imps after every battle (generating some considerable damagein the process), immediately making room for new Imps to be played for their strong Summon effects. This is especially helpful when there are Imp that would rather be placed in the back rows (such as Welder Helpers, or Morsel buffing strategies) that would be safe from most enemy attacks and difficult to get rid of. This also combines particularly well with any kind of Endless Imp, putting it back on top of the deck every single turn, though a Transcendimp is obviously ideal.

This path has a particular anti-synergy with Apex Imp, as unlike other Imps that are played only for their Summon effects and are practically useless outside of their Summon, Apex Imp is often used as the deck's main scaling damage dealer, and wants to stay on the field to build up Armor and Rage to massive levels, but Imperialist Shardtail Queen will simply sacrifice Apex Imp without care of whether it has 0 Rage/Armor or 1000 Rage/Armor, so it's generally a good idea to avoid using Apex Imp if they have already chosen Imperialist for Shardtail Queen, or avoid upgrading Shardtail Queen with Imperialist if Apex Imp is obtained.

### Imp Parade

Similarly to Rector Flicker’s Dark Calling strategy, defending the Shardtail Queen becomes very high priority as she can only keep creating Imps so long as she is alive. Placing the Shardtail Queen on the highest levels is a good strategy, as means she will likely live for longer, but placing her on a lower level so that she can make use of the decreased Imp cost is also not a bad choice. Additionally, Imp Parade is the queen’s most vulnerable strategy. Combining with Royalty or Imperialist is not a bad choice, as the constant creation of Imps would be very beneficial for both strategies.

Combines extremely well with Imp-olate, as the Imps that the Shardtail Queen summons count as being added to your deck, causing Imp-olate to increase in damage over the game.

## History

*See: Version History*

As with all other exiled Champions, Shardtail Queen was added with the Friends and Foes Update.