The Evil Queen is jealous of Snow White for being the fairest in the land. She’s also one of the villain characters you can play in the Disney Villainous expansion Wicked to the Core. In this Evil Queen strategy guide, find tips and tricks to win, and also see how you can stop her from winning.
When you play as the Evil Queen your goal is to make your poison apples and get Snow White to take a bite!
In this Evil Queen strategy guide I look at:
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- The Evil Queen Villain Guide
- Strategy to win as the Evil Queen
- Evil Queen’s cards
- Important cards in Evil Queen’s deck
- Evil Queen’s board
- Evil Queen’s Fate cards
- How to stop Evil Queen from winning
The Evil Queen Villain Guide
Let’s take a look at the tips in the Evil Queen Villain Guide before taking a more detailed look at how to play her.
Evil Queen’s Objective
Defeat Snow White.
Sounds simple, right? Oh, if only it was! Like all good schemes, there are many steps to this simple plan…
- Play four different ingredients to unlock the Dwarfs’ Cottage
- Brew Poison so you can defeat Heroes
- Have Snow White in play
- Play Take a Bite when Evil Queen is at Snow White’s location and has enough poison to defeat her
No wonder The Wicked to the Core rules suggest Evil Queen is the perfect character for more experienced Villainous players!
Special Setup
Dwarfs’ Cottage is locked at the beginning of the game.
Ingredients
To unlock the Dwarfs’ Cottage, you need some ingredients!
A pinch of each of these will do it.
- Scream of Fright
- Mummy Dust
- Old Hag’s Cackle
- Black of Night
There are two of each ingredient in your villain deck.
Ingredients cards are unique to the Evil Queen. They work like Effects cards. The first time you play an ingredient do what it says on the card and then put it below your realm board.
If you play an ingredient you’ve played before, take the action on the card then put it in your discard pile. When you’ve got one of each ingredient type, take the unlock token from Dwarfs’ Cottage.
Activated Abilities
Huntsman, Magic Mirror, Magic Tomes, Throne, and The Box all have Activated Abilities on them. To use an Activated Ability, use an Activate Ability action on your board and then follow the action’s direction.
Poison Apples
Unlike the other playable characters, Evil Queen only has one Ally, the Huntsman. Otherwise, she works alone.
But she doesn’t have a Vanquish action in her realm. So the Huntsman won’t be getting rid of those pesky Heroes interfering with her plans. Instead, Evil Queen uses Poison and the Take a Bite card.
Brew Poison Action
To get the Poison to take care of Heroes, Evil Queen needs to go to her Laboratory and use the Brew Poison action. This converts any amount of Power you want into Poison. Put the Poison in a pile over Evil Queen’s image on her realm board to keep it separate from your Power.
Once Power is turned into Poison it can’t be used as Power.
Take a Bite
To defeat a Hero with Poison, Evil Queen needs to be at that Hero’s location. That’s why she needs to unlock Dwarfs’ Cottage to defeat Snow White.
When she’s at a Hero’s location, she then plays Take a Bite to tempt the Hero to eat her poison apple and then and then pays Poison equal to the Strength of the Hero. The stronger the Hero, the more Poison it takes to defeat them!
If Evil Queen hasn’t got enough Poison to defeat a Hero, she can’t play Take a Bite.
Used Poison goes back into the Power Supply.
Strategy to win as Evil Queen in Disney Villainous
Discard is your friend
You need six cards to win, one of each ingredient, Take a Bite and Snow White.
Five of these cards are in your villain deck, but Snow White is in your Fate Deck. If your opponents are smart, they will never, ever play Snow White on your realm board!
So you need to find the Magic Mirror! Once you have it in play, use its Activated ability to find and play Snow White. Whahaha!
Only play Magic Mirror when you can use it
Be careful when you play the Magic Mirror! It would be really bad luck to play it and then have your opponent immediately play Sneezy at its location so you need to discard it! Then you’d need to either play Black Magic to recover it from your Discard pile, or wait for it to come back around in your deck again!
So make sure you’ve got the 5 Power you need to play and Activate Magic Mirror in the same turn and that you’re at The Woods or The Mine so you can use the play cards and Activate abilities.
Don’t Fate opponents
Evil Queen is happiest when she’s left alone to find her cards and Poison Snow White. So don’t draw attention to yourself.
You don’t want your opponents to Fate you because it doesn’t help you at all. They probably won’t play Snow White against you if they draw her and Fate cards played on you will just make your life more difficult.
If you don’t Fate them, they might not Fate you.
Instead, you could make comments about how hard she is to play because there are loads of things you need to find and do to win!
Use Move a Hero to your advantage
You need to be in the same location as the Hero you want to defeat to play Take a Bite on them. Make them come to you so you don’t need to waste a turn going to another location that you don’t want to go to just to defeat them!
Evil Queen’s cards
The Evil Queen has 30 cards in her villain deck. Here are 15 different card designs.
- Black Magic x 2
- Black of Night x 2
- Huntsman x 1
- I’ll Fix Ya! x 3
- Jealousy x 2
- Magic Mirror x 1
- Magic Tomes x 2
- Mummy Dust x 2
- Old Hag’s Cackle x 2
- Scream of Fright x 2
- Take a Bite x 5
- The Box x 1
- Throne x 1
- Thunderbolt x 2
- Vanity x 2
Evil Queen’s cards by type
The Evil Queen has 12 Effects, 1 Ally, 4 Conditions, 1 Item and 8 Ingredients.
Her cards are exactly what you’d expect to see in a deck based on her character! She’s only got one Ally because let’s face it, who wants to be friends with an Evil Queen? So she uses her spells in Effects, Ingredients, and magical Items to get what she wants!
Card types are interesting, but what we really want to see is what the cards do and how we can use their abilities to win!
Evil Queen’s cards by ability
When you break her cards down by ability, it becomes so clear how you’re meant to play her. Check out all those abilities for revealing the cards you want!
Revealing and getting cards
These are all super helpful for getting your hands on the Ingredients you need to unlock Dwarf’s Cottage and the Magic Mirror so you can get Snow White into play.
Black Magic
Number in deck: 2 | Power Cost: 2 | Card type: Item
Choose an Item or Ingredient from your deck or discard pile and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your deck.
Played the Magic Mirror only to have Sneezy blow it away to your discard pile? No worries! Black Magic will get it back for you from your discard pile. It’s also a great card in case you use Magic Tomes and have to discard an ingredient card that you really need, or a Take a Bite card!
Magic Mirror
Number in deck: 1 | Power cost: 2 | Card type: Item
Each time a Fate action targets you, draw a card. Activated ability: Pay 3 Power. Find Snow White and play her.
“Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” There’s a reason why Evil Queen obsesses over her mirror in the movie! It is the most important card in your deck. Unless you are playing against very silly opponents, the Magic Mirror is the only way you can get Snow White into play!
Magic Tomes
Number in deck: 2 | Power cost: 2 | Card type: Item
Activated ability: Look at the top four cards of your deck. Put one into your hand. Discard the rest.
These are nice to have if you’re swimming in Power and have no use for it! They aren’t as good as the other reveal card actions because you run the risk of having to discard a card that you actually want to use. What if you drew Magic Mirror along with two copies of one ingredient and one copy of another ingredient? That would be rubbish!
You could keep Magic Mirror, but you’d have to discard all the ingredients! And you only have two copies of each one. That’s a long time for one ingredient to come back through the deck or recover it!
Vanity
Number in deck: 2 | Card type: Condition
During their turn, if another player has two or more Items in their Realm, you may play Vanity. Reveal the top three cards of your deck. Discard any of them and return the rest to the top in any order.
This is pretty awesome! If you’ve not got the Magic Mirror or all your Ingredients yet, it’s a great way to find them quickly yet? Only put what you absolutely want on the top of your deck otherwise it’ll slow you down from finding the Magic Mirror!
Turn Power into Poison
Without a vanquish action, you need Poison to get rid of Heroes. Usually, you need to use the Brew Poison action at the Laboratory to do this. But with the aid of come cards, you don’t need to go there to get it. That can potentially save you from moving there so you can move somewhere else that’s more beneficial.
Jealousy
Number in deck: 2 | Card type: Condition
During their turn, if another player gains 3 or more Power, you may play Jealousy. Take 1 Power from the Supply and add it to your Poison.
A nice little bonus Poison for doing nothing! Is it worth keeping in your hand for when the right moment arrives? Probably not, you have so many other cards to find so just discard it!
Mummy Dust
Number in deck: 2 | Power cost: 1 | Card type: Ingredient
Each time a Fate action targets you before your next turn, take 1 Power from the Supply and add it to your Poison.
You’ll be putting Mummy Dust into play because you need the Ingredient to unlock Dwarf’s Cottage. It’s nice that you get a bonus 1 Power anytime you’re Fated that turn too. It’s not really worth it to play Mummy Dust again in the future though, you can’t guarantee you’ll be Fated that turn. I’d just discard the second copy.
Throne
Number in deck: 1 | Power cost: 1 | Card type: Item
Activate: Take 1 Power from the Supply and add it to your Poison.
Throne is very much a bonus card to get into play. It only costs 1 Power so after Activating it once, you’re in plus figures. But you only have 2 Activate actions in your Realm and they can both be blocked by Heroes. So you may need to save them for Magic Mirror and Magic Tomes that help you find the cards you need instead.
Defeat Hero
With no Vanquish actions in your Realm, you need to defeat your Heroes another way – with Poison!
Take a Bite
Number in deck: 5 | Power cost: 0 | Card type: Effect
Choose a Hero at Evil Queen’s location. Pay Poison equal to the Hero’s Strength to defeat that Hero.
Take a Bite is the only card you can use to get rid of Heroes. It’s a good job there are 5 of these cards in your deck! The 0 Power cost is a bit misleading, because it does have a cost to play these, but you pay in Poison instead.
Brew your Poison and tempt the Heroes to a poisoned apple! “Go on, have a bite.”
Gain Power
It takes a lot of Power to brew Poison and cast spells and Snow White can be very expensive to defeat when there are lots of other Heroes in your Realm! There are a couple of cards to help you gain Power but I don’t think they are hugely helpful.
Old Hag’s Cackle
Number in deck: 2 | Power cost: 0 | Card type: Ingredient
Gain 1 Power for each location in your Realm that has a Hero.
The bonus for playing an ingredient for free is a nice way to gain power if there are Heroes around. If there aren’t any Heroes in your Realm, don’t hang onto this card. Just get it into play so that you can draw another one and find the cards you need to win.
The Box
Number in deck: 1 | Power cost: 2 | Card type: Item
Activate: Gain 1 Power for each Hero in your Fate discard pile, up to 3 Power total.
The Box is an interesting card. In the early game, it’s not useful at all so discard it. In the late game, you can need a lot of Poison to defeat the Heroes in your Realm and Snow White. I haven’t found The Box helpful at this stage either, but depending on how your game plays out, you might. You’d need to Activate it at least twice to make it worthwhile in my opinion.
Duplicate action
As an Evil Queen, you want things to go your way, and you’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen! These cards give you the ability to manipulate the usual rules to get what you want!
Black of Night
Number in deck: 2 | Power cost: 1 | Card type: Ingredient
You may perform one available action at your location again, even if you’ve already performed that action this turn. You cannot use Black of Night to perform Fate actions.
I love this bonus action for playing Black of Night. There is usually an action that you want to take again on any given turn. Just make sure you’ve moved to the ideal location to make the most use of this Ingredient before you play it. Gain 3 Power twice from The Mine is never a bad choice!
I’ll Fix Ya!
Number in deck: 3 | Power cost: 0 | Card type: Effect
On this turn, you may perform actions that are covered by a Hero at your location.
Given that all the Activate abilities in your Realm can be covered by Heroes, this is a brilliant way around that!
Thunderbolt
Number in deck: 2 | Power cost: ? | Card type: Effect
Duplicate the Ability of an Ingredient you have played. The Cost to play Thunderbolt is equal to the Cost of the duplicated Ingredient.
The strength of Thunderbolt depends on at which stage you get it. If you get it before you’ve got any Ingredients in play, it’s clearly not helpful. It may not even help much if the abilities on the Ingredients you have got in play are useless right now.
It really shines in the later game when you have all the Ingredients and can choose which action to duplicate to help you win.
Move Ally or Hero
There’s only one Ally that you can Move but unfortunately, there will be plenty of Heroes to use your Move Hero ability on!
Huntsman
Number in deck: 1 | Power cost: 1 | Strength: 4 | Card type: Ally
Heroes at Huntsman’s location get -1 Strength. Activate: Move Huntsman to any unlocked location.
Sneaky Huntsman stalking around the forest! That 1 Power cost is nothing for how much he can save you in Poison during a game. Just move him around to a Hero’s location before you use Take a Bite on them.
Scream of Fright
Number in deck: 2 | Power cost: 2 | Card type: Ingredient
Choose an unlocked location in your Realm. You may move each Hero with a Strength of 3 or less from that location to an adjacent unlocked location.
Used in conjunction with the Huntsman, you can get Heroes into position nicely to give them a -1 Strength! It applies to every Hero at the location too with a Strength 3 or less!
Important cards in Evil Queen’s deck
The most important cards are the ones you need to win with! But there are some other key ones that will help you along the way!
All the Ingredients
Goes without saying really that you need one of each of Black of Night, Old Hag’s Cackle, Mummy Dust, and Scream of Fright in play to unlock Dwarfs’ Cottage. Snow White will be played there and Evil Queen needs to be at the same location as the Hero to use Take a Bite.
Magic Mirror
The only way you can get Snow White into play (unless your opponents are foolish and play her against you!).
Take a Bite
Without this, you can’t defeat Snow White! Or any Heroes at all!
I’ll Fix Ya!
Because all your Activate actions can be blocked by Heroes, I’ll Fix Ya! may be the only way you can use the Activate ability on Magic Mirror to get Snow White into play.
Black Magic
This is the only way you can get Magic Mirror back from your discard pile if Sneezy is played at its location and it gets discarded!
Evil Queen’s Villainous Realm board
Where in your land will you be spending your time?
Laboratory
The 5 actions at the Laboratory are: Gain 1 Power, MOve a Hero, Play a Card, Fate, Brew Poison.
Where will you brew your Poison for your apples? In your Laboratory! Where else?
The location itself isn’t so useful early game because you haven’t got any Heroes to Move or Power to brew. Later in the game, save up your Power and go here and brew a nice batch in one go!
Fating opponents later in the game is ok. Even if they Fate you, you’ll be so far ahead by this point that it won’t matter.
The Woods
The 4 actions at The Woods are: Gain 2 Power, Activate, Discard Cards, Play a Card.
Early game, this is your primary location. It’s the only place Evil Queen can go to Discard Cards. The only things you should have your sights on are Ingredients, Magic Mirror, and Take a Bite. Discard anything else.
Just make sure you don’t play Magic Mirror without having a chance to Activate it in the same turn, otherwise, it might get discarded by Sneezy! Then you’ll need to discard cards to find a Black Magic card to get it back!
The Mine
The 4 actions are The Mine are: Play a Card, Activate, Gain 3 Power, Play a Card.
The Gain 3 Power is brilliant here. Early game, just alternate between The Mine and The Woods. Then you can amass power while you discard cards to find what you want!
In later game, it’s a great spot for playing 2 cards in one turn and Activating abilities.
Dwarfs’ Cottage
The 4 actions at Dwarfs’ Cottage are: Discard Cards, Fate, Play a Card, Gain 1 Power.
How useful Dwarfs’ Cottage is depends on when you unlock it. If you unlock it before you’ve found the Magic Mirror, then Discard Cards is helpful. Otherwise, Gain 1 Power and Play a Card are not amazing.
We want to avoid Fating opponents so we don’t attract their vengeance! We’re perfectly fine being left alone!
Evil Queen’s Fate deck
There are 15 cards in Evil Queen’s Fate deck, with 12 different card designs. There are 8 Heroes (The Seven Dwarfs and Snow White), 3 Effects (Pickaxes and Wishing Well), and 4 Effects (Love’s First Kiss and Woodland Creatures).
- Bashful x 1
- Doc x 1
- Dopey x 1
- Grumpy x 1
- Happy x 1
- Sleepy x 1
- Sneezy x 1
- Snow White x 1
- Pickaxe x 2
- Wishing Well x 1
- Love’s First Kiss x 2
- Woodland Creatures x 2
Bashful
Number in deck: 1 | Strength: 2 | Card type: Hero
Evil Queen must pay 1 Power to perform the Brew Poison action.
Bashful isn’t too terrible a Hero to have played on you. The Actions he covers on your Realm board are more annoying than his effect! Take care of him with the Huntsman and 1 Poison when you get the chance.
Doc
Number in deck: 1 | Strength: 3 | Card type: Hero
Evil Queen must defeat Doc before defeating other Heroes.
Doc is the worst Fate card! You have to defeat him to defeat Snow White! Pesky Dwarf! His 3 Strength eats up some precious Poison and you’d better hope he doesn’t get a Pickaxe on him!
Dopey
Number in deck: 1 | Strength 3 | Card type: Hero
All other Heroes in Evil Queen’s Realm get +1 Strength.
Depending on the number of Heroes in play, Dopey can be fine, or really irritating to have played on you. Not only does he make the Dwarfs tougher, but Snow White too! He won’t stop you from winning though. It’ll take 3 Poison to get rid of him, but only 1 extra to defeat Snow White with him in play, so you might choose to ignore him.
Grumpy
Number in deck: 1 | Strength: 3 | Card type: Hero
Grumpy gets +1 Strength if there are no other Heroes at his location.
The easy way to knock Grumpy down a little is to move him about your board to make sure he’s always with another Hero. You can use the Move a Hero action at the Laboratory, or cast Scream of Fright to Move him when he’s at 3 Strength.
Happy
Number in deck: 1 | Strength: 3 | Card type: Hero
When Happy is played, Evil Queen loses Poison equal to the number of Heroes in her Realm.
You really hope that Happy is played against you in the early game before all his Dwarf friends have arrived! If he’s played as the last Hero you could lose 7 Power! Eek. If he’s played first, then, perfect! He’s just a Strength 3 Hero.
Sleepy
Number in deck: 1 | Strength: 2 | Card type: Hero
If Sleepy is revealed during a Fate action, you may play both cards revealed during that action.
Two Heroes for the price of one! Great. So, Sleepy isn’t ideal. But he is weak himself so that’s something!
Sneezy
Number in deck: 1 | Strength: 2 | Card type: Hero
When Sneezy is played, you may discard one Item from his location.
Sneezy can be terrible if you’ve finally got the Magic Mirror in play but haven’t Activated it yet. Sneezy can blow it away! Then you need to try and get it back from your discard pile using Black Magic.
Sneezy is the reason why you should never put Magic Mirror into play unless you can Activate it on the same turn!
Snow White
Number in deck: 1 | Strength: 4 | Card type: Hero
Snow White can only be played to the Dwarfs’ Cottage, even if it is locked. Snow White gets +1 Strength for each other Hero in Evil Queen’s Realm.
Even though she’s in your Fate deck, Snow White won’t be played on you if your opponents are smart! Why give you what you want?
You’ll need to unlock Dwarfs’ Cottage to defeat her, which is actually more annoying than her Strength boost from other Heroes. It’s still cheaper to defeat her using more Poison from the +1s than it is to defeat all the other Heroes first!
Get Huntsman to her location anyway to reduce that Poison cost by 1.
Pickaxe
Number in deck: 2 | Strength: +2 | Card type: Item
When Pickaxe is played, attach it to a Hero. That Hero gets +2 Strength.
When Hero is defeated, any attached Items are discarded. So to get rid of Pickaxe, you need to defeat the Hero it is attached to.
Good to know another Hero can’t just pick it up!
Wishing Well
Number in deck: 1 | Card type: Item
When Wishing Well is played, attach it to a Hero. Each time Evil Queen moves to this location, she immediately loses 1 Poison.
Losing 1 Poison anytime Evil Queen moves to its location is a minor annoyance. Although, you can always use the Move a Hero Realm action to move the Hero Wishing Well is attached to. Perhaps to a location you don’t visit very often, like the Laboratory perhaps? Then you can take care of Wishing Well in your own time without much inconvenience.
Love’s First Kiss
Number in deck: 2 | Card type: Effect
Evil Queen loses 1 Poison. Choose a Hero from Evil Queen’s Fate discard pile and put it on the top of her Fate deck.
The lose 1 Poison effect is fine, really. The worst-case scenario with this card is if your opponents use it bring back Doc! Noo! The only Hero that can stop you from defeating Snow White!
Woodland Creatures
Number in deck: 2 | Card type: Effect
Evil Queen must reveal her hand. Choose a card from her hand to discard.
This one can really mess you up. If you’ve got the Magic Mirror in your hand and you’re just waiting for enough Power to play and Activate it in the same turn, you know what your opponents are going to discard!
They might discard Ingredients or Take a Bite too, but they don’t cause as much hassle for you.
There’s always Black Magic to help you get the card back though.
How to stop Evil Queen from winning Villainous
Here’s what to do to stop Evil Queen from winning villainous and which Fate cards are the most powerful against her.
Never play Snow White!
Isn’t it great that Evil Queen’s Fate deck has all the Seven Dwarfs in it?! It’s a good job too because you don’t want to send Snow White into the path of the Evil Queen! The Dwarfs protect her just like in the film!
Evil Queen needs Snow White to win, so don’t hand her over! If you draw Snow White as one of your two Fate cards, choose the other one!
Play Heroes at The Mine and The Woods
The Evil Queen needs to Activate the Magic Mirror to find and play Snow White. Her only Activate actions are on the Heroes side of her Realm board. Cover them with Heroes and you make it a lot tougher for her to Activate abilities!
Get rid of the Magic Mirror
Without the Magic Mirror, Evil Queen can’t get Snow White into play! As soon as you see the Magic Mirror in her Realm, Fate, Fate, Fate!
Hopefully, you’ll draw Sneezy who can blow the mirror away into her discard pile!
Send Woodland Creatures to mess with her plans
Evil Queen may be keeping Magic Mirror in her hand until she has enough power to play and Activate it in the same turn. You may just get lucky with Woodland Creatures and pluck it from her hand!
If there’s no Magic Mirror in her hand, then take any Ingredient she hasn’t got in play and then any Take a Bite Card after that.
Play Doc whenever you can, ideally three times
Unless you draw Sneezy when Magic Mirror is in play and Snow White hasn’t been found, then play Doc. Evil Queen must get rid of him before defeating Snow White.
If you play Love’s First Kiss, you can search Evil Queen’s discard pile for a card and put it on top of her Fate pile. If Snow White is in play, always use this to search for Doc!
Conclusion – Evil Queen Strategy Guide
To win Villainous as Evil Queen, do this:
- Start at The Woods, discard anything that’s not Magic Mirror, an Ingredient or Take a Bite.
- Take your 2nd turn at The Mine to amass power. Alternate between here and The Woods.
- Play Ingredients as you find them. Keep discarding to find Magic Mirror.
- Find the Magic Mirror and only play it when you can Activate it in the same turn.
- When all Ingredients are in play, go to the Laboratory and Brew Poison to Defeat Snow White.
If you’re Fated as you play, ignore everything you can and focus on getting the cards you need to win.
Villainous is such an awesome game! The only thing that lets it down is the flimsy plastic cauldron. But you can get an upgraded Villainous cauldron with power tokens on Etsy! It even fits in the Villainous base game box!
For more Villainous upgrade inspiration see my article – 7 Wicked Disney Villainous Upgrades and Accessories!
If you found my Evil Queen strategy guide helpful, check out my strategy guides for the other Disney Villainous characters – Captain Hook, Jafar, the Queen of Hearts, Maleficent, Prince John, Ursula, Dr Facilier, Hades, Scar, Yzma, Ratigan, Cruella De Vil, Mother Gothel and Pete.
You can also see my thoughts on the base game theming and character difficulty rankings in my Villainous character overview.
You may also like these Disney Villainous articles
- 7 Wicked Disney Villainous Upgrades and Accessories
- Captain Hook strategy guide
- Cruella De Vil Strategy guide
- Dr Facilier strategy guide
- Hades strategy guide
- Jafar strategy guide
- Maleficent strategy guide
- Mother Gothel strategy guide
- Pete strategy guide
- Prince John strategy guide
- Queen of Hearts strategy guide
- Ratigan strategy guide
- Scar strategy guide
- Ursula strategy guide
- Yzma strategy guide
- Villainous Review
- Villainous characters overview and rank
Emily
Hi, I’m Emily, the tabletop gamer behind My Kind of Meeple. If this article helped you, I’d be honoured if you’d say, “Thanks!” with a £3 coffee on Ko-fi.
