Genshin Impact Genius Invokation is perhaps the most ambitious addition to the 3.3 update later this year. It’s a trading card game on PC that lives within the ultra-popular free game. Luckily, you can also play against your friends, but Mihoyo has only confirmed that this is for fun, with no rewards obtainable from playing against real people.
Once you get your first Genshin Impact Genius Invokation deck, you can challenge a host of other in-game characters who happen to also be card game fans at the Puspa Café in Sumeru City. While we’ve seen glimpses of the cards, the main question likely on everyone’s mind is just how exactly do you play the new Genshin Impact trading card game (TCG)? Sadly, we can only speculate as this is an upcoming mode. However, we can at least give you a sneak peek at some of the cards, our observations based on the footage shown, and let you know which characters you can play against in the Puspa Café.
Genshin Impact Genius Invokation release date speculation
Genshin Impact Genius Invokation is coming to version 3.3, which will release on December 10, 2022. However, it’s unclear which of the upcoming Genshin Impact banners the TCG will begin appearing in, but it will either appear alongside The Wanderer and Faruzan, or perhaps alongside another rerun of one of the best characters in the Genshin Impact tier list.
Duelist Rising web event
You can also participate in the Duelist Rising web event to earn up to 40 primogems, 20,000 Mora, two Mystic Enhancement Ores, and up to one of each progression fragment for all element types. It’s important to note that the blog post states that any “cards unlocked during this web event are for display purposes only. Travelers can unlock the actual cards from the in-game gameplay”. This event lasts from December 5 at 10pm GMT / 5pm ET / 2pm PT until December 15 at 8am GMT / 3am ET / 12am PT.
How to play Genshin Impact Genius Invokation
The best way to describe Genius Invokation from what we’ve seen so far is that it’s a stripped-down version of Genshin Impact’s battle system. It’s also very similar to the Pokemon TCG in that you have active party members and benched reserves, but you don’t need energy cards to attack. We first saw it in action during the 3.1 Special Program, but we’ve since learned of how Genius Invokation plays via leaks.
Two players have opposing Genius Invokation decks that they can use to fight against their opponent. Your goal is to have your party of three heroes defeat the opposing side of three characters. Players can switch party members with allies to become active during your turn or attack the opponent’s active character.
Turns happen with priority switching after each action. At the start of each round, players will roll eight Elemental Dice, of which they can choose any number to reroll once. These dice use the Genshin Impact elements, and an additional Omni element, which players can use to pay for any element cost.
Players will use elements to pay for skills during the Action Phase. This is how your active character attacks your opponent’s currently active character. In addition, you can spend a dice showing any element to change your currently active character. The other actions that require specific element dice to pay for them are:
- Equipment cards – can strengthen specific characters.
- Support cards – provides continuous buffs to characters.
- Event cards – provides one-time effects when played.
Players can also perform an Elemental Sync during the action phase. For each discarded card, they can change the elemental type of a rolled dice to that of the currently active character.
After completing all the actions in the round, players can declare the Round’s End. The player who does this first will be the first player to act in the next round. Once both players declare the end of the turn, both players draw two cards to signal the start of a new round.
In addition to seeing cards attack, it seems as if the number on the top left corner is the health card’s health. Each character card also has three pips on the right side that light up, though exactly when and why this happens is unclear. Our theories are that the active character gains a pip whenever you use it to attack, or by ending the turn with them as your active card. If this meter ever gets full, the active character unleashes a powerful attack that hits far harder than their regular ones. In the example shown in the 3.1 update stream, Diluc’s special attack hit Xingqiu for eight damage, while his standard attack only hit Mona for three. It’s unclear if remaining health is the reason this special attack does eight damage.
Some Genius Invokation cards will have keywords, indicated by underlined text. Hovering your cursor over this will display the rules for that keyword. In addition, players have access to the rulebook at any time during a duel by clicking on the gear icon at the top right corner of the screen.
Genshin Impact Genius Invokation TCG cards
While it’s unclear what the cards we’ve seen so far can do, we can at least categorise them as shown on the game board in the reveal trailer. Here are all of the currently revealed Genius Invokation cards:
Characters
- Diluc
- Kamisato Ayaka
- Keqing
- Mona
- Xingqiu
- Rhodeia of Loch
Support cards
- Hydro Mimic Ferret
- Hydro Mimic Raptor
- Liben
- Katheryne
Genshin Impact Genius Invokation opponents
Here are all of the confirmed Genshin Impact Genius Invokation opponents you can find in the Puspa Café:
- Akira
- Arataki Itto
- Cyno
- Eita
- Genta
- Iris
- Kamisato Ayato
- Mamoru
- Nayab
- Souta
- Yuma
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That’s everything we currently know about the Genshin Impact Genius Invokation TCG, but you can bet there’s much more to come. We will, of course, update you on this upcoming feature for the open world game, but for now, check out what Genshin Impact events are in store in the near future, or type in these Genshin Impact codes to score some free Primogems.