Yi Xian The Cultivation Card Game – Reference Manual Guide for Beginners

This guide will show you the Yi Xian: The Cultivation Card Game screens, menus, game modes, and metaprogression. In addition, you will also learn the game’s basics as well as some tips and tricks. Yi Xian: The Cultivation Card Game is an online card game where eight players can play against each other. It’s in the autochess style. The goal is to defeat other players and make sure you don’t get defeated yourself. What’s unique about this game is that, unlike similar games, it also has cool ways to play by yourself.

Title Menu

Every time you begin the game and reach the title menu, it tries to find the best server for you. Although this stopped working for me around Summer 2023, it might still be okay for others. If it doesn’t work, you can pick a server yourself in the Settings menu (I usually go for Server 2).

Choose your language in the top left corner.

In the bottom left corner, you’ll find some numbers indicating the version.

Look for a cogwheel-shaped Settings button in the top right corner.

There are four main buttons: Start Game, Credits, Community, and Exit Game.

Pressing Start Game connects you to the server, leading you to the Main menu.

Community shows what seems to be links to Chinese social media (like the QQ group 680681088, which is likely the main community) and Discord, the home of the English-language community. But for me, nothing happens when I click them. You can check out Discord for more details.

Settings Menu

The Settings menu has four tabs: Audio, Video, Game, and Network.

Audio:

• Sound Effect (volume slider)
• Music (volume slider)
• Voice (volume slider)
• Mute in background (Yes/No)

Video:

• Quality (Low/Medium/High)
• Resolution (dropdown)
• Fullscreen (Yes/No)
• V Sync (Yes/No)
• Shake Screen (Yes/No)

Game:

• Block PM In Combat (Yes/No)
• Friend request pop-up (Yes/No)
• Absorb by right click (Yes/No)
• Hide player name (Yes/No)
• Redeem code (Enter redeem code)

The Network option allows you to pick the server you want to connect to in the game or run the auto-detection again.

If you happen to get disconnected while playing and can’t reconnect right away, a window will pop up with two buttons. One button keeps trying to reconnect, and the other logs you out, bringing you back to this menu so you can choose the server again.

Main Menu

In the top left corner, you can click on the player avatar to go to the Player Profile screen.

Look for four buttons in the top right corner: Announcements, Mail, Friends, and Settings.

• Announcements is where you find game updates and news.
• Mail is only used to deliver prizes, like the avatar frame and card back for reaching 6000 rating.
• The Friends section has its details explained later in this document.
• Settings, found in the top right corner too, includes a Log Out button, taking you back to the Title menu.

At the bottom left, there are five buttons: Card, Character, Immortal Fate, Immortal Market, and Divination.

• The Card button takes you to a gallery of cards.
• Character details are covered in another part of this document.
• Immortal Fate directs you to the gallery of Immortal Fates.
• In the Immortal Market, you can unlock Characters, Outfits, Side Jobs, and Emoticons, and buy Divine Jade (more info in the Metaprogression section).
• Divination suggests characters and cards for you to play. Playing suggested characters earns you 10% more Spirit Stones (metaprogression currency). Playing suggested cards has no extra effect. The untranslated Chinese texts are quotes from the I Ching, unrelated to gameplay.

At the bottom right, the Explore button leads to the Single-player menu; the Battle button goes to Multiplayer, and the Event button takes you to Immortal Brawl.

Player Profile

The Player Profile screen is split into three tabs: Personal, Record, and Emoticon.

The Personal tab lets you tweak things like your name, avatar, avatar frame, honorific title, and the characters displayed with their Dao Mindset scores to friends when they click on you in their friends list. Changing your name costs 1000 Spirit Stones.

On the Emoticon tab, you can equip up to five universal emotes for in-game use, along with character-specific emotes.

The Record tab shows statistics and game records. Clicking on a game record takes you to the Game Record screen. There’s also a Favorites sub-tab that only lists records you’ve marked as favorites and a Code sub-tab where you can look up records by ID codes used for sharing. For instance, the code for the record in the following screenshot is gmakj9twno.

Above the record info in the top left is the Favorite/Unfavorite button. If you mark a record as a favorite, you can add a remark.

• The Flag button lets you label individual rounds with remarks.
• The Share button in the top right allows you to copy the record ID code to your clipboard. It also lets you send the code directly in a Friend message and seemingly save a screenshot, although this may not work as expected.
• The Replay button replays the battle as it happened in the actual match, with the same random outcomes in case of speed ties and other random effects.
• The Recap button is extremely useful. It loads the gamestate right before the battle into recap mode, which is identical to puzzle mode. This allows you to rearrange your cards, plan for speed, etc. Random outcomes will be re-randomized. The recap/puzzle mode screen is similar to the usual in-game screen, except that there’s a reset button, you can’t exchange, and you need to know that the Exit button is in the Settings menu since you won’t exit by winning or losing the match.

As always, you can double-click cards to see the different levels of upgrades.

Friends List

The Friends list can be accessed using the button in the top right from either the Main menu or the Multiplayer lobby screen.

To add a friend, you need to enter their exact username, and it’s case-sensitive. The message you get when you do this might not be translated, but the “Friend request sent” message appears in yellow, while the “user not found” message is in red. You can also send a friend request by right-clicking someone in-game, and probably also from the lobby screen if they join via team code.

When you’re on the lobby screen and open your friends list, an invite button will appear next to each friend who is online and idle. If they’re on another lobby screen, they must leave it before you can invite them.

Below the list, the team (party) button will show the current lobby’s team code if you’re on the lobby screen. If you’re on the Main menu, it lets you enter a team code to join. If you’ve already joined, it can be useful to copy down the team code so that you can easily leave to try stuff in recap mode then come back without needing to be re-invited.

In the screenshot provided, profiles look like this when viewed by a friend. The head-and-shoulders silhouette icon is clickable to show additional actions: Add Remark and Remove Friend. Not visible in the screenshot (obscured by the additional actions dropdown) is a chat icon that opens the friend messages pane.

Character Gallery

You can unlock characters for 3600 Spirit Stones each, either in the Character gallery or the Immortal Market. Characters can be played without unlocking them in any mode other than Rank mode.

On the right, you’ll find character-specific Immortal Fates. Mouseover or click them to reveal the text. Clicking on card names in the text shows you the cards.

On the left is the “Destiny Road,” a character experience track up to Lv.25. If you’ve unlocked the character, you can claim rewards you’ve reached. Starting at Lv.1, the reward is the character’s avatar, and you advance by playing the character. Lv.3 and Lv.5 unlock Immortal Fate choice slots, affecting gameplay by increasing the number of Immortal Fates to choose from when breaking through to a new phase. Clicking on an unreached node offers to pay Spirit Stones to advance; going from Lv.1 to Lv.5 this way costs 520 Spirit Stones.

Lv.10, 15, 20, 25 unlock more character-specific emotes; other levels reward a small amount of Divine Jade. In theory, you could accumulate enough Divine Jade this way to unlock one Outfit, as you can get up to 60 Jade per character. Eight characters could give you 480 Jade, enough for one outfit, since the game currently has fifteen characters.

At the bottom is your Dao Mindset score (character-specific rating in Ranked), with buttons to show the Dao Mindset leaderboard, full character portrait, and character story. More story unlocks at character lv.5, 10, 15, 20, 25.

Single-Player Podes (Explore)

There are four single-player modes:

• Beginning of the Cultivation: This is the tutorial.
• Heavenly Path Restoration: This is the story mode.
• Sect Esoteric Inheritance: This is the puzzle mode.
• Primitive Uncharted Realms: This is the roguelite mode.

Additionally, there’s the player experience track, which rewards Spirit Stones and, at certain points, unlocks Yan Xue, the Fuluist side job, Tan Shuyan, and Wu Xingzhi. If you’ve already unlocked any of these, you’ll get a full refund of the Spirit Stones you spent unlocking them. The single-player modes offer a substantial amount of experience on this track, and multiplayer provides a smaller amount.

Story mode’s initial challenge is building an endgame deck from scratch. If you find it too demanding, you might want to try puzzle mode or roguelite mode first. Later encounters in story mode are mostly puzzles.

The puzzles in puzzle mode are practical and useful for multiplayer.

Here are the differences between roguelite mode and multiplayer:

• Enemies in roguelite mode consist of player ghosts (decks copied from multiplayer records) and special enemies like the Flying Fang Master.
• There’s a random event each round between battles, often providing resources such as cards or exchanges.
• There are ten Rule Fragments to collect, offering permanent upgrades for future roguelite runs.
• There are ten difficulty levels. Clearing the hardest difficulty with a character provides enough character experience on the character experience track to go from Lv.1 to Lv.5, unlocking the maximum number of Immortal Fate choice slots for that character.

The single-player gameplay screen is generally the same as the usual multiplayer in-game screen. In puzzles, there’s a reset button, you can’t exchange, and the Exit button is in the Settings menu. There’s usually a yellow question-mark button above the reset button that you can click or mouseover for a hint.

Multiplayer Modes (Battle)

There are three main multiplayer modes: Rank, Casual, and Practice.

You can play characters without unlocking them in any mode, including single-player, except for Rank mode.

In Rank mode, matchmaking uses your rank, which changes after each match based on your placement (1st ~ 8th). The predicted change in rank points is approximately (30 * (4.5 – placement)) + (11.5 * average opponent rank difference / 1000). In Dao Mindset Mode, your character-specific rank is used instead, with the result affecting your regular rank if the character-specific rank is higher. Demotion protection applies to your regular rank but not to character-specific ranks. As long as you finish in the top four, you won’t lose regular rank points, unless you tie for top five or more.

Your regular rank is visible to team members, on friends lists, and on the match loading screen. Character-specific ranks are visible on the leaderboard and can be shown on friends lists.

Matchmaking may use bots if your rank is not very high. Bots might have names with “NPC” or “normie” vibes, making them hard to identify.

You can queue for Rank mode in a party of up to four players if all ratings are under 5000, otherwise, up to two players. Parties and Dao Mindset Mode are incompatible.

Casual mode ignores your rank and uses a separate matchmaking queue, which can be empty, in which case it’s just your party plus bots.

Practice mode has no matchmaking, allows bots, lets you play with fewer than eight players, and has a longer timer. It’s used in some tournaments, but Casual mode might be better for a normal timer.

Access the lobby chat via the button in the bottom left. Divination is also accessible directly from this screen through the button at the top.

Event

The Event button takes you to Immortal Brawl, a distinct multiplayer mode with regularly changing sets of quirky rules.

Occasionally, there are larger events like the recent Mid-Autumn Event. During this event, players had the opportunity to create puzzles from game records for others to solve.

Gameplay Screen

The Settings menu, found by pressing the button in the top left, now includes the Exit button, allowing you to abandon the game—particularly useful in recap/puzzle mode. The Chat button next to it leads to team (party) chat and friend messages.

Clicking your portrait along the top allows you to emote. Clicking an opponent’s portrait lets you view their Immortal Fates and previous deck. Note that in recap mode and single-player, it shows their upcoming deck. Right-clicking an opponent’s portrait gives options to add them as a friend, mute their emotes, or report them.

You can double-click cards to see the different levels of upgrades.

Cards can be dragged onto the portrait in the bottom left to absorb them or onto the exchange count in the bottom right to exchange them. In the Settings menu, there’s a Gameplay setting to enable right-clicking cards to absorb them—a useful shortcut.

In the bottom left, your Immortal Fate choices are displayed. If you chose a future card from the Round 5 Daoist Rhyme Omen and haven’t received it yet, it shows the card you chose. Until you’re in the Incarnation phase, it displays the number of cultivation points needed before your next breakthrough (0 in the screenshot, hence the glowing Break through button). Some Immortal Fates count up or down; in the screenshot, Curiosity’s count is 7.

In the top right, under the round number and countdown timer, are two numbers indicating your Battle of Fate rounds. In the bottom right, near the number of exchanges (5/25 in the screenshot), is another number counting your Luck points (5 in the screenshot). These are mechanics introduced in the current season; for details, refer to the announcement.

Metaprogression Guide

There are two currencies in the game: Spirit Stones and Divine Jade. Spirit Stones can be used to unlock everything except outfits, while Divine Jade is the premium currency used for outfits. Although you can convert Jade to Spirit Stones, it’s advised against. The game was initially planned as free-to-play, but it later shifted to a regular purchase model. As you’ve already bought the game, it generously provides you with Spirit Stones.

A player experience track, similar to a battle pass, is present on the single-player (Explore) screen. It rewards Spirit Stones and unlocks Yan Xue, the Fuluist side job, Tan Shuyan, and Wu Xingzhi at certain points. If you’ve already unlocked them, you receive a full refund of the Spirit Stones spent. Single-player modes offer substantial experience on this track, while multiplayer gives a smaller amount.

Characters can be unlocked for 3600 Spirit Stones each, either in the Character gallery or the Immortal Market. Characters can be played without unlocking them in any mode other than Rank mode.

Each character has a “Destiny Road,” a character experience track up to Lv.25. If you’ve unlocked the character, you can claim rewards you’ve reached on it. Starting at Lv.1, the reward is the character’s avatar. Lv.3 and Lv.5 unlock Immortal Fate choice slots, affecting gameplay by increasing the number of Immortal Fates to choose from when breaking through to a new phase. Clicking on an unreached node offers to pay Spirit Stones to advance; going from Lv.1 to Lv.5 this way costs 520 Spirit Stones.

Lv.10, 15, 20, 25 unlock more character-specific emotes; other levels reward a small amount of Divine Jade. In theory, you could accumulate enough Divine Jade this way to unlock one Outfit, as you can get up to 60 Jade per character. Eight characters could give you 480 Jade, enough for one outfit, as the game currently has fifteen characters.

In the Immortal Market, characters can be unlocked for 3600 Spirit Stones each, side jobs for 3000 Spirit Stones each, emotes for 1000 Spirit Stones each, and outfits for 480 Divine Jade each. Divine Jade can also be purchased with real money.

New players start with Mu Yifeng and the Elixirist side job unlocked, along with 9400 Spirit Stones. Clearing the tutorial adds 1800 more, totaling 11200, which is sufficient to begin. The player experience track also provides a generous amount of Spirit Stones early on.