Yi Xian: The Cultivation Card Game

Yi Xian: The Cultivation Card Game

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混沌天魔幻影's supplement to Measim's Du Lingyuan guide
By Xom
August 2023

translated from https://tieba.baidu.com/p/8555965026/ by Xom
   
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Preface
I have reached rank 4 Du Lingyuan, and only took 65 matches to reach 6300+, gaining rank points astonishingly quickly (faster than when I played Wu Ce, Lu Jianxin). I must first thank Measim's Du Lingyuan guide, exceedingly helpful. On the foundation of Measim's guide, and with regard to the current ladder environment, here is a supplement. For the other contents, please refer to Measim's guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3081184975
Innate Fire (mono-Fire)
Measim's guide mentions mono-Fire being unsatisfactory, whether in speed or defense. Compared to Overcome, the mono-Fire deck is indeed less reliable, but it has some unique advantages: great midgame battle strength, smooth transit, steady damage output, tends not to suffer heavy losses. The overall strength curve is relatively smooth; after midgame, there is no obvious weak period.

In contrast to Wu Xingzhi, Innate Mark Activates at the start of the battle, so the Ultimate World Formation variation (Fire-Earth UWF) doesn't work. But Du Lingyuan's Cultivation is higher and can contend to go first.

Standard list with Heavenly Marrow:
  1. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  2. Five Elements Heavenly Marrow Rhythm
  3. Fire Spirit Formation
  4. Fire Spirit - Flameate
  5. Fire Spirit - Blast
  6. Fire Spirit - Blazing Prairie
  7. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  8. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
Standard list with Fire-Earth:
  1. Fire Spirit Formation
  2. Fire Spirit Formation
  3. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  4. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  5. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  6. Earth Spirit - Dust / Combine World
  7. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  8. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
Immortal Fate and Daoist Rhyme Omen choices
One point must first be clear, mono-Fire must decide from Virtuoso phase cards dealt and Daoist Rhyme Omen whether to pivot to mono-Fire (if 2+ Fire Spirit Formation and Fire Spirit - Blast, can pivot). So how you play early is also consistent with the Overcome build.

At Foundation, choose Innate Mark; activating Fire is the basis for flexibility. And it's also very likely that you'll choose Overcome with each other and play World Smash.

At Virtuoso, choose cultivation; best is Inheritance of Fire Spirit, which can give Fire Spirit Formation, Flameate, Blast, Scarlet Flame, and even Rush can be useful. Next, Inheritance of Water Spirit (can give Water Spirit - Spring) and Inheritance of Earth Spirit (Cliff, Dust) are also quality cultivation; Epiphany and Thunder Tribulation are also good. If no cultivation offered, you can consider Innate Spirit Formation, pivoting to mono-Fire.

At Immortality and Incarnation, still choose cultivation; still best is Inheritance of Fire Spirit. Next, Inheritance of Earth Spirit, Mental Perception, Tool Governor, Epiphany, Thunder Tribulation, Concentrated Element, etc. are all fine. Mono-Fire really wants to go first; contend for it if you can.

At Daoist Rhyme Omen, you can't pivot to mono-Fire yet, so choose according to the Overcome build:
World Smash > Fire Spirit - Heart Fire > Fire Spirit - Flash Fire > Wood Spirit - Fragrant > Fire Spirit - Blazing Prairie > Wood Spirit - Willow Leaf; Talent Elixir is OK, opinions differ.

Random thoughts:
  1. Heart Fire may be the single highest-damage Fire card, but it's vulnerable to DEF and Weakened; take care to be flexible with its position! If you don't adjust the position of Heart Fire, don't play mono-Fire!
  2. Furthermore, when you're against an opponent with lots of DEF, you can start with Heart Fire, then put a Cloud Elixir to ensure the Heart Fire ignores DEF on the second pass. You can also give up on Heart Fire and rely on Blast and Blazing Prairie (qi required).
  3. Playing mono-Fire, you must dare to rush breakthrough, surely you'll get cards on breakthrough (No cards, get Measim). Alright, it's a probability problem; Five Elements Alliance has the highest probability of getting cards (having five set Inheritances), and Heptastar, the lowest. Another correspondingly interesting phenomenon is that Five Elements characters generally have lower self-cultivation, and Heptastar, higher.
  4. When you put Marrow in, don't forget to cut Earth cards! I won't say it three times because it's not as easy to forget. (For Earth with Marrow, it's easy to forget about Metal Spirit - Shuttle.)
  5. Lategame Musician/Fuluist Yan Xue is a difficult opponent. If her Dragon Roam doesn't consume from Inspiration Sword, you can Combine World before it, then Guard Up. Take care to contend to go first. If Yan Xue loses to this, but isn't eliminated, you can go ahead and give up.
  6. Against a faster opponent, be flexible in using Combine World, Guard Elixir to survive the burst; your damage is very steady, and your opponent probably can't survive into the second pass.
  7. Heart Fire is granddaddy, Flash Fire is big daddy; mono-Fire has no other key cards.

Exchange pacing:
Rounds 1-7, no exchanging. On Round 7, if the cards dealt haven't been favorable for mono-Fire, you can consider absorbing to break through early and take Overcome with each other. Round 7 and Round 8 are high-pressure; I recommend disconnecting and reconnecting (to skip showing the battle). If you're pivoting to mono-Fire, you can break through on Round 8. Expend all your exchanges on the round when you break through; look for Fire Spirit Formation, Flash Fire, Heart Fire, Dust, Blast, etc. important cards. Afterward, you can exchange once per round. You can get all of your key cards in Immortality phase; Incarnation cards are just a bonus. On Round 11, break through to Incarnation and expend your exchanges.

Each phase's useful cards are as follows.

Meditation: None, play whatever you have.

Foundation:
  • Fire Spirit - Scarlet Flame (3 hits, a part-time card with pretty good numbers, nickname Small Blazing Prairie)
  • Fire Spirit - Flameate (one of only two qi sources, very important, the other being lv.2+ Heavenly Marrow)
  • Earth Spirit - Mountains (good numbers)
Virtuoso:
  • Fire Spirit Formation (mono-Fire core card)
  • Fire Spirit - Blast (core card, Increase ATK and some damage, breaks Guard Up for free, requires qi)
  • Earth Spirit - Dust (good defense card, good numbers)
  • Earth Spirit - Cliff (very strong defense card even outside of combos)
  • Five Elements Circulation (copy Dust or Combine World)
Immortality:
  • Fire Spirit - Heart Fire (single highest-damage card, and doesn't require qi; just easy to block)
  • Fire Spirit - Flash Fire (speed up, combo with Fire Spirit Formation)
  • Metal Spirit - Shuttle (with insufficient Chases, can put after Earth card to cycle faster)
Incarnation
  • Fire Spirit - Blazing Prairie (strong damage, main qi consumer in mono-Fire, take care not to be short)
  • Five Elements Heavenly Marrow Rhythm (mono-Fire speed-up device, reduces quality requirements for four-move kill)
  • Earth Spirit - Combine World (defense card that can go in front, counters multi-hit)
  • Ice Spirit Guard Elixir (survive low-hit-count burst)
Overcome - Fire-Metal-Water and variations (1)
[TL Note: This section is divided into two parts solely due to length limits on Steam.]

Measim mentions Fire-Metal-Water as a transitional variation of Overcome, but that statement is slightly flawed. Fire-Metal-Water is an environment-based deck that's very picky about opponents. If suitable opponents, the strength of the deck can count as top-tier (comes together very early, damage and resistance both excellent).

This build is not too reliant on Innate Element (although it's still better to have Innate Fire or Innate Metal, which can give you more flexibility and and help get key cards).

Four-move kill (no Incarnation cards):
  1. Overcome with each other
  2. Fire Spirit - Blast
  3. Overcome with each other
  4. Metal Spirit - Charge
  5. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  6. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  7. Metal Spirit - Shuttle
  8. Water Spirit - Turbulent
With all cards upgraded and some lv.max, can four-move kill against no defense; with slightly less quality, there's still a chance depending on opponent.

Four-move kill (with Giant Tripod):
  1. Overcome with each other
  2. Fire Spirit - Blast
  3. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  4. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  5. Overcome with each other
  6. Metal Spirit - Giant Tripod
  7. Metal Spirit - Shuttle
  8. Water Spirit - Turbulent
Use Giant Tripod to replace Charge, four-move damage is higher with highly-upgraded Giant Tripod, but having exchanged heavily in Immortality, it's hard to pursue Giant Tripod upgrades.

Six-move kill with Dive:
  1. Overcome with each other
  2. Fire Spirit - Blast
  3. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  4. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  5. Overcome with each other
  6. Metal Spirit - Charge
  7. Metal Spirit - Shuttle
  8. Water Spirit - Dive
Standard turn-four defense, turn-six kill.

Iron Bone and Dive:
  1. Overcome with each other
  2. Fire Spirit - Blast
  3. Overcome with each other
  4. Metal Spirit - Iron Bone
  5. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  6. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  7. Metal Spirit - Shuttle
  8. Water Spirit - Dive
Turn-seven kill with enough quality. With Turbulent instead of Dive, can kill on turn four against Nangong Sheng with no defense, or kill on turn five or seven with low quality.

Double Heart Fire:
  1. Overcome with each other
  2. Fire Spirit - Blast
  3. Overcome with each other
  4. Metal Spirit - Charge
  5. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  6. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  7. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  8. Water Spirit - Turbulent
In many cases, Heart Fire can be played like this, which does more damage against no defense.

Heart Pierce:
  1. Overcome with each other
  2. Fire Spirit - Blast
  3. Overcome with each other
  4. Metal Spirit - Heart Pierce
  5. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  6. Metal Spirit - Shuttle
  7. Water Spirit - Dive
Seven-move kill with Dive and Ignore DEF. (If against no DEF on turn two, first Heart Fire then Overcome into Heart Pierce, can six-move kill.)

Cloud Elixir:
  1. Overcome with each other
  2. Fire Spirit - Blast
  3. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  4. Overcome with each other
  5. Metal Spirit - Charge
  6. Cloud Elixir
  7. Metal Spirit - Shuttle
  8. Water Spirit - Dive
Seven-move kill with Cloud Elixir, another counter to DEF.

The upgrade levels of Cloud Elixir and Heart Pierce are important. The advantage of Cloud Elixir is that unlike Heart Pierce, Cloud Elixir doesn't attack and risk consuming Penetrate.

Variation - Fire-Earth-Water:
  1. Overcome with each other
  2. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  3. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  4. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  5. Earth Spirit - Combine World / Dust
  6. Overcome with each other / Metal Spirit - Shuttle
  7. Water Spirit - Dive
Another oft-seen six-move kill. Turn-three DEF, turn-four Dive.

Variation - Early ATK reduction:
  1. Overcome with each other
  2. Metal Spirit - Iron Bone
  3. Metal Spirit - Shuttle
  4. Water Spirit - Dive
  5. Overcome with each other
  6. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire / Blast
  7. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  8. Fire Spirit - Blast / Heart Fire
Seven- or eight-move kill. Very early Iron Bone + Dive, but slower kill.

Variation - Enlightenment Elixir on Overcome, with Blazing Prairie:
  1. Overcome with each other (lv.2)
  2. Fire Spirit - Heart Fire
  3. Fire Spirit - Flash Fire
  4. Fire Spirit - Blazing Prairie
  5. Overcome with each other
  6. Metal Spirit - Iron Bone
  7. Metal Spirit - Shuttle
  8. Water Spirit - Dive
With high quality, can use Blazing Prairie and double ATK reduction, six-turn kill against no defense.
Overcome - Fire-Metal-Water and variations (2)
Pacing for Fire-Metal-Water:
Earlygame is same as standard Overcome. With Innate Fire, if Daoist Rhyme Omen has Heart Fire / Flash Fire, or you're dealt multiple Charge during Virtuoso, can give high consideration to FMW.
If you choose to play FMW, you can expend all your exchanges at Immortality; other than fast kill decks, for counterplay there's Iron Bone, Dive, Cloud Elixir, Ice Spirit Guard Elixir, Combine World; you can choose what to keep based on opponent situation.
With this build, during Immortality you need to spend all your exchanges every round; you can even consider not breaking through on Round 11, and spending all your exchanges at Immortality before breaking through on Round 12. (Take care to expend exchanges before breaking through to Incarnation! This build is not quite like other Overcome builds, there's not a single core card at Incarnation for you, so exchange in Immortality.)

Immortal Fate choices:
  • At Foundation, if Innate Fire or Innate Metal, I recommend Innate Mark, so that you don't have to always use Overcome to activate Fire or Metal, more flexible. If Innate Water, you can choose Innate Mark, which lets you play Dive at any point. If Innate Wood, you're better off playing Fuluist Wood. If Innate Earth, don't choose Innate Mark, get cards instead.
  • At Virtuoso, take cultivation, best are Inheritance of Water Spirit (Turbulent), Inheritance of Fire Spirit (Blast), Inheritance of Metal Spirit (Charge), Epiphany, Thunder Tribulation.
  • At Incarnation, take Five Elements Anima, nothing else, 4 Penetrate and 7 max HP reduction is critical for the strength of this build.

Each phase's useful cards are as follows.

Meditation: None, play whatever you have.

Foundation:
  • Metal Spirit - Heart Pierce (important counter card)
  • Cloud Elixir (important counter card, also a useable part-time card earlier on)
  • Water Spirit - Turbulent (serves as Water damage card)
Virtuoso:
  • Fire Spirit - Blast (core card, Increase ATK, damage, and breaks Guard Up)
  • Metal Spirit - Charge (Metal damage card, get a lot of Penetrate in combination with Overcome with each other and Five Elements Anima, core card)
  • Metal Spirit - Sharp (in transitional period, not worse than Charge)
  • Earth Spirit - Cliff (strong standalone Earth card)
  • Earth Spirit - Dust (DEF card that can follow Heart Fire; in transitional period, can be used to Overcome into Water)
  • Water Spirit - Spring (can produce Force of Water and qi; also needs to be held in anticipation of deciding based on cards dealt whether to pivot to World Smash)
Immortality
  • Fire Spirit - Heart Fire (core card, best consumer of Charge)
  • Fire Spirit - Flash Fire (important Chase, core card)
  • Metal Spirit - Shuttle (important Chase, core card, can be used to beat down a small amount of DEF)
  • Water Spirit - Dive (Water defense card)
  • Metal Spirit - Iron Bone (Metal defense card)
Incarnation:
  • Metal Spirit - Giant Tripod (Metal damage card, stronger than same-upgrade-level Charge)
  • Fire Spirit - Blazing Prairie (requires enough qi)
  • Earth Spirit - Combine World (Earth defense card)
  • Ice Spirit Guard Elixir (counter card)

I recommend playing Fire-Metal-Water in matches with many Heptastar characters; DEF Sword, Earth, Iron Bone, Combine Rivers are natural enemies, requiring you to hold on to Ignore DEF card(s) to fight, inserting which does severely hurt your kill speed (and even with Ignore DEF you can't beat DEF Sword). Heptastar doesn't have your natural enemies (except Musician Internal Injury, which makes it a bit more troublesome for you to Chase).

Random thoughts:
  1. 钟爱逼 (in-game name: 烽火未许换年华), drawing on the ideas of others, was earliest to develop and popularize the Fire-Metal-Water deck. In the recent environment, it hasn't necessarily been very strong (DEF Sword is strong), but can still be considered (as an additional build option). Of the three Overcome builds, this is also the only one that doesn't fear decks that apply Weakened or qi loss.
  2. This build is savage against Heptastar, inflicting heavy losses in midgame; lategame, FMW is favored in guessing games (Heptastar has no DEF-preserving techniques).
  3. Heart Fire is the absolute key card in Fire-Metal-Water, and pretty good in Wood-Fire-Metal; you can go right ahead and pick it in Daoist Rhyme Omen, and with high priority, which Measim's post didn't mention, so here is the supplement.
  4. With Five Elements Anima, activating Metal gives 4 Penetrate, be sure to take note! 4 Penetrate equals 8 damage! (And it's by max HP reduction.) If using Heart Pierce, don't Injure; don't let Turbulent consume your Penetrate!
  5. Even if you have to figure out how to deal with going second, you can't not take Five Elements Anima, this build without Five Elements Anima is trolling! With FMW, don't take cultivation!
  6. FMW lategame strength depends on upgrades; if you don't get enough, it's not strong enough, and can't beat many assembled builds. A good attitude is necessary. After all, you depleted your exchanges in Immortality phase, scrounging some rank points is no loss; others get first place at the risk of going fast eighth!
  7. Post-Incarnation, this build can't beat Hua Qinrui UWF, and probably can't beat Hua Qinrui Water-Wood with double Combine Rivers; against Hua Qinrui, hold on to Fragrant and Blazing Prairie to prepare to change your build.
  8. Encountering Long Yao Musician, please change your build, otherwise you're at her mercy; Ignore DEF Heart Pierce is no opponent for Long Yao Musician, she can freely snuff you out.
Overcome - Wood-Fire-Metal and variations (1)
Before discussing Wood-Fire-Metal, let's start with an overview of the Overcoming Interaction combos possible.
  • Earth overcomes Water: Overcome + Spring, into the World Smash build; this was also the first relatively popular Overcome build, and is discussed in Measim's post. Relies on upgrades; strength and transit are relatively smooth; definitely capable in the finals.
  • Water overcomes Fire: Using Water to activate Fire; the Water card can usually be Dive, to counter.
  • Fire overcomes Metal: The classic Blast + Overcome + Charge or Giant Tripod, built around Penetrate, with the option to insert Iron Bone to counter. Very strong in transit; fears DEF Sword and Combine Rivers; first-place ability somewhat lacking.
  • Metal overcomes Wood: Our feature presentation, the Fragrant build; Overcome + Fragrant is also very strong in transit; later, first-place ability is subject to quality, usually requiring Enlightenment Elixir for lv.2 Overcome + lv.max Fragrant, or Innate Metal and lv.max Fragrant. Also can insert Iron Bone to counter, or Giant Tripod for more damage.
  • Wood overcomes Earth: Wood and Earth don't combo, and neither do Wood and Water, which Earth overcomes into. The Spring + World Smash deck can consider, in the transitional period, consider inserting Overcome to activate Earth and Chase; for example: (Innate Fire) Overcome + Spring + Flash Fire + World Smash + Turbulent + Thorn + Overcome + Cliff.
The Wood-Fire-Metal build's sole core is Wood Spirit - Fragrant. One copy of Fragrant makes it playable; the other slots' cards all can change. If you don't get Fragrant, you basically need not consider this build; you'd have to substitute Wood Spirit - Recovery. Did you come to troll?

Overall, Wood-Fire-Metal is still relatively dependent on Innate Element. Innate Metal is best, of course, giving a lot of flexibility for rearrangement lategame, and allowing Overcome with each other to be merged, which on turn one with lv.max Fragrant gives 3 Increase ATK and 6 qi (Five Elements Anima gives 1 Increase ATK); and in the first pass, Five Elements Anima gives 4 Penetrate. Innate Fire is also not bad; in Wood-Fire-Metal, other than Thorn, the other main damage cards are all Fire-based, and you also get 7 max HP reduction for free from Five Elements Anima; it also gives flexibility for rearrangement (though not as much as Metal). Innate Wood is playable, but I recommend Fuluist Wood; also Innate Wood, with Innate Mark, doesn't need Overcome to activate. Divine Walk + Fragrant has a higher high end. With Innate Earth or Water, the activation and cards deal don't suit the Wood-Fire-Metal build, and usually it's rare to consider this direction.

Oft-seen final builds:
  • Four-move kill with Giant Tripod: Overcome + Fragrant + Willow Leaf + Thorn / Heart Fire + Forest Guard + Blazing Prairie + Overcome + Giant Tripod
    Requires sufficient quality; if insufficient, play Giant Tripod turn one, for five-move kill.
    With Innate Metal, replace the second Overcome with Forest Guard
  • Five-move kill with Iron Bone: Overcome + Iron Bone + Overcome + Fragrant + Willow Leaf + Heart Fire + Thorn + Blazing Prairie
    High quality requirement.
  • Six-move kill with Iron Bone: Overcome + Fragrant + Willow Leaf + Heart Fire / Thorn + Forest Guard + Blazing Prairie + Overcome + Iron Bone
    Average quality requirement.
Not a long list, which also reveals this build's biggest problem: the card slots are relatively fixed, and difficult to vary. But this build, with one Fragrant, cobbling together some multi-hits and Chases (which are easy to find; the card pool is full of them), is easily somewhat assembled to scrounge a few rank points; adding Iron Bone midgame to nauseate people, very strong transit.
Overcome - Wood-Fire-Metal and variations (2)
Basic pacing:
Rounds 1-7, don't exchange. On Round 7, if you got 2 cultivation at Virtuoso, and Daoist Rhyme Omen not an Incarnation card, you can go down a card to break through and get Overcome with each other; take care to try to hold on to more different elements for flexible assembly.
Rounds 8-9, start exchanging heavily in search of core cards for Overcome; if you find a lot of multi-hits, and also Fragrant, you can give high consideration to the Wood-Fire-Metal build. It's easily somewhat assembled; in Round 9, you can spend all exchanges, or all but 5-10 (if things go well).
On Round 11, break through to Incarnation (if no cultivation at Virtuoso, Round 12 is OK), and expend all exchanges. This build loves Incarnation-phase cards, mainly because Heart Fire is awkward; it needs to be the first damage card, yet is Fire and therefore overcomes into Metal; supposing you haven't gotten Blazing Prairie, there's no suitable Fire damage card to put after it (Scarlet Flame doesn't reduce max HP). And the upgrade levels of Willow Leaf, Blazing Prairie, and Giant Tripod are all relevant to whether you can get first place. Enlightenment Elixir is also important.

Each phase's useful cards are as follows.

Meditation:
  • Wood Spirit - Bud (lv.max is 4 hits)
Foundation:
  • Fire Spirit - Scarlet Flame (strong part-time card; most suitable Fire card to overcome into Metal before getting Blazing Prairie)
  • Wood Spirit - Sparse Shadow (Increase ATK; Rounds 7-8 can transit with Recovery + Sparse Shadow, lategame if highly upgraded can serve as substitute for Thorn)
  • Metal Spirit - Heart Pierce (protect Heart Fire's damage)
  • Wood Spirit - Recovery (Qi and HP; lesser substitute for Fragrant)
Virtuoso:
  • Wood Spirit - Forest Guard (core Chase card)
  • Fire Spirit - Blast (strong part-time card; qi and damage at the same time; breaks Guard Up; can be used with Heart Fire to overcome into Metal)
  • Metal Spirit - Charge (Metal damage card, generates Penetrate for Heart Fire)
  • Metal Spirit - Sharp (Metal damage card)
  • Earth Spirit - Cliff (strong standalone)
  • Water Spirit - Spring (qi and Force of Water; can be held in anticipation of pivoting to World Smash)
Immortality:
  • Wood Spirit - Fragrant (core card)
  • Wood Spirit - Thorn (Wood damage card)
  • Fire Spirit - Heart Fire (awkward core card, highest-damage card; can pivot to Fire-Metal-Water at any time, in which Heart Fire is also core)
  • Fire Spirit - Flash Fire (Fire Chase card)
  • Metal Spirit - Iron Bone (Metal defense card, outstanding against multi-hit)
  • World Smash (by itself usable for transit; if you get Spring, you can pivot to World Smash build)
Incarnation:
  • Wood Spirit - Willow Leaf (important Increase ATK + Chase, whether you can kill quickly depends greatly on its upgrade level)
  • Fire Spirit - Blazing Prairie (core damage card, most suitable damage card to follow Heart Fire)
  • Metal Spirit - Giant Tripod (Metal damage card, relatively high supplemental damage)
  • Ice Spirit Guard Elixir (sole technique to counter single-hit burst)

Daoist Rhyme Omen: same as previous section

Immortal Fate choices (Wood-Fire-Metal is only recommended for Innate Fire or Metal):
  • At Foundation, choose Innate Mark. For Innate Metal, it gives a lot of flexibility for rearrangement. For Innate Fire, consider also the likelihood of playing World Smash; Innate Mark is also best. For Innate Earth, I recommend taking cultivation; in the absence of cultivation, give priority consideration to Mutual Growth, Store Qi, Solid Foundation, etc.
  • At Virtuoso, choose cultivation. If you reserved Fragrant at Daoist Rhyme Omen, and cultivation is not offered, you can take Store Qi. Other than that, Solid Foundation is also not bad; [despite decreasing cultivation] it still only delays breakthrough by one round (same as other non-cultivation choices), and the dual increase of Destiny and max HP gives high fault-tolerance (not mentioned before). With Virtuoso-phase Solid Foundation, break through on Rounds 8 and 12. Cultivation priority: Inheritance of Water Spirit, Inheritance of Fire Spirit, Inheritance of Metal Spirit, Inheritance of Earth Spirit, Epiphany, Thunder Tribulation.
  • At Incarnation, choose Five Elements Anima. +1 Increase ATK is extremely needed by you (usually worth not less than 10 damage), and 4 Penetrate with Heart Fire or Giant Tripod is also 8 damage, and with Innate Fire, also 7 max HP reduction, which together sum to approximately 25 damage, an extremely significant amount (Incarnation-phase Meteor Quench is only 16 HP!). There's not a single reason not to take Five Elements Anima, with the same reasoning as with Fire-Metal-Water.

A reader asks, what is the advantage of Heart Fire? It doesn't consume qi and multiplies Increase ATK by 4 (and Penetrate by 2)? But it fears DEF, and Thorn also multiplies by 4.

Answer: Yes, those (Overcome highly fears losing qi [2023-10-2: especially before Genesis Fate season]; against those 10000+ rank-points Fulu Swords, you must be ready with Great Waves / Spiritage Elixir and Exorcism Elixir to counter) and being a Fire card, enabling overcoming into Metal, are the advantages. The disadvantages are the positioning requirements and the fear of DEF.
Lv.2 Thorn is not better than Heart Fire because lv.2 Heart Fire is 5×2, whereas lv.2 Thorn is 4×4. With Lv.3 Thorn, it's possible to cut Heart Fire.
That is, lv.3 Thorn can replace Heart Fire in the Fragrant build, but the Blast-Heart-Fire build must use Heart Fire; World Smash usually doesn't use Heart Fire at all.
You can look at 许十安's Fulu Sword guide; it describes how to counter Overcome, two ways: Divine Walk + Thousand Evil to Weaken World Smash (you need Exorcism Elixir), Spirit Absorb Fulu (you need supplemental qi). [TL: The version I translated only has the former; maybe there's an updated version I don't have access to?] Since Heart Fire doesn't consume qi, it has a certain resilience. But fearing DEF is a disadvantage. Whether to insert Forest Guard to smash DEF is a question...
DEF essentially counts double against Heart Fire, kind of like Smash DEF inverted. So Blast-Heart-Fire must be ready with Cloud Elixir / Heart Pierce to fight DEF Sword (even though you probably can't beat it even with those). [DEF Sword is still relatively strong in Genesis Fate season, so use this card with caution.]
Here's a standard Fulu Sword deck: Divine Walk + Thousand Evil + Spirit Gather + Giant Kun + Mirror Flower + Rule Sky + Spiritage Incantation + Chain Sword Formation. Usually, it's very difficult for Overcome to fight this. Exorcism Elixir to cancel out Thousand Evil is still not quite enough to win.
Statistics discussion
I'm currently at 7600+ rank points, and in my last 200 game records, 65 are Du Lingyuan (this season almost all Du Lingyuan). I've compiled some statistics from these 65.

Innate Element strength: Wood ≈ Metal > Fire > Water >> Earth
Innate Element reliability: Wood ≈ Metal ≈ Fire > Water > Earth

So when can Innate Earth be buffed? Five Elements Anima's Earth Spirit effect is strong enough, but Innate Earth mono-Earth is weak, and also unreliable, and also lacking any advantages; in a mixed build, Innate Earth doesn't produce key cards, and the Innate Mark is also unhelpful. This is a rather big problem. Hopefully it can be patched. If buffing Innate Earth makes Du Lingyuan too strong, then the strength of Innate Wood and Metal in mixed builds can be slightly reduced.

P.S.: In the three matches in which I missed top four, one I had to quit at an early round because something came up, and the other two were Innate Earth. The rank-points-losing fourth places were all Innate Water and Earth.

Innate
matches
avg. place
top-four rate
first-place rate
Metal
12
1.17
100%
83.33%
Water
20
1.95
100%
45.00%
Wood
6
1.00
100%
100%
Fire
17
1.71
100%
58.82%
Earth
9
3.22
77.78%
11.11%
quit early
1
8
0%
0%
Total
65
1.92
95.38%
55.38%
Innate Wood (Fuluist Wood) supplement
Neither Innate Water nor Wood is particularly suited to Overcome (even though Innate Wood Overcome has a definite strength, Fuluist Wood has a higher high end; Innate Water in Overcome equals a four-cultivation blank slate). Fuluist Wood and UWF (Ultimate World Formation), and Formation Master Water are already in Measim's guide; here are just some supplements.
  1. If you can upgrade Water Spirit Seal to lv.max, do so; my suggestion is to stay in Meditation phase all the way to Round 5 (if you encounter Yan Chen, I recommend breaking through). If you still have lv.2 Water Spirit Seal + lv.1 Water Spirit Seal during Virtuoso, you can discard the lv.1 Water Spirit Seal if the situation calls for it; being down 1 cultivation forever messes up your pacing. Exchanging for Water Spirit Seal is for adequate qi in transit, not like exchanging for UWF or bust!
  2. Try to avoid Water Spirit - Waves (even if you have enough qi); the Wood cards you get on breaking through are usually immediately playable. Of course, Waves can combo with Wood Spirit - Recovery or Spirit Absorb Fulu.
  3. Calculate damage; if you can't kill in the first pass, then lead with Circ. + Thorn. Otherwise, you cycle embarrassingly into Water Seal + buff.
  4. Water Seal + Circ. + Fragrant is a common way to transit midgame. Only with Fragrant is Heart Fire easy to use.
  5. Ultimate World Formation is not important, Ultimate World Formation is not important, Ultimate World Formation is not important; say important things thrice! Other than Divine Walk + Fragrant, Fuluist Wood has no other hard-to-substitute core cards; it has many ways to kill quickly in four moves or with defense in 5-6; it's a very flexible build. In situations where you definitely don't need to cycle, Water Spirit isn't lv.max, or against Musician, you can consider exchanging Ultimate World Formation away.
  6. Daoist Rhyme Omen: Fragrant > Willow Leaf > Thorn > Divine Walk > Blazing Prairie > UWF > Heart Fire > Great Waves. Thousand Evil Incantation is up to personal preference; I don't like to choose it, even with it constituting half the strength of Fuluist Wood (the other half being Divine Walk Fulu).
  7. Innate Earth going UWF, can choose Elixirist. It's hard to vary the deck without Wood activation, and Fulu counter cards usually can't be inserted; you're better off playing Elixirist to gain a bit of quality, and muddling for rank points.
Innate Wood (Elixirist Wood)
Because of Du Lingyuan's great innate cultivation, but relative lack of exchanges, even if going the Elixirist Wood build, it's still not too suited to Immortality-phase showdown. The overall pacing has some differences from Wu Xingzhi's.

Relevant pacing:
  • At Foundation, choose Innate Mark. Start exchanging; relatively useful cards are Recovery (qi), Sparse Shadow (Increase ATK), Bud, Rush, Scarlet Flame (damage), Mountains. Wood Spirit - Recovery has lesser substitutes Water Spirit Seal / Wood Spirit Seal.
  • At Virtuoso, either relevant cards or Innate Spirit Formation is fine. If you exchanged in Foundation, and add Wood Spirit Formation, the battle strength is very high, can relatively safely transit Virtuoso and early Immortality.
  • At Immortality, choose cultivation, then start exchanging lightly in search of Fragrant, Thorn, Heart Fire, Flash Fire, Forest Guard etc. useful cards. If you have Wood Spirit Formation, you can play Forest Guard in midgame (with healing and Consumption to support cycling).
  • At Incarnation, choose cultivation (in the absence of cultivation, you can choose Five Elements Anima, but it's not very strong). With Fragrant, if you find Spiritage Elixir, you can cut Wood Spirit Formation, and play the classic Elixirist Wood deck.
Each phase's useful cards are as follows.
  • Meditation: Water Seal, Wood Seal, Bud, Rush
  • Foundation: Sparse Shadow, Recovery, Scarlet Flame, Mountains
  • Virtuoso: Forest Guard, Wood Formation, Blast, Circ., Cliff, Dust
  • Immortality: Fragrant (your one and only granddaddy!), Thorn, Flash Fire, Heart Fire, Spiritage Elixir
  • Incarnation: Willow Leaf, Blazing Prairie, Combine World, Heavenly Marrow
Daoist Rhyme Omen: Fragrant > Willow Leaf > Thorn > Blazing Prairie > Heart Fire > Spiritage Elixir = Talent Elixir
Innate Water (Formation Master Water) supplement
For the main guide, again look to Measim; here are only some tips for transit.

In the current ladder environment, two side job cards have become more important: Hexproof Formation (now needs to be kept to the end) and Anthomania Formation (pretty good after the buff [2023-5-5: now steals HP]). Other than those two, Meru Formation also has some clever use.

Hexproof Formation: Counters Fuluist. Thousand Evil Incantation and Distubing Fulu are currently very common. Hexproof Formation cancels out Distubing Fulu regardless of upgrades. Against Thousand Evil Incantation, [TL: The original says something about a one-level difference in upgrades, but it seems to me, just from reading the cards, that it would take the same level of Hexproof Formation to reduce the applied Flaw to 1 stack, (which would expire before the opponent's next turn)], highly relevant. Many Wu Ce in transit like to use White Snake, which Hexproof Formation also blocks. It can also block Internal Injury. Hexproof Formation is a card with great strategic significance, worth keeping to the end.

Anthomania Formation: Usually combined with Echo Formation, also a defensive technique against multi-hit before your build comes together. For consideration:
  1. Anthomania Formation
  2. Water Spirit Formation
  3. Water Spirit - Great Waves
  4. Water Spirit - Dive
  5. Echo Formation
  6. Meru Formation
  7. (empty)
  8. Water Spirit - Combine Rivers
Or:
  1. Anthomania Formation
  2. Water Spirit Formation
  3. Water Spirit - Great Waves
  4. Wood Spirit - Willow Leaf
  5. Water Spirit - Dive
  6. Wood Spirit - Forest Guard
  7. Echo Formation
  8. Water Spirit - Combine Rivers
Usually play either Meru Formation as the lone Chase card or two Wood Chase cards to cycle faster. Possibly another Chase according to situation.

Meru Formation: Because Meru Formation skips card(s), it can combo with Five Elements Circulation. Often Meru + Metal + Circ. + Combine Rivers to add HP twice. Even better with Water Spirit - Tsunami. Other than that, Meru can also be used to skip the second cycle's Echo Formation or Great Waves, cycling faster and playing more Combine Rivers / Turbulent.

Updated Formation Master Water Daoist Rhyme Omen priority:
Great Waves > Combine Rivers > Heavenly Marrow > Motionless Tutelary Formation, Echo Formation

Anthomania Formation was significantly buffed (and Meru Formation likewise became more useful), so is it worth picking in Daoist Rhyme Omen? My personal feeling is that it's still not too worth it.
With the bad luck of getting Innate Earth, how to salvage rank points
Innate Earth is relatively weak. In a mixed build, Innate Earth doesn't produce key cards, and the Innate Mark is also unhelpful; and mono-Earth is neither strong nor reliable (at the mercy of big qi (sword sect), mono-Metal, Internal Injury Within Reach, must I continue?). So when you draw Innate Earth, salvaging rank points is the main thing.

Choose Elixirist.

In the beginning, look at the cards dealt; in the first two rounds, if you're dealt lv.2 Water Spirit Seal, you can consider exchanging a few times, preparing to play Ultimate World Formation, best if you can find lv.max Water Spirit Seal, otherwise playing Overcome with a blank slate has a limited high end but it can't be helped, muddle into some rank points and it's not a loss.

Elixirist UWF doesn't have so many counter cards like Fuluist UWF; it will suffice to accept the quality boost. In the four Immortal Fate slots, choosing cultivation and cards will be fine.

Standard five-move kills:
  • UWF + Water Seal + Great Waves + Circ. + Fragrant + Circ. + Blazing Prairie + Thorn
  • Spiritage Elixir + UWF + Water Seal + Fragrant + Willow Leaf + Thorn + Circ. + Blazing Prairie
Double defense 7-move kill:
  • UWF + Water Seal + Fragrant + Circ. + Blazing Prairie + Circ. + Combine World + Guard Elixir

Innate Earth Elixirist UWF is highly dependent on Ultimate World Formation, unlike Fuluist Wood, this build without UWF or without Fragrant will suffer a discount to its strength. But the good thing is that the quality requirement otherwise is not too high; it's not too hard to realize a five-move kill. (Even without UWF, five-move kill is possible.)

Daoist Rhyme Omen: Fragrant > UWF > Willow Leaf > Blazing Prairie = Thorn > Great Waves > Talent Elixir
Secret Enchantment cards
Meditation:
  • Secret Seals are pretty much only good as random transitional cards. >=(
  • Except Wood Spirit Secret Seal, which can be a lesser substitute for Fragrant in the Overcome build. Note also that Wood Spirit Secret Seal alone + Five Elements Anima is already 3 Increase ATK; before the final build, it's no waste of a move.
Foundation:
  • Water Spirit - Rhythm Wood: A healing card that's not bad at all in mono-Water, adding qi while also participating in scaling, can serve as the main healing technique in mono-Water before Combine Rivers arrives. Even if Combine Rivers arrives, you might still play Rhythm Wood (when there aren't many Great Waves stacks in the first cycle, Rhythm Wood heals more than Combine Rivers).
  • Fire Spirit - Rhythm Earth: Good card in mono-Fire, reduces max HP and adds DEF; in numbers, it's invincible (consider Fortunes and Luck). One copy is not that strong, but still stronger than Earth Spirit - Dust. In mono-Fire with Marrow, can serve as back-up defensive card.
Virtuoso:
  • Metal Spirit - Rhythm Water: Good card in mono-Metal, converts Penetrate to Force of Water; can quickly get a lot of Force of Water damage. A divine card before assembling the five-move kill; no longer strong once you have the five-move kill with Tripod, still OK as a counter card.
  • Wood Spirit - Vine: Standard back-up multi-hit Wood attack card, combo with Thorn. Consider: Divine Walk + Fragrant + Willow Leaf + Thorn + Forest Guard + Thorn + Forest Guard + Vine. Advantage is not requiring qi, disadvantage is meeting the conditions.
  • Five Elements Escape: Standard Chase, easy to use in Overcome build. For example, Innate Metal World Smash: Overcome + Spring + Five Elements Escape + World Smash + Shuttle + Thorn + Flash Fire + Combine World. Enables 4-Chase World Smash for Innate Earth. [TL: The original also says Water, but I don't see how that's going to activate a different element in order to trigger the Chase.]
Immortality:
  • Wood Spirit - Rhythm Fire: Divine card, an equal replacement for World Smash, sacrificing half of your health for even more Force of Water (in the finals, usually 11-12 Force of Water possible), can three-move kill, or four-move kill with extreme damage. Disadvantage is fearing Guard Up, and getting into guessing games (having halved your HP). In Wood-Fire build, can be a technique to kill in four moves with lower quality requirement.
  • Earth Spirit - Rhythm Metal: Mono-Earth card, can combo with Giant Tripod. This card can probably be like Landslide, but one move slower? Pretty much never used it, hard to evaluate. Should be stronger than Quicksand.
  • Earth Spirit - Earthquake: In mono-Earth and mixed builds, a dedicated counter to Qi-DEF Sword, rarely ever played against others. I personally feel that it's not particularly suitable as a secret enchantment.
Incarnation:
  • Water Spirit - Tsunami: Divine card in mono-Water, like a high-synergy Heptastar Soulstat, what kind of idea is it to give mono-Water Heptastar Soulstat, if you know, you know. [TL: In Chinese, I think this expression has additional ironic meanings I'm not familiar with.] In combination with Ultimate World Formation, can turn-three double stasis. Can combo with Meru Formation. Other builds can use it to compress the deck, supplement damage.
  • Fire Spirit - Burning Sky: Divine card, just one copy of Blazing Prairie is enough to make it playable, four-turn kill on a whim.
Divinity:
  • Five Elements Blossom: Activate all five elements + compress deck + add qi, it does everything. Enables maximally flexible arrangement, no longer subject to Five Element Generating Interaction.
  • Five Elements Spirit Blast: Also enable three- or four-turn kill with low quality requirements (combo with some Seal and Chase cards is enough). Combo with Five Elements Blossom to kill in one turn directly.
Musician mono-Water
Musician Water is not like other Musician builds, but rather, is closer to Formation Master Water; among Musician builds, it is relatively low in difficulty and complexity. (Musician Sword, Musician Vitality, etc. overload your pig brain, don't they?) New players can start with Musician mono-Water Hua Qinrui to get a basic familiarity with the Musician cards. (I say Hua Qinrui because she has Mark Of Water Spirit, which is like always getting Innate Water.)

Why not recommend other Five Elements characters to play Musician Water? In fact, they can all do it, but not as reliably as Hua Qinrui. Wu Xingzhi needs to win battles early, but Musician is relatively low in part-time power among side jobs, even worse than Plant Master. Mu Hu doesn't activate Water, which makes it hard to insert counter cards. Nangong Sheng's fault tolerance is too low, not getting Water Spirit Secret Seal will be extremely uncomfortable. Du Lingyuan isn't always Innate Water (but this is a Du Lingyuan Musician Water guide).

Basic pacing:
Round 1, don't exchange. Round 2, look at the opponent, if you don't think you'll win, you can go ahead and absorb your cards to break through, choosing Innate Mark; otherwise, break through on Round 3. After that, exchange until Round 5, in search of Billows, Turbulent, part-time qi cards, Wood and Fire damage cards, Kindness Tune, etc. When the quality is satisfactory, then you can break through to Virtuoso. In Virtuoso and Immortality, don't exchange; rely on the cards you searched up in Foundation, and naturally dealt cards, to muddle through; if you can't win, surrender via Kindness Tune. On Round 11 or 12, break through and exchange.

Each phase's useful side job cards are as follows. (See Measim for sect cards.)

Meditation:
  • Carefree Tune (breaking through early, you can keep just this; with two copies, you can play them every other round to transit Foundation)
Foundation:
  • Sky Spirit Tune (with lv.2 Sky Spirit Tune, you no longer need to choose Innate Spirit Formation at Virtuoso)
  • Kindness Tune (divine card, save Destiny; by the Destiny loss formula, lv.1 Kindness Tune is equivalent to 25 damage)
Virtuoso: None.

Immortality:
  • Regen Tune (has a definite usefulness in the transitional period; lategame more dubious, only usable against burst damage)
  • Concentric Tune (counter Thousand Evil Incantation, Internal Injury, etc. debuffs)
  • Nine Evil Ruptsprite (counter qi-reliant opponents)
Incarnation:
  • Predicament for Immortals (crucial card, stop Chases)
  • Chord In Tune (produce qi for Predicament for Immortals; when not playing Predicament, can be used as a Chase card to compress the deck to improve quality)
  • Apparition Confusion (counter multi-hit)

Daoist Rhyme Omen: Great Waves > Combine Rivers > Predicament for Immortals > Chord In Tune

Immortal Fate choices:
  • Virtuoso: If you have lv.2+ Sky Spirit Tune, you can choose cultivation; priority mainly are Concentrated Element, Epiphany, Thunder Tribulation, Mental Perception, Tool Governor, etc. Otherwise choose Innate Spirit Formation. Of course, Inheritance of Water Spirit is forever best.
  • Immortality, Incarnation: In accordance with opponents, Immortal Fates, and Destiny situation, strategize around going first or around going second, and whether you need to choose cultivation. If you need cultivation, Inheritance of Water Spirit > Concentrated Element > Thunder Tribulation > Tool Governor > Epiphany = Mental Perception > unrelated cards; otherwise, pretty much all of the no-cultivation choices are fine (even including Five Elements Anima), just pick what you need.

With Predicament for Immortals:
Chord + Predicament + Water Formation + Great Waves + Great Waves + Dive + Combine Rivers + Turbulent
Take care with the position of Dive. (Predicament makes it easier to line it up.) Sometimes you need two Dives for more coverage.

Regen Tune into Chord:
Regen Tune + Water Formation + Chord + Great Waves + Chord + Dive + Chord + Combine Rivers
If you don't have enough copies of Chord In Tune, you can make do with a Wood Chase card, or choose to play one less Chase card.

Heavenly Marrow fast kill:
Marrow + Water Formation + Great Waves + Great Waves + Great Waves + Combine Rivers + Turbulent + Turbulent
Heavenly Marrow fast kill is usually used in situations where the opponent must play around Predicament; the Marrow-Predicament mixup is both basic and important.
2023-10-1 update
Du Lingyuan in this version to begin with might as well be a four-cultivation blank slate for playing Legendary Immortal Fates. But now that Lava Seal has been nerfed, none of the Five Elements Legendary Immortal Fates is particularly suitable. Maybe Wild Crossing Seal for Formation Master Water transit, or to strengthen Wood? Ugh.

Before the 2023-9-28 nerf, play Wu Ce without thinking. Divination + Water Drop Erosion is all you need. +1000 rank points in a day on a whim. No thinking, roll for Divination and Water Drop Erosion; if you don't see them, Refresh; if you don't get Water Drop Erosion, just scrounge rank points in Incarnation. At the end of the match, top four are four Wu Ce.

After nerfing Water Drop Erosion, Lava Seal, Throw Petals, and Dragon Devours Clouds, actually the balance problem(s) are not so terrible. Overall, it's still a "Let a hundred flowers bloom" version.

Du Lingyuan is still playable, but no longer recommended for climbing the ladder. To climb the ladder, if you like to gamble, play Yan Xue, Jiang Ximing, Nangong Sheng; if you prefer steadiness, play Lu Jianxin, Wu Ce, Mu Yifeng.
Luck points and Overcome
First of all, Overcome doesn't need to roll any particular Immortal Fate. The only open choice is Virtuoso, and any cultivation-giving choice is about the same. At most, Inheritance of Water Spirit is a little better for the chance of getting Water Spirit - Spring.

In other words, save at most 1 Luck for the Virtuoso Immortal Fate, in case you're not offered cultivation. (The probability is low, since Five Elements has five Inheritances, the most of any sect.)

The other Luck points, usually roll on Round 4 Daoist Rhyme Omen.
Priority: World Smash > Heart Fire = Fragrant, otherwise reroll. (Blazing Prairie and Willow Leaf are worth picking, along with Flash Fire or Shuttle if it matches your Innate Element, but rerolling is also fine.)
Among secret enchantment cards: Wood Spirit - Rhythm Fire > Fire Spirit - Burning Sky > Water Spirit - Tsunami.
(World Smash > Tsunami.)

If you still have Luck left, better just exchange, since there's nothing worth rolling for on Round 15 Daoist Rhyme Omen.