The National Team
As any seasoned Genshin team builder might know, the National Team is one of the best team builds out there for its F2P friendliness, strength of elemental reactions, and ability to carry in Spiral Abyss. This holds true even in Genshin's latest permanent gameplay mode, Genius Invocation TCG, for two of the same reasons. As soon as you obtain three or four invitation letters, I highly recommend getting Xingqiu and Chongyun, and then opting for either Bennett or Xiangling, and I'm about to tell you why.
Team Strengths
First of all, Xingqiu and Chongyun alone are often enough to take down the weaker opponents you may be fighting and some of the stronger ones. Xingqiu's quick burst and Chongyun's long-lasting skill makes any character's normal attack do massive damage and freeze an enemy in one go, making them really effective at controlling how many characters your opponent has to work with during any given round.
Second of all, whether you use Xiangling or Bennett, both of them produce similarly strong reactions with Xingqiu or Chongyun should one of them go down. For an especially tough or unpredictable fight, you can use Bennett to prolong the battle and keep your other remaining character alive with your quick-charging burst. If you know your enemy and just need to deal a lot of damage within a short period of time, Xiangling's your girl.
Team Weaknesses
The best team requires Xingqiu and Chongyun to have their skill cards up pretty early. This can be a pitfall if you don't pull them early on in the game, especially for Chongyun. His card extends the number of rounds his Cryo-applying skill lasts by one whole round. Not having this skill card active means you'll have to switch back to him more often and risk him taking more damage. This is especially true if you don't run When the Crane Returned, which lets you swap after a skill, or other quick-switching cards of a similar nature.
If you use Xiangling as your third, the price of good Pyro damage and application is that you run the risk of losing to opponents who deal a lot of damage to you. You could try to support your team with heal cards and food, but then you have to manage your action deck more carefully. If you use Bennett, you gain a long-term advantage but may not have enough firepower to constantly trigger pyro-based reactions and could go down to beefy enemies chipping away at your health.
How to Use (in PVP battles)
Here I'll be covering a standard rotation when you're up against an opponent with three other character cards and dice (as opposed to adventure challenges). This team also works for adventures, but you usually don't need to be as careful about rotations. I'll be going over both how to play in near-optimal conditions and what you can do to course correct if the cards don't line up in your favor. Before you even start though, there's a few things you need to make sure to have in your deck.
Setup
First, get both of Xingqiu's and Chongyun's skill cards. Interestingly enough, you'll have to fight through Xingqiu's own version of the National Team to win his skill cards, which is actually how I realized the value of this team. You can get a skill card for your Pyro National too, but they aren't the core of this team so feel free to only add one to your deck if you need more space.
Xingqiu Using the National Team
Then, have lots of cards that allow you to switch. I personally like Katherine's card. It lasts the whole game and only costs two of any dice to initially set up. I also recommend When the Crane Returned. Have cards that allow you to increase your number of dice, like Paimon's card that creates 3 omni-dice, as well as other cards that let you guarantee you'll get the dice you'll need to use your skills, like the location cards Jade Chamber or Favonius Library (I recommend having one or the other).
Strong Action Cards
If you're running Xiangling, have some healing cards, either food or the other two location cards Dawn Winery and Favonius Cathedral. You can run the NRE packet too, if you want to, but I personally find it's more trouble than it's worth and there are better cards I can keep in my Support Zone.
If you're running Bennett, you may not need as many heals. I recommend trying cards like the three-star artifacts (which give small boosts for cheap activation), Timmy's Pigeons for a passive boost, or Liyue Harbor/Kokomi's Strategize for more action cards to use if you're in a pinch.
In your lineup, place Chongyun before Xingqiu, especially if you have When the Crane Returned. Your Pyro support can go in the third slot.
Round 1
Good Starting Hand
Select Xingqiu first, especially if you have his skill card in your hand. Try to get off 1 to 2 uses of his skill and use the rest of the round to set things up with any other support cards, like ones that give you more dice, guarantee your element gets rolled, or allow you to quick switch. If you can't get a second skill in, or used too many dice setting up supports, try to save enough to switch to Chongyun and still end your turn first.
Round 2
Lead with Chongyun's skill, using his skill card if you have it. This will still work if you don't, but it's better if you can use his skill. Make sure you attack one more time with Xingqiu and either stay on him when the round ends, or switch to your Pyro support if you're afraid he might die. Switching off of him is better if you have Katherine or another quick switch card in your hand, but if you don't have those cards and you really need to, it won't be the end of the world if you have enough dice and HP to safely switch next round.
Round 3
Unleash Xingqiu's burst and start Normal Attacking. Do NOT use skills here since only Normal attacks will trigger both Xingqiu's Raincutter Swords AND Chongyun's Touch of Frost. You can even switch to your Pyro support and do normal attacks if one of the main boys is getting low. And who knows, you might even charge up your Pyro burst as you do! Additionally, if you used Paimon's 3 extra dice card in Round 1, you should still have ample enough dice in this round to deal some damage.
Xingqiu is Stacked
Future Rounds
If you're enemies still aren't dead by Round 4, you're going to need to rinse and repeat with a bit more spice. At this point, the battle is so variable that I can't list out all possibilities, but I'll go over some common scenarios that you might find yourself in.
If you used Chongyun's skill card in Round 2, this is your last round to use his skill without having to switch back to him. Depending on health and the number of dice you have at your disposal, you may want to switch back to Xingqiu to bring up his burst again and deal some more damage before it runs out. Or you could switch back to Chongyun, reintroduce his skill (if you used his skill card before, you don't need to again to get the same effects), and start the cycle over. Or if one or both of them are low, set up one with their burst, sacrifice the other, and then just go back and forth between Pyro and the remaining character to finish the job.
You could also choose to change focus to your Pyro support and one of your other characters. If you have Xiangling's skill card, for example, you could apply Pyro to an enemy with Guoba mid-round and then use a skill or burst from one of the blue boys to trigger reactions. Or if her burst is up, you could unleash it and then do skills with one of the other boys to get Vaporize and Melt.
In Conclusion
The best thing about this team is its ability to freeze enemies and do massive damage in just one hit. And whether you're playing for the long game with Bennett or going for Burst DPS with Xiangling, both of the core two characters have strong enough skills that they can use to set up your Pyro support should the other one fall or falter.
I hope this guide was helpful to you, and if you learned something new, please leave a like, add your thoughts below, consider following, or do all three!
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