The Genius Invokation TCG in Genshin Impact has just received a fresh batch of cosmetic upgrades with the addition of Lustrous Skins. These are Premium Skins for your favourite cards… that give your cards a slightly more stylish frame. But while these upgrades may sound exciting initially, fans are quickly realizing there’s a brutal catch: not only do the skins look nearly identical to regular cards apart from their border, but unlocking all of them could take nearly four years of dedicated grinding.
One such example is the Lustrous Skin for Hu Tao. As you can see, there’s no actual “skin” to unlock it’s just a fancy border.
A Reddit thread by user 4GRJ, who crunched the numbers and determined that the total cost to collect every Lustrous Skin currently in the game comes out to a staggering 1,520,800 coins. That number includes:
- Character Cards: 896,000
- Equipment Cards: 263,600
- Support Cards: 179,200
- Event Cards: 182,000
With actively playing yields around 47,000 coins per patch, it would take about 32 patches or roughly 3.7 years to gather enough coins for a full collection.
The estimate assumes the following sources of income:
- 6 weeks of weekly coin income (6,000 per week = 36,000)
- Forge Realm Temper rewards (~8,000)
- Heated Battle Mode (~3,000)
While new content may arrive in the future that increases the amount of coins gained per-patch. It will not quadruple it for sure. These estimations also do not factor in the fact that new cards are added every patch. Meaning that in 4 years time, there would be more than 4 years worth of new skins!
With the time investment required, most players will need to be selective about which Lustrous Skins they truly want. That is, if they even want them. Players still collecting cards and building their decks may want to skip this for the most part given they do not actually change the skin or design of the character card itself.
