As part of a cross-promotion with Fire Emblem Cipher, it's been announced through Nintendo Dream's official twitter that today's issue of Nintendo Dream magazine will include a deckbox themed after B01: Warblade of Heroes. Featuring "Princes of Altea, Marth," "Lodestar, Marth," "Swordsman Known as Marth, Lucina," and "Protector of Ylisse, Chrom" the plastic deckbox comes packaged with every sealed volume of the July 21st issue, and is capable of holding up to 50 single sleeved cards. Whether double or triple layer sleeves will fit the box has not been addressed, but photos from Dream's official account suggest that at least double layers will fit the box.
The next set of Fire Emblem Cipher sleeves have been announced for a September 10th launch date, just seven days prior to the launch of S02: Godflame of Light and Dark. The sleeves will feature "Hero to His Country, Marth" "Knower of the Future, Lucina" "Princess of the Divine Dragon Tribe, Tiki" and "Sweetest Assassin, Gaius." Tiki and Gaius were both voted for by fans during the game's prerelease livestream as the cards they would most like to see used as a sleeve. Each sleeve measures 67x92 millimeters, and 65 sleeves will come in every sealed package. Packs of sleeves will retail for 760 yen before tax, approximately $6 at the present exchange rate.
Today the Japanese Fire Emblem Cipher portal updated with images of the upcoming starter decks S03: Birthright and S04: Conquest, as well as the second booster set B02: Soulful Flames of Light and Dark. The starter decks will provide full support for the colors white and black, representing the Hoshido and Nohr factions from Fire Emblem Fates, and will retail for 1300 yen each (approximately $10.50 at the present exchange rate). The second booster set, which launches in Japan on September 17th, will likewise include cards designed to enhance each color. Like Warblade of Heroes before it, Soulful Flames of Light and Dark will include ten cards in each booster pack, and sixteen booster packs in each sealed box of the set. MSRP for the booster packs is 350 yen each (~$2.83) and 5600 yen per box (~$45).
The Hoshido and Nohr factions supported by Soulful Flames were originally introduced as promotional cards packaged with Warblade of Heroes boxes. Cipher is handling the split version mechanic of Fire Emblem Fates by representing the protagonist of Birthright as the male incarnation of Corrin, and the protagonist of Conquest as their female incarnation. So far all known Corrin prints can also be treated as having the Hoshidan or Nohrian symbols, allowing white and black decks to be efficiently mixed together, though each of their skills still draw power boosts from their respective black and white colors.
The third booster set, which has no formal title nor announced launch date, will continue to support the factions from Fates while also introducing Tellius cards from Path of Radiance.
The official Fire Emblem Cipher portal updated today with new event information for the end of July. On July 25th Nintendo will be hosting a special concert in commemoration of Fire Emblem's anniversary, "The 25th Anniversary of Love and Courage," and Cipher will have its own special gallery at the event space featuring prints of illustrations created for the game. Fans of Cipher will also be provided a space to play the game in, but only individuals aged twenty years and older will be able to attend. The anniversary will be held at the Tokyo Dome Hotel, and it will cost 4000 yen to enter.
The 25th anniversary concert is set to include a variety of merchandise, including a 2000 yen folding fan decorated with the body of the divine dragon Naga, a 12000 yen replica of Azura's pendant from Fire Emblem Fates, and a commemorative "One Hundred Poems of Heroes" (英雄百歌 Eiyuu Moka) box containing illustrations that tell the stories of the Fire Emblem cast across twenty-five years in the form of waka poetry.
Modeled after traditional poetry sets used for karuta matching games, the Hundred Poems will contain two hundred cards with each complete poem split between two cards (and thus two illustrations). The first hundred are intended to be read by a poetry reader, while the remaining hundred are used for two players to try and matching the second half of the poem to its first half before the first half can be read. The Hundred Poems box will also come with a booklet and a CD that can recite the poems in place of an actual reader. It will cost 8424 yen, approximately $70.
The first images of Tokuma Shoten's Fire Emblem Cipher Official Guide have surfaced through Amazon, giving a look at the guide's exclusive promotional card "Enigmatic Tactician, Robin (Male)." The guide will contain a full catalog of all 125 existing cards, spanning B01: Warblade of Heroes, S01: War of Darkness, S02: Awakening, and all of the promotional cards distributed prior to B02: Soulful Flames of Light and Dark. At this time only 122 cards are known to exist counting Robin, and the guide's tie-in promo appears to have a set number of P01-015PR. Hence the Official Guide will contain information on three other cards that have still not been revealed as of yet.
Enigmatic Tactician, Robin (Male) AUTO [Reverse 2] When this unit is deployed, if the number of orbs you control is not greater than your opponent's, if you pay the cost, put the top card of your deck into your orb area.
Scheduled for July 23rd, 2015, Nintendo will be hosting Fire Emblem Cipher's first women's club (女子会 joshikai "women's gathering") at Dining Bar Othello in Tokyo. The meeting will have a limited capacity of 20 persons, and only women ages 20 and older may be invited. Entry will be 3000 yen per person, with entrants will receive 4 booster packs of Warblade of Heroes with their entry, and the event is expected to run from 6 PM to 8 PM JST. Preregistration will end on July 15th.
The aim of the event is to promote a safer play environment for female
players; such “women’s club” events have become commonplace in Japan
since 2011, having been promoted extensively for other trading
card games like Cardfight!! Vanguard, and in Nintendo's own Pokémon TCG.
How the event organizers will address transsexual and/or genderfluid individuals has not been addressed. These topics are typically a taboo subject in Japan.
July 2nd, 2015. At this year's Japan Expo in Paris, Fire Emblem Awakening and Fates character designer Kozaki Yuusuke held both a signing, and a panel to address questions from his fans. When asked as to if Fire Emblem Cipher would be coming to the west, Kozaki speaking through a translator hinted that this option was on the table;
Nous devons voir comment le jeu marche au Japon avant de le sortir en Europe et en Amérique.
We must see how the game does in Japan before releasing it in Europe and in America.
While normally one would expect Kozaki to issue no comment on the question, his statement suggests that Nintendo and Intelligent Systems have already been considering the viability of an international release. Kozaki has been deeply involved with Cipher from the beginning, most recently having introduced the game to the general public alongside Intelligent Systems staff in a pre-launch box opening and game demo streamed in late June. Along with his core artwork for Awakening and Fates, he also illustrates cards for Cipher. He has also been a regular at Japan Expo for several years now.
Today's article was made possible by the donations of our patrons at Patreon. The Lycian League is funded by public contributions from readers like you.
June 26th, 2015. To commemorate the launch of Nintendo Dream magazine's June 20th issue, the editorial staff hosted an "Emblem party" over Niconico's live streaming service. Making Fire Emblem Cipher the topic of the day and specifically refusing to address comments related to Fates, the hosts featured a box opening of B01: Warblade of Heroes, as well as the associated starter decks War of Darkness and Awakening. A recording of the stream can be viewed below.
The box opening begins at 12:00. The highlight of the opening was pulling a Super Rare "Hero to His Country, Marth" at 34:40. The broadcast was not without its problems; for several seconds starting at 43:39 the staff accidentally switched the view to an emulated game of Shadow Dragon from one of their computers, with Navarre reclassed as a Bishop. Viewership of the stream was relatively small, with the number of viewers peaking at 544.
Nintendo Dream's publisher, Tokuma Shoten, will be publishing an official guide to B01: Warblade of Heroes late next month, with endorsement and assistance from Intelligent Systems. The guide will go on sale July 24th, and come with two copies of the exclusive promotional card "Enigmatic Tactician, Robin (Male)."
Today's article was made possible by the donations of our patrons at Patreon. The Lycian League is funded by public contributions from readers like you.
June 27th, 2015. First place at the Master's Guild shop tournament was taken by a Sword of Light player, making this the third publicized pure Archanean deck to take first in a tournament since the launch of Warblade of Heroes on the 25th.The shop tournament was a small eight-man tournament, held in a Swiss Draw format. The tournament winner eschewed several of the common staples that have taken root in other decks, avoiding the popular cost 4 Marth and Caeda duo that have had so much success in these first days of tournament play.
Probably the most noticeable missing card is "Princess of Altea, Elice," whose Aum Staff ability has been seen as invaluable for being able to pull any Sword of Light card from the retreat area directly to the field. Elice has been a popular staple for being able to resurrect an ally with her reversal skill, partially negating the opponent's efforts in disposing of powerful units.
Instead this deck focuses on promoting a large pool of cost 1s with diverse ranges. Its strongest card is Steel Swordsman Ogma, whose Levin Sword ability makes him a magic user for one turn with a range of 1~2. Ogma's other ability gives both him and a deployed unit +10 every time a cost 2 or less unit is deployed, becoming exponentially more powerful the more bonds one has in play to deploy units with. Because there is no upper limit on how many cards may be in play, with a sufficient pool of bonds to draw from Ogma's power is theoretically as high as the number of cost 2s one has in hand.
Today's article was made possible by the donations of our patrons at Patreon. The Lycian League is funded by public contributions from readers like you.
Master's Guild Shop Tournament Cost 5: 2
x2 Steel Swordsman, Ogma Cost 4: 6
x4 Lodestar, Marth
x1 Princess, Minerva
x1 Sage of Gales, Merric Cost 3: 11
x2 Altea's Shield, Draug
x2 Archanean League Bowman, Gordin
x1 Infamous Knight "Prowling Panther," Abel
x2 Loyal Retainer, Jagen
x2 Wielder of a Bloody Blade, Navarre
x2 Aerial Combat Princess, Caeda Cost 2: 1
x1 Courageous Talysian Mercenary, Barst Cost 1: 29
x1 Crown-Prince of Altea, Marth (Main Character)
x3 Young Princess of Macedon, Maria
x2 Crown-Princess of Macedon, Minerva
x1 Talysian Fighter, Bord
x1 Talysian Fighter, Cord
x1 Healing Priest, Wrys
x1 Innocent Priestess, Maria
x3 Verdant Knight, Abel
x2 Liberation Army Archer, Gordin
x3 Mage of Winds, Merric
x2 Talysian Mercenary, Ogma
x2 Crown-Princess of the Divine Dragon Tribe, Tiki
x2 Scarlet Knight, Cain
x2 Crown-Princess of Talys, Caeda
x2 Crimson Fencer, Navarre
x2 Protective Knight, Draug
Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd. will be publishing a guide to Fire Emblem Cipher this July, licensed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems. Titled the Fire Emblem Cipher Official Guide, this softcover strategy guide will include full-sized prints of the original illustrations used for Cipher's cards, tactics devised by Intelligent Systems for playing the game, a compilation of the rules, and a complete catalog of all cards in B01: Warblade of Heroes, S01: War of Darkness, and S02: Awakening. Each sealed first editions of the guide will include two holographic rare prints of the promotional card "Enigmatic Tactician, Robin (Male)," which will be exclusive to this guidebook.
Tokuma Shoten has a strong relationship with Nintendo, being the current publisher for Nintendo Dream magazine in Japan. (Pictured above) Their issues have periodically included tie-ins to the Fire Emblem games, including paper toys to commemorate the series' 25th anniversary and the launch of Awakening. Their most recent issue features Phoenix Wright and Fire Emblem Fates.
The Fire Emblem Cipher Official Guide will launch on July 24th, 2015. It will retail for 1490 JPY, approximately $12.20 at the current exchange rate.
7/4/2015 update: The official guide is also now listed on AmiAmi.
June 27th, 2015. TCG Shop Grand Panda Canyon in Akihabara held a sixteen person Swiss tournament. The shop's staff reported the tournament to be at maximum capacity; its winner was Haro P(@DenoHaro), playing a multicolor deck built around "Cultivator of Smiles, Inigo," to take advantage of his ability that gives him power bonuses for having female units in play. Haro P commented on Twitter that he felt there were too many improvements needed for the deck. In his tournament experience, there were not many players who understood the value of Gordin nor how dangerous range 2 units could be, and this contributed to his victory. Haro P's Inigo deck relies on Inigo's cost 1 print always attacking for 50 base power when a female ally is in play, 10 more than the standard power for a cost 1 lord. This also means that on average Inigo doesn't need as powerful support checks as his opponent for his attacks to hit. His promoted form also gets +20 attack power during the opponent's turn if he destroys an enemy by battle, making him a defensive 80.
This deck's trump cards are the promoted prints of Lucina and Cordelia, the former of which can stack the top 2 cards of the deck to predetermine support checks, and the latter can attack again after successfully defeating an enemy--including the opponent's main character. Cordelia is a force to be reckoned with in tournament play, as it's infinitely easier for an attack to hit in Cipher than it in other games, and with Princess Minerva to negate the effective bonus of archers against Flying units it can be very difficult to bring Cordelia down in spite of having low base power for a cost 3. Haro P's full decklist is transcribed below.
The Mizonokuchi branch of Card Kingdom also held a 16-man Cipher tournament today. Tournament champion Narumiya(@otyapara) played a Sword of Light deck built around "Lodestar, Marth" from the War of Darkness starter deck, and her deck shared several of the same pieces as Taketea from Card Kingdom's Nerima branch. Narumiya credited her victory to the Attack Emblem support skill, which is shared by the cost 1 prints of Abel, Cain, Ogma, Cord, and Bord. Attack Emblem grants +20 attack to the attacking unit when its support checked, and as every card that has Attack Emblem has a base support value of 10, this grants a net +30 during the attack phase. She also lamented not having room for Draug in the deck in a later tweet, wishing to build a deck with her self-described husband as the main character.
Haro P is not the only multicolor player to come out of the woodwork this week. Over the 25th the first recorded tournament finals in Cipher's history were uploaded to the web, from card shop King Trading Cards in Noda. Unlike the Panda Canyon and Nerima tournaments, King TCG used a tournament bracket throughout the entire sixteen-person competition, rather than playing Swiss rounds. The finals were a multicolor Sword of Light versus a monocolor Mark of Naga deck, and the video is presented below.
The tournament finals were best of one, with a 30 minute time limit. The Sword of Light multicolor deck took advantage of having cards from both colors with the Magic Emblem ability, which allows a player that support checks it to draw a card and drop a card. This game also demonstrated one reason why Emblem cards have become so popular in the first few days since the game's launch; the Sword of Light player was able to consistently check both Attack and Defense Emblem cards that granted a +20 bonus on either the attacking or defending turn, putting them 10 points above the opponent's power every time. No decklists have turned up for the King TCG tournament.
Grand Panda Canyon Shop Tournament First place:Haro P/ハロP Cost 4: 11
x4 Knower of the Future, Lucina
x4 Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda
x3 Princess, Minerva Cost 3: 12
x4 Man of Flower's Fragrance, Inigo
x4 Pegasus Knight Paragon, Cordelia
x2 Wellspring of Youth, Nowi
x2 Aura's Heiress, Linde Cost 2: 4
x4 Princess of Altea, Elice Cost 1: 23
x4 Cultivator of Smiles, Inigo (Main Character)
x4 Young Prodigy, Cordelia
x2 Myrmidon from Parts Unknown, Athena
x2 Young Princess of Macedon, Maria
x3 Crown-Princess of Macedon, Minerva
x4 Crown-Princess of Talys, Caeda
x4 Swordsman Known as Marth, Lucina
Card Kingdom Mizonokuchi Shop Tournament First place:Narumiya/なるみや Cost 4: 4
x4 Lodestar, Marth Cost 3: 5
x3 Steel Swordsman, Ogma
x1 Infamous Knight "Raging Bull," Cain
x1 Infamous Knight "Prowling Panther," Abel Cost 2: 5
x3 Loose-Cannon Swordsman, Naarre
x2 Princess of Altea, Elice Cost 1: 36
x4 Crown-Prince of Altea, Marth (Main Character)
x4 Verdant Knight, Abel
x4 Scarlet Knight, Cain
x4 Talysian Mercenary, Ogma
x4 Crown-Princess of Talys, Caeda
x4 Talysian Fighter, Bord
x4 Talysian Fighter, Cord
x4 Crown-Princess of the Divine DragonTribe, Tiki
x4 Ascetic Saint, Lena
The Japanese Cipher portal has been updated with the latest Japanese tournament locations and dates for June 25th through July 1st. Participants in these tournaments will receive Promotion Card Pack Vol. 1, which contains two randomly assorted cards from a pool of six promotional cards. Currently 128 tournaments have been scheduled for the month of June, and 511 for the month of July. 31 of Japan's 47 prefectures will host Fire Emblem Cipher tournaments. As these are all locally-organized weekly shop tournaments, none of them are especially large; the maximum attendance cap for any of these is 16 persons.
Promotional Pack Vol. 1 primarily features reprints of existing characters with alternate artwork; the Jagen, Minerva, Cordelia, Tharja, and Tiki cards can all be found in Warblade of Heroes or War of Darkness. However, the cost 3 Wrys is wholly unique to the Promotional Pack, being an original scenario unit that reclasses the curate as a Hero. Wrys' skill is the same as his cost 1 print from Warblade of Heroes; by turning himself horizontal and destroying himself, Wrys can increase an ally's power by +20 when it's attacked, which on top of the support check can help prevent that ally from being defeated. Primarily this is useful for protecting the main character from damage. Because it requires turning Wrys to the actioned state, he can't do this after moving or attacking, so it's not possible to attack with Wrys on one's own turn and use his ability on the opponent's. What Wrys gains by promoting into a Hero is 30 additional attack power, range 1, and the axe emblem, which allows him to do battle unlike his base form. And if one uses Wrys as their main character and promotes into Healing Hero, he can be part of a viable turtling strategy. By moving Wrys to the rearguard, one can deliberately destroy him by battle during the opponent's turn to protect vanguard units; the main character cannot be sent to the retreat area, so one of Wrys' orbs will break and be sent to hand, creating a net +1 while protecting an ally unit. Doing this repeatedly puts one very close to defeat though by deliberately destroying their own orbs, and is chiefly viable when there are a series of strong vanguard attackers in play that are worth using Wrys' skill to protect.
Jagen is a more simplistic promo, and unlike Wrys doesn't have an unpromoted form to make his play cost easier to pay. His base attack is higher than the standard 50 for a cost 3 unit, but in exchange he can't be played to the bond area and this can be dangerous in a protracted game if there are multiple copies in the deck.
Loyal Retainer, Jagen
Deployment cost 3/Promotion cost 2/70 Attack/1 Range/20 Support
Battle-Worn Veteran: Special: This card cannot be placed in the bond area.
Healing Hero, Wrys
Deployment cost 3/Promotion cost 2/60 Attack/1 Range/10 Support
Vulnerary: Auto: [Action this unit, destroy this unit by battle] When one of your other allies is attacked, if you pay the cost, until the end of the attack phase that allied unit's attack gets +20.
June 22nd, 2015. Kitanishi of Intelligent Systems Co., Ltd., actress Lynn (voice of Fire Emblem Fates' Azura), and Fire Emblem Cipher producer Kawade Ryouta hosted a Niconico Live stream in commemoration of the upcoming launch of Cipher's first booster set and starter decks. Nico streams of this type are common in the promotion of Japanese media, and Cipher's was particularly notable for drawing in a massive crowd despite being a new trading card property--which typically need more time for the public to warm up to. The broadcast in its entirety can be viewed below.
Kawade provided an overview of the Fire Emblem Cipher demos held across Japan in the past month, which began on the 12th and carried through up to the day of the stream. The game's producer showed a surprising familiarity with the major card shops of several regions, hosting demos and interviewing players at game store Ma-ya in Kasai (Edogawa) on the 12th, and in card shop Fire Ball in Koshigaya on the 13th. Both of these retailers are two of the largest in their local areas, with Ma-ya having been in operation for fifteen years. The game won over many of those Kawade interviewed, as even the players that expressed first-time difficulty with the game's rules remained interested in trying a second time because their history with Fire Emblem and familiarity with the characters. One man who demoed the game had been playing Fire Emblem for sixteen to seventeen years, which kept him open to trying Cipher.
(Game begins at 0:18:40 and ends at 0:45:48, box opening at 0:56:44, loose packs at 1:03:52)
The broadcast then cut to a live play of Cipher with Lynn and Kozaki Yuusuke, character designer for Awakening and Fates. They were introduced to the rules by Cipher teacher Umata. In the interest of time both players played with less than the standard number of Orbs, three instead of five. Lynn played Starter Deck 1: War of Darkness with the Crown Prince of Altea, Marth as her main character, using Archanean units from Fire Emblem 1, 3 and 12. Her strategy in the game was to use archers and mages to attack from outside the range of Kozaki's units, while promoting her lord to increase his base attack power and thus make it difficult for Kozaki to successfully defend.
Kozaki played Starter Deck 2: Awakening with Crown Prince of Ylisse, Chrom as his main character, using the Ylissian characters from Fire Emblem 13. His strategy was to use prepromoted allied units with higher costs but also higher base attack power to prevent Lynn's attacks from hitting.
Umata explained that to begin the game, each player draws five cards, then
places five cards from the top of their deck into the Orb Area (three in
this demo game.) If either player is attacked while they have no Orbs, their
main character is defeated and they lose the game. Each player's turn is made up of five phases; the opening phase, bond
phase, deployment phase, action phase and then the end phase.
In the opening phase the current player's turn begins and their units return to an action state, vertically-oriented. (Equivalent to being untapped in Magic or stood in Vanguard.) They also draw one card--except during the first turn of the game when they are the first player to take a turn.
In the bond phase, the player puts a card from their hand into the bond zone horizontally. They may only play one card in this way each turn. (Equivalent to playing a land in Magic or attaching energy in Pokémon.) During the deployment phase, the player can play units from their hand whose costs are less than or equal to the number of cards in the bond area. (So with one card in the bond area, a card with a cost of 1 can be played, and with two cards in the bond area, two cards with a cost of 1 can be played, or one card with a cost of 2.)
In the action phase, units with skills that say Action can use those skills by paying costs like reversing bonds (turning them face-down) or turning them to an acted state. In the action phase the player can also use their units to attack other units within their range, either sending the opponent's allies to the retreat area (discard pile) or dealing damage to their main character and breaking an Orb. Attacking requires a unit to move from the action state to an acted state, and so is mutually exclusive with using some skills. In the end phase, the turn passes to the next player.
In Lynn's action phase above, Gordon and Merric are in Lynn's rearguard, while Navarre and Marth (her main character) are in her vanguard. Chrom and Lon'qu are both in Kozaki's vanguard. Marth and Navarre can both attack Chrom and Lon'qu because they have a range of 1 and those enemies are adjacent to them, and Gordon and Merric can also attack either unit because Gordon has a range of 2 and Merric a variable range of 1~2. When Lynn attacks one of Kozaki's units, both players reveal the top card of their deck, and the support values of the revealed cards are added to their respective side's attacking and defending units. (If the revealed support card has the same character name as the unit, it has no effect.) The revealed cards are then sent to the retreat area. As long as Lynn's attacking unit's power is greater than or equal to Kozaki's defending unit's, she will win the battle, and if that unit was the main character an Orb will break and be sent to Kozaki's hand. Towards the end of the game Umata introduced one last game mechanic; by discarding any card with the same character name as their attacking unit, a player may have that unit perform a critical hit with twice the attack power. The defending player can do the same to perform evasion, completely nullifying the attack, which gives purpose to otherwise-dead cards--as each player can only have one copy of a unit in play.
Although Lynn could not attack due to going first, being able to
always have one more bond than her opponent as a result of being the
first player to place a bond let her always have more allies in play
than Kozaki, overwhelming him with multiple attacks. However, her
archer strategy was hampered by the low base power of the archer
characters, as Gordon and Y only have 30 base power while Chrom's is 40.
This means that Lynn needed to consistently check higher support value
cards than her opponent in order to hit with the archers, introducing an
element of chance to the game that effectively gave her a smaller
margin of error than her opponent for hitting with attacks. The outcome of the game could have been changed in Kozaki's
favor had he protected Chrom by moving him to the rearguard early on.
Although Marth has the ability to move one enemy per turn, this requires
tapping both himself and one of his own units, which would decrease the
number of attacks Lynn was making per battle phase by 2 each turn.
The stream was not without incident, as minor technical problems repeatedly
inhibited its airing; several times cameras had to be repositioned to
get them out of shots, and microphone errors interrupted the audio at
times. For this broadcast neither player used card sleeves, likely to avoid further camera trouble. Sleeving cards creates a reflective surface so that the face of the card cannot be seen in recordings when placed under direct lighting.
After the demo game, the group showed off four character sleeves from the first wave that will launch along with the set; "Lodestar, Marth," "Protector of the Halidom, Chrom," Bewitching Shaman from Plegia, Tharja and the 25th anniversary dot character sleeves. For the second wave of sleeves fans were able to vote during the broadcast for what character they would like to see out of those introduced in War of Darkness and Awakening.
From The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light cast Tiki won the majority vote, with 52.2% of all votes going to her. Second place was Caeda with 17.9% of the vote, third Navarre with 11.1%, fourth Ogma with 10.5% and fourth Cain with 8.2%. From Awakening, Gaius won a considerably more divided contest; 28.1% of responders voted for Gaius, 23.7% for Cordelia, 23% for Olyvia, 13.6% for Owain and 11.5% for Lon'qu. Viewers could also participate in a raffle for a box of Booster Set 1: Warblade of Heroes, with the winner receiving several signed cards pulled by the hosts during the stream.
The group then did a live box opening of the first booster set, B01: Warblade of Heroes. Kitanishi was forced to briefly intervene when Kawade did the opening, to hide the character download code for Fire Emblem Fates packaged inside. Every sealed booster box contains a code to download Pegasus Knight Minerva into the Japanese edition of Fates. The stream also revealed that each box also has a promotional print of Corrin from Fates. The standard version of the card will be printed in B02: Soulful Flames of Light and Dark, which launches this September.
Although the opening was intended to show off the availability of signed
cards, an awkward moment arose when none of the Super Rares pulled were
signed. Kitanishi then brought out a box of loose packs, from which
Kawade immediately pulled a signed Liss.
Notably, the box opening seems to demonstrate a packaging bias common to new card games. Two of the three Super Rares pulled came from the left side of the box; due to the way in which cards are automatically cut and inserted into packs from a printed sheet, packaging biases sometimes emerge due to a failure to properly randomize the distribution, and B01 may be victim to this same mistake. This primarily matters when buying packs from a shop, as if the packaging bias holds true it's better to buy packs from the left side of a box to guarantee higher-rarity cards.
"Everyone please look forward to the launch! Thank you very much! Goodbye!"
Each of the hosts closed out the livestream with their own special farewells. Kozaki made the announcement that he will be expecting his first child in the fall, receiving his fellow hosts' congratulations as well as those of the viewers'. Kitanishi encouraged those watching to keep trying even if they don't understand the rules at first, to participate in events and take a look at the homepage. Producer Kawade spoke to each of the "strong and thoughtful" fans of Fire Emblem, stating that it would make him happiest if everyone could enjoy playing in the world of Cipher. Lynn stated that she had fun with the game even though it was her first time, and asked all of the viewers to look forward to playing Cipher.
Over 24000 viewers tuned into the broadcast, posting more than 16000 live comments during the stream. Afterwards a poll conducted for the remaining viewers showed an enormously positive reception to the game, with 77.2% of responders ranking the livestream "Very fun," 17.7% "A little fun," 3.2% "plain," 1.1% "Not very fun," and 0.8% "Not fun."
Today's article was made possible by the donations of our patrons at Patreon. The Lycian League is funded by public contributions from readers like you.
Today is the launch day for the Lycian League, a Fire Emblem Cipher-centric news organization that aims to provide comprehensive coverage on Nintendo & Intelligent System's latest trading card game. We will provide information regarding tournament play, events going on both in Japan and internationally, as well as upcoming booster sets and starter decks.
Our goal at the present is to raise awareness about the game and help foster a community for our readership, by translating relevant Japanese-language materials and starting up local organized play for the Japanese TCG in the United States and other English-speaking countries. In the long term we intend to help support Nintendo and Intelligent Systems in bringing the game over to the international market.
You can support us by donating to our main branch (which is Cardfight!! Vanguard centric but which covers the costs of Lycian League) at Patreon. Card shops, suppliers and other businesses may want to consider advertising with us; you may contact our senior editor through the main branch email, vanguardunitedstates@gmail.com.
. Featuring "Princes of Altea, Marth," "Lodestar, Marth," "Swordsman Known as Marth, Lucina," and "Protector of Ylisse, Chrom" the plastic deckbox comes packaged with every sealed volume of the July 21st issue, and is capable of holding up to 50 single sleeved cards. Whether double or triple layer sleeves will fit the box has not been addressed, but photos from Dream's official account suggest that at least double layers will fit the box.
, and all of the promotional cards distributed prior to B02: Soulful Flames of Light and Dark. At this time only 122 cards are known to exist counting Robin, and the guide's tie-in promo appears to have a set number of P01-015PR. Hence the Official Guide will contain information on three other cards that have still not been revealed as of yet. 
. Their most recent issue features Phoenix Wright and 
.
and the 
. For the second wave of sleeves fans were able to vote during the broadcast for what character they would like to see out of those introduced in War of Darkness and Awakening.
