News: Tiki, Marth, Lucina, and Gaius in Second Set of Fire Emblem Cipher Sleeves

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.

Price Guide: Week of 6/21 Through 6/28

The following is a price guide for the week of 6/21/2015 through the week of 6/28/2015, comprising the primary high-rarity cards from B01: Warblade of Heroes. Rather than relying on auction sites to determine prices, the prices given below are based on averaging the day to day most expensive cards at Card Kingdom's Akihabara branch, at Grand Panda Canyon in Akiba, and at Cardbox Japan. Future guides will include additional retailers' in the price averages; at this time Card Kingdom and GPC are two of the biggest shops in the secondary market, with Cardbox being secondary to them, and web stores have yet to seriously adopt Cipher. In general GPC's prices are slightly higher than Card Kingdom's. The timeframe for the weeks given below is more limited than it may appear; Cipher launched on the 25th and the first price lists from a shop came out on the 24th, while the week of 6/28 ends on the 1st of July. 7/6/2015: Finalized prices for the week of 6/28 ending on 7/1 are now up.

Although most of the cards that made this list are Super Rare or above, the promotional cards "Prince of Piercing Principles, Chrom" and "Stoic Prince, Marth" are also included; unlike most promotional cards, these are not alternate artwork reprints of existing cards, but have a unique skillset and low availability. Chrom was given out to participants at official demo events of Fire Emblem Cipher, while a holographic print of Marth is packaged with the Japanese special edition of Fire Emblem: Fates. The difficulty of acquiring these cards and the small number distributed is driving up the price more than their skills.

"Knower of the Future, Lucina" is the breakout hit of the set, consistently outdoing other SR-rarity cards and coming out of this week at 1600 yen per card. Her signed SR+ print is currently the most expensive card in the game, averaging at the currency equivalent of over $50.

To convert from yen to US dollars, the quickest and easiest way is to introduce the decimal point two spaces in. So 400 yen becomes $4, and 4500 yen $45. However, this is only a pneumonic device, and should not be substituted for the real exchange rate. The real exchange rate of the yen is not 100 yen to $1 as is often thought, but is closer to 80 yen to $1 and fluctuates frequently. To get a truly accurate conversion, use either Google Finance's currency conversion or another financial exchange service.

Hero to His Country, Marth (SR)

230 yen (previous week) → 525 yen (current week)

Hero to His Country, Marth (SR+, signed)

2200 yen → 4180 yen

Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda (SR)

620 yen → 1200 yen

Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda (SR+, signed)

 1950 yen → 2640 yen

War-god of Talys, Ogma (SR)

200 yen → No data

Crimson Reaper, Navarre (SR)

230 yen → 330 yen

Crimson Reaper, Navarre (SR+, signed)

No data → 1500 yen

Manakete Princess, Tiki (SR)

830 yen → 1050 yen

Sable Order, Camus (SR)

150 yen → No data

New Exalt, Chrom (SR)

420 yen → No data

Knower of the Future, Lucina (SR)

 1110 yen → 1480 yen

Knower of the Future, Lucina (SR+, signed)

 5240 yen → 5880 yen

Sweetest Assassin, Gaius (SR)

250 yen → 300 yen

Pegasus Knight Paragon, Cordelia (SR)

970 yen → 1300 yen

Mage of Dark Obsessions, Tharja (SR)

660 yen → 1030 yen

Mage of Dark Obsessions, Tharja (SR+)

No data → 1400 yen

Chosen Warrior of Hope, Owain (SR)

50 yen → No data

Prince of Piercing Principles, Chrom (P01-005PR)

No data → 875 yen

Stoic Prince, Marth (P01-003PR)

No data → 1000 yen

News: Multicolor Inigo Harem Deck Tops GPC Tournament, First Tournament Video

Image credit

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.

Image credit

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

News: Booster Set 01: Warblade of Heroes, Starter Decks Launch

June 25th, 2015. Today is the Japanese launch date for B01: Warblade of Heroes (英雄たちの戦刃 Eiyuutachi no Senjin) the first booster set in Fire Emblem Cipher. The set is accompanied by starter decks S01: War of Darkness (暗黒戦争篇 Ankoku Sensou Hen) and S02: Awakening (覚醒篇 Kakusei Hen.) The War of Darkness deck contains only units from its eponymous group, comprising characters from Marth's continent of Archanea, while Awakening likewise contains only characters from Chrom's Ylisse. Warblade of Heroes is split evenly between support for both groups, which are color-coded as red for War and blue for Awakening. The set comprises 100 cards with 14 alternate prints; 48 Normal, 24 High Normal, 16 Rare, and 12 Super Rare cards. The fourteen alternate prints are six SR+ and eight R+ rarity cards with gold foiling, and the six Super Rare+ cards are signed by their respective character's voice actors. These will be signed by Midorikawa Hikaru (Marth), Tange Sakura (Caeda), Koyasu Takehito (Navarre), Kobayashi Yu (Lucina), Sawashiro Miyuki (Avatar/Morgan), and Asumi Kana (Lissa.) Each sealed box also contains a download code to unlock Minerva in Fire Emblem Fates.

Each box contains sixteen booster packs, with ten cards in each. One card in each pack is guaranteed to be a High Normal or higher. Exact distributions are unknown, but current information suggests that one is guaranteed four Super Rares in every box. Japanese auction prices currently put the base price for each SR at 1000 yen per card. The manufacturers' recommended price for one box is 5600 yen, or $45 at the current exchange rate. Certain retailers like AmiAmi will sell boxes for the currency equivalent of $40 or less.

The official Cipher Twitter account tweeted in commemoration of the launch.

“Finally release day for Fire Emblem 0 (Cipher) is upon us. Now the tides of victory within the World of Cipher are in your hands.” (Translation credit)

The Serenes Forest translation community is hard at work creating a functional wiki for the set, but in the meantime readers can turn to a text-only compendium of card translations created by Aubergine of the same community.

6/25 Update: Box openings have shown that every box contains 4 Super Rares and 12 Rares.

Image credit

Each sealed distributor carton contains sixteen boxes.

The set also launched alongside the first wave of Cipher's sleeve collection, which comprises four different character sleeves; Lodestar, Marth, Protector of the Halidom, Chrom, Bewitching Shaman from Plegia, Tharja, and the 25th anniversary dot character sleeves. Each sleeve measures 67x92 millimeters, and each pack of sleeves contains 65 sleeves. The 25th anniversary sleeves are decorated with the map sprites of the lords from the current thirteen Fire Emblem games, with Fire Emblem 7: Blazing Blade represented three times over by Hector, Eliwood and Lyn.

Warblade of Heroes will be followed up on by the second booster set on September 17th, B02: Soulful Flames of Light and Dark (光と闇の神焔 Hikari to Yami no Shinen.) B02 will include characters from Fire Emblem Fates, and will be accompanied by starter decks S03: White Night (白夜篇 Byakuya Hen) and S04: Dark Night (暗夜篇 Anya Hen.) S03 corresponds to Birthright and S04 to Conquest. MSRP for both starter decks is 1300 yen, approximately $10.50 at the current exchange rate, and 350 yen per pack or $2.99. Each sealed box of B01: Warblade of Heroes is packaged with one of two promotional prints of male or female Corrin, whose standard prints will be in B02. The white and black theme of B02 corresponds to the split versions of Fates, white the Hoshido path being represented by white and the Nohr path by black.

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.