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.

News: Marth Decks Dominate Tournament Results, Tops Akihabara Tourney

Chrom didn't make the cut in Super Smash Bros., and he's not making it in Cipher.

Ten new tournaments took place between June 2nd and July 6th. Of the eighteen tournaments that have been reported on since the game's launch last month, twelve of them have been won by Marth decks. Accordingly, red is also the most consistent top in the game. The second most played deck of the Warblade of Heroes format is Inigo Harem, which has easily surpassed Chrom as the primary deck of choice for blue. Marth decks cumulatively account for more than two thirds of tops, while Inigo makes up 17% of the top decks. The rest is spread between rogue decks that have only topped once. An index of the most recent tournaments is provided below.

Marth Tops Cardbox, Masters Square, Card Brunch Motomiya Tournaments

Inigo Harem Tops Game Plaza and Nerima Tournaments

Multicolor Tiki Wins Kamata Tournament, Marth Tops Yellow Submarine Tourney

What should be kept in mind with these results is that more than a hundred shop tournaments took place in June, and a hundred more will have finished by the end of this week. Only about 8% of all tournaments that happen are reported, and so we are generalizing from a very small sample of data that may be skewed by the low number of reporting card shops. Provided that it is accurate, the first two weeks of tournament play should not see this kind of gulf emerge between Sword of Light and Mark of Naga decks. An ideally diverse format would be split 50-50 between the two colors.

Image credit

On July 8th, Card Kingdom Akihabara held a 16-person double elimination tournament, which became the second consecutive top for Lyndis, winner of the previous Akihabara shop tournament. Lyndis' deck underwent several major revisions between tournaments, most notably removing her cost 2 Tikis in favor of running cost 1 Nowi to accelerate her bond zone instead, as well as cutting Sumia to make room for the Tharja line. Tharja has been an unpopular choice in both pure blue and multicolor decks, requiring heavy reversal costs and restrictive handsize conditions in order to force the opponent to discard and gain attack bonuses.

With particular regard to "Mage of Dark Obsessions, Tharja," the costs and difficulty of setup can be worth the investment. If Tharja's cost 3 print was class changed from either her cost 1 or cost 2 variants, her reverse 3 skill forces the opponent to discard 3 cards, which effectively counters most forms of acceleration due to the low availability of true card advantage in the game. Without cards in hand the opponent can't place bonds, deploy units, discard for evasion, or discard for critical hits; at best they must choose two of those options to be available to them, and sacrifice the rest.

King TCG held its second shop tournament over July 2nd, and uploaded the results of the tournament to YouTube on the 4th. While the previous tournament was won by a conventional Marth deck, in this tournament finals Ogma made a surprise appearance as the champion's main character of choice.  The majority of players stick to Marth because of his ability to move an opponent's unit, controllign their field and exposing them to attacks. It's this very quality that has reinforced the use of units with Flying, as their shared support skill allows one to move units without setting them to the actioned state, allowing them to move and attack in the same turn.

By playing Ogma instead, the tournament winner gave up these qualities for a better offensive game. Basic Ogma becomes a 60 attacker as long as there are two other cost 2 or less allies in play. In his promoted state as "Steel Swordsman, Ogma" he both gains +10 attack every time a cost 2 or less ally is deployed and gives +10 attack to the deployed unit, preventing the opponent's defensive checks from blocking their attacks. Steel Swordsman can also become a range 1~2 attacker by reversing one bond, which gives him comparative levels of field control to "Lodestar, Marth" since the opponent can't move their units out of Ogma's range. This also gives him the freedom to move to the rearguard area and attack from there, where the opponent can't reach him.

The Chrom player in the finals ultimately lost the game as a result of mismanaging their bonds, being unable to play the cards they had in hand due to a combination of not having the right colors face-up at key times, and not having enough to pay the costs. They were also unable to ever take the lead in orbs due to their preoccupation with attacking allied units rather than Ogma himself, whose power skill benefited from needing to deploy replacements.

Card Kingdom (Akihabara branch) shop tournament
First place: Lyndis/リンディス
Cost 5: 4
x2 Hero to His Country, Marth
x2 Manakete Princess, Tiki
Cost 4: 10
x4 Lodestar, Marth
x3 Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda
x3 Mage of Dark Obsessions, Tharja
Cost 3: 7
x3 Wellspring of Youth, Nowi
x4 Pegasus Knight Paragon, Cordelia
Cost 2: 7
x3 Princess of Altea, Elice
x2 Bewitching Plegian Shaman, Tharja
x2 New Exalt, Chrom
Cost 1: 22
x1 Crown-prince of Altea, Marth (Main character)
x2 Ascetic Saint, Lena
x4 Crown-princess of Talys, Caeda
x4 Practitioner of Dark Arts, Tharja
x4 Young Prodigy, Cordelia
x4 Tomboyish Manakete, Nowi
x3 Liberation Army Archer, Gordin

News: Inigo Harem Tops Game Plaza and Nerima Tournaments

On June 28th card shop Game Plaza Genki 302 held a 16-person Swiss Draw tournament for Cipher; the tournament fell far short of capacity at only six participants, with first place going to Kisoda playing an Inigo Harem deck similar to the one played by Haro P a week earlier. The Inigo deck has been a popular choice in the formation of the early tournament scene, as it can quickly turn into a defensive wall outside the reach of standard attackers, and rack up a strong offensive with a swarm of different Pegasus Knights cards. Second place went to Matt, and third to Lihou.

One particular offensive combo has been noted in Japan for taking advantage of a Flying-affinity lineup in a way no other deck can. The CCS of "Gentle Flower of the Shepherds, Sumia" gives +10 Attack to every unit that's supported by card with the Flying affinity, and this combos with "Guardian of Rosanne, Cherche," whose Wyvern Screech skill gives all Flying units +10 Attack. With over 70% of the deck being made up of Flying units, this on average doubles the attack power of every attacker other than Inigo.

Image credit

Game Plaza followed up on the tournament with another 16-person Swiss Draw competition on July 5th, but again had attendance problems with only 5 persons attending. Kisoda placed second in this tournament and Matt in third, with first place going to Higashi playing a Sword of Light deck. This is one of the most streamlined versions of the Sword of Light build seen since its debut, focusing on promoting five core lines of units and supporting them with a lineup of 25 support cards that each either overlap with the promotion lines or can act as reliable low-cost attackers that don't interfere with the deck's overall strategy. "Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda" is the defensive axis of the deck, able to search the deck when her attakc hits for copies of Marth to use for evasion, and "Crimson Reaper, Navarre" is its offensive axis, destroying a second enemy unit every time he destroys one by battle.

Image credit

On July 3rd, the Nerima branch of Card Kingdom hosted a 16-person Swiss Draw tournament. This tournament marked the second top by Taketea, who had also won the previous week's tournament. Although he played an Inigo Harem deck like Kisoda above, as at the previous tournament, Taketea thanked his "working 3" the Pegasus Knight sisters Palla, Catria, and Est, who have quickly become his trademark in local play. The multicolor deck shares a number of characteristics with the monocolor Marth build he played in the previous week, using Minerva's Iote's Shield to protect his units with Flying, and setting up his field with the lower-cost Pegasus sisters prior to promoting.

Game Plaza Genki 302 shop tournament (6/28)
First place: Kisoda/キソダ
Cost 4: 4
x2 Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda
x2 Affectionate Saint, Lena
Cost 3: 20
x4 Man of Flower's Fragrance, Inigo
x4 Gentle Flower of the Shepherds, Sumia
x4 Guardian of Rosanne, Cherche
x2 Pegasus Knight Paragon, Cordelia
x2 Aura's Heiress, Linde
x4 Wings of Restoration, Caeda
Cost 1: 27
x4 Cultivator of Smiles, Inigo (Main Character)
x4 Wyvern Loving Knight, Cherche
x4 Young Prodigy, Cordelia
x4 Maiden of Flower Fortunes, Sumia
x2 Eldest Pegasus Rider, Palla
x3 Young Princess of Macedon, Maria
x2 Crown-Princess of Macedon, Minerva
x2 Middle Pegasus Rider, Catria
x2 Youngest Pegasus Rider, Est

Game Plaza Genki 302 shop tournament (7/5)
First place: Higashi/ヒガシ
Cost 5: 1
x1 Hero to His Country, Marth
Cost 4: 14
x4 Lodestar, Marth
x4 Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda
x4 Sage of Gales, Merric
x2 Crimson Reaper, Navarre
Cost 3: 5
x3 Steel Swordsman, Ogma
x2 Wielder of a Bloody Blade, Navarre
Cost 2: 4
x4 Princess of Altea, Elicei
Cost 1: 26
x2 Crown-prince of Altea, Marth (Main character)
x4 Mage of Winds, Merric
x4 Crimson Fencer, Navarre
x4 Talysian Mercenary, Ogma
x4 Liberation Army Archer, Gordin
x4 Crown-princess of Talys, Caeda
x4 Princess of the Divine Dragon Tribe, Tiki

Card Kingdom (Nerima) shop tournament
First place: Taketea/竹てぃー
Deck name: Triangle △ Formation/トライアングル△フォーメーション
Cost 3: 22
x3 Pegasus Knight Paragon, Cordelia
x2 Eldest Pegasus Sister, Palla
x2 Middle Pegasus Sister, Catria
x2 Youngest Pegasus Sister, Est
x3 Princess, Minerva
x2 Wellspring of Youth, Nowi
x4 Gentle Flower of the Shepherds, Sumia
x4 Man of Flower's Fragrance, Inigo
Cost 2: 2
x2 Princess of Altea, Elice
Cost 1: 26
x2 Cultivator of Smiles, Inigo (Main Character)
x3 Princess of Talys, Caeda
x1 Practitioner of Dark Arts, Tharja
x2 Intellectual Inquirer, Miriel
x3 Young Prodigy, Cordelia
x2 Eldest Pegasus Rider, Palla
x2 Middle Pegasus Rider, Catria
x2 Youngest Pegasus Rider, Est
x3 Crown-princess of Macedon, Minerva
x4 Maiden of Flower Fortunes, Sumia
x2 Young Princess of Macedon, Maria

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: Sword of Light Tops Master's Guild Tournament

Image credit

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

News: War of Darkness Tops Card Kingdom Shop Tournament

June 26th, 2015. A representative of the Nerima branch of card shop Card Kingdom tweeted the results of their weekly Fire Emblem Cipher shop tournament, congratulating tournament champion Taketea (@taketea0hyuga) for winning the 16-man tournament. Card Kingdom is one of the most notoriously competitive shops in Japan, with each of its six branches hosting regular tournaments for each of their supported Trading Card Games. In the west the shop is primarily known as the inspiration for Cardfight!! Vanguard's fictional Card Capital; the owner of the franchise was a friend of Bushiroad CEO Takaaki Kidani prior to the company's rise to prominence in the TCG market. Taketea's decklist is transcribed at the bottom of the page.

Taketea's deck uses three primary cost 1s; Navarre, Gordin, and Tiki. Navarre is invaluable in the first turns of the game because his power rises from 40 to 60 if he and the main character are the only allies on the field, all but guaranteeing that his attack will go through and take an early orb from the opponent. Gordin's range 2 lets him attack the vanguard from the rearguard without fear of reprisal. The two become all the more dangerous when promoted to their cost 4 and 3 versions. Navarre becomes capable of destroying another non-main character unit every time he destroys a card by battle, while Gordin can move the opponent's Flying units every time a cost 2 or less ally is played. Gordin's attack power is below average both prior to and after promotion, but because his permanent skill gives him +30 while attacking a Flying unit, he can effectively check against decks that try to set up Triangle Attack combos.

Tiki forms the lead in the deck's support lineup. Because Tiki's support skill can accelerate bond control by putting a card from hand to the bond area every time she's support checked, Sword of Light decks have an incentive to run her for her support alone. Moreover, she becomes a base 60 with 4+ bonds in play, which puts her on par with "Crimson Fencer, Navarre" and "Talysian Mercenary, Ogma" as a big basic unit that can make an effective attacker.

Taketea's other support cost 1s are Caeda, Wrys, and the three cost 1 Pegasus Sisters. Caeda and the Pegasus Sisters all have the same support skill of moving a unit other than the attacking unit when checked, which lets a unit that has already attacked move to the rearguard to protect it from vanguard attacks. Caeda also promotes into a cost 4 that can search out cost 2 and lower tech cards like Elice and Ogma, and units with Flying as a whole play into the deck's cost 4 Minerva, who powers up based on the number of Flying units in play.

Wrys is valuable in most Sword of Light decks because his support preemptively prevents critical hits from being used, which can prevent a key unit from being taken out of play. Defensively he can also protect vulnerable allies with his action skill.

The Pegasus Knight sisters are one of the most subtly important aspects of the deck. The object of running so many units with Flying is to get out Princess Minerva, whose Iote's Shield ability forces all enemy archers to lose "Clear the Skies," the skill that gives them a permanent +30 bonus versus Flying units, mimicking its in-game effect of nullifying effective bonuses. Each of the Pegasus Sisters can action herself and reverse 2 bonds to search for one of the other Pegasus Sisters and play them, creating one of the cheapest swarming tactics to come out of Warblade of Heroes. Unlike other players that try to use the cost 3 versions of the Pegasus cards to initiate a Triangle Attack with 100 base power, Taketea instead runs just the cost 1 Pegasi with Minerva, to setup a field that will make Minerva continually have 80 base power.

This works like a slightly weaker but less costly and always-active Triangle Attack, that also doesn't give up any allies for the turn. Since each Pegasus can search for each other Pegasus, it's fully viable to at the late stage of a game play one Sister, search for another one, and then search for the third one with that one's skill, then play a Minerva from hand to nullify Clear the Skies and attack for 80. These are search skills, so there's also no need to run all three sisters in high quantities when drawing any one of them can be as good as drawing all of them, and they conveniently circumvent bond costs by playing one another straight from the deck--with only two bonds in play, one can play three Pegasus Sisters, two from hand and one from deck.

Finally, Taketea's main character line is Marth, but while many were theorizing around maximizing main character lines to increase opportunities to perform critical hits and evasion, Taketea instead shaved off the fourth copies of his cost 4 and 5 Marths to make room for ally units. "Lodestar, Marth" can come out as early as the third turn via promotion cost, and once per turn can move a rearguard enemy to the front when an ally is played, which synergizes with the Pegasus Sisters' ability to search one another, as well as with Caeda's search skill. "Hero to His Country, Marth" is the defensive end goal of the deck, as 70 base power is the highest unmodified original power allowed on any card. By reversing three bonds and discarding any Marth, he gives +30 to all allies until the end of the opponent's next turn, ensuring that even if the opponent survives the current turn, they won't be able to destroy anything during their own.

By saturating his deck with strong unpromoted units that synergize towards a few key plays with his higher costed ones, Taketea built a deck that could simultaneously play a game of overwhelming force with field swarming while also seizing control of the endgame. The deck notably uses less than 20 promoted units, which is shaping up to be typical of the Japanese metagame at this time. One feature of Cipher that's been observed repeatedly is an in-game bias against higher costed cards, as a direct result of lower costed ones being cheaper and more easily played.

First place: Taketea/竹てぃ (Pseudonym)
Deck name: The Deck I Thought Strongest/ぼくのかんがえたさいきょうのデッキ
Cost 5: 3
x3 Hero to His Country, Marth
Cost 4: 12
x3 Crimson Reaper, Navarre
x3 Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda
x3 Lodestar, Marth
x3 Princess Minerva
Cost 3: 2
x2 Archanean League Bowman, Gordin
Cost 2: 4
x2 Princess of Altea, Elice
x2 Strong-armed Gladiator, Ogma
Cost 1: 29
x4 Crown-Princess of the Divine Dragon Tribe, Tiki
x2 Pegasus-riding Little Sister Knight, Est
x2 Pegasus-riding Lady Knight, Catria
x2 Pegasus-riding Big Sister, Palla
x4 Crimson Fencer, Navarre
x2 Talysian Mercenary, Ogma
x4 Healing Priest, Wrys
x4 Liberation Army Archer, Gordin
x4 Crown-Princess of Talys, Caeda
x1 Crown-Prince of Altea, Marth (Main Character)

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.