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.
Today Nintendo announced the death of Iwata Satoru on July 11th 2015, from a cancerous growth in his bile duct. It was this same condition which prevented his presence at E3 last year, for which he had undergone surgery. Born on December 6th 1959 (Shōwa 34), Iwata died at the too-young age of fifty-five, making his thirteen years the shortest reign of any President of Nintendo. Since 2002 his radical vision for the future has repeatedly redefined the company's position in relation to the rest of the market, and set it above and beyond the scope of competing developers. Nintendo has lost its greatest President, and the fans have lost one of their best friends.
Iwata is someone that we cannot write about impersonally. Composing an exhaustive list of all the games he contributed to in life is likely impossible; Iwata was a constant presence working alongside Nintendo's development staff even after ascending to the position of President, and for every game he worked on there lies a story and more uncredited work behind it. Several of his contributions only became known years after the fact, and there's likely still more that will never be public knowledge. While Iwata is famous for reprogramming EarthBound from scratch midway through its development, for this editor Iwata's greatest accomplishments were in the late 90s and early 2000s. We first came to know Iwata through his work on Super Smash Bros. Melee, on which many sleepovers and afternoons were spent. Even now the arguments over whether Marth or Roy was better still come to mind. The handheld Kirby games filled many long car rides across the United States, and in each of his games a small piece of Iwata's soul touched our lives. His revolutionary direction as President fundamentally changed Nintendo into a developer for more than just gamers, achieving a level of proliferation with the Wii that the press could never have anticipated. His policies of openness between developers and fans lead to the creation of Iwata Asks, a column hosted on Nintendo's official site in which he would interview game developers about their upcoming projects. With Iwata gone, the future of the column is uncertain.
Iwata was the first President of Nintendo to cut his teeth on programming video games before ever ascending to the position, but what characterized his career most strongly was how he retained a developer's mindset even after succeeding President Yamauchi. Setting him apart from the distant Yamauchi was that while Yamauchi died having never played a video game, Iwata had hands-on experience with both playing and developing games. To prevent new titles from languishing in obscurity, he gave his seal of approval to games that would have otherwise struggled to find funding. (Of note is that several years prior to his presidency, Iwata was one of the executive producers for Doshin the Giant. Could such a bizarre game have ever existed if Iwata and Miyamoto hadn't done the executive coordination to get it funded?) His constant involvement with a huge variety of Nintendo's titles left Iwata's mark everywhere. The compression tools he created doubled the content of Pokémon Gold & Silver, and the debugging work he did over the course of three weeks on Melee was some of the most important ever done in the field. His code now lives on forever in the screens of the annual Apex and EVO tournaments.
Following his sudden departure, Iwata's place is being filled by representative directors Takeda Genyo and Miyamoto Shigeru. Our prayers are with them during this difficult time. Several insensitive comments have already been made regarding Iwata's death and this year's E3. Please be respectful of the Iwata family's grief in the days ahead, as well as that of his friends' and coworkers'.
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.
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 
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