News: Cipher Deckbox Included in July Issue of Nintendo Dream Magazine

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.

Nintendo Dream has a history of promotion with Cipher, conducting an unboxing party livestream last month. The magazine's publisher, Tokuma Shouten, will be launching an official Cipher guide on July 24th, which comes with the exclusive "Enigmatic Tactician, Robin" promotional card.

Feature: Booster 1: Warblade of Heroes Box Opening

Our Cipher orders arrived earlier this week, so it's high time we get on with our first box opening. In addition to the Warblade of Heroes booster box we also ordered a War of Darkness starter deck and 25th Anniversary sleeves. We made our purchase on AmiAmi prior to the game's availability over Amazon; AmiAmi's base price was the most competitive online at the time, but once shipping is factored in it only becomes worthwhile if you're ordering additional products (or multiple boxes) on top of that.

Whether Amazon is worth your money now that there's several import services getting in on Cipher depends on your order; several Amazon sellers are offering free shipping but charging ~$70 per item, while AmiAmi is doing EMS shipping that will generally work out in the range of $30~36 depending on how many items you order and their combined weight, but only charging ~$40 per box. So if you're ordering multiple boxes, AmiAmi will generally work out as a better deal than buying through Amazon--two boxes on Amazon is ~$140, whereas on AmiAmi that would work out to ~$110. But if you're only ordering one, Amazon is better suited for that.

Our promo for the box is "Princess of Nohr, Corrin (♀)." Each Warblade of Heroes box comes with a print of either Corrin (♀) or Corrin (♂).

Each side of the box contains eight packs, with ten cards in each; depending on which card is the Rare or Super Rare, there are either 5 blue and 5 red cards in each pack, or 4 of one color and 6 of another. Each side contains six Rares and two Super Rare or higher cards.

Our first Super Rare was actually a signed Super Rare+! "Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda."

Our holos broke down as follows: "Eldest Pegasus Sister, Palla" (R), "Middle Pegasus Rider, Catria" (R), "Youngest Pegasus Sister, Est" (R), "Princess, Minerva" (R), "Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda" (SR+), "Gentle Flower of the Shepherds, Sumia" (R), "Pegasus Knight Paragon, Cordelia" (SR), "Wellspring of Youth, Nowi" (R), "Demure Dancer, Olivia" (R), "Man of Flower's Fragrance, Inigo" (R), "Sweetest Assassin, Gaius" (SR), "Guardian of Rosanne, Cherche" (R), "Exalted Strategist, Robin (♀)" (R), "Princess of Ylisse, Lissa" (R), "Chosen Warrior of Hope, Owain" (SR), and "Stoic Swordsman, Lon'qu" (R).

Overall the total value of the box's contents ranges from $70~$92 depending on whether you're looking at averages or peak highs for each card. Caeda and Cordelia together pushed up the cumulative value immensely. The pulls were about as blue as you can get; 11 blue holos and 5 red.

All of our red Normal and High Normal pulls.

All of our blue Normal and High Normal pulls. In total we're 14 cards short of having every nonsigned card in B01.

News: Nintendo Dream Broadcasts Unboxing Party

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. 

News: Sword of Light Tops Master's Guild Tournament

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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: 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.

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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.