Fire Emblem Cipher‘s seventh expansion, Rise to Honor, was finally released last week! This set features cards based on characters from Blazing Sword alongside Hoshidans from Fire Emblem Fates. Now that all of the cards are available, we can finally take a look at everything this set brings to the game.

For the first time, Cipher S7 booster boxes included special holographic marker cards as a promotional gift, each box coming with one of two cards. One features artwork of Marth, along with several of his friends, used in a promo card in the Fire Emblem Festival DVD The other is a particularly festive Camilla, originally from a Comiket89 promo card.

Packaged along with the markers cards are two preview promo cards for the next Cipher set, Series 8, which is titled Life and Death: Crossroads of Fate. The two possible cards are Chrom from Awakening and Seliph from Genealogy of the Holy War. Both of them will feature strongly in this set, which releases in March 2017.

The final promotional gift included in the boxes are small sets of promotional sleeves. One sleeve design features the box art from Blazing Sword, the other uses special art of Azura originally used as the cover for the Fates OST.

The first half of the booster set’s cards are devoted to characters from Blazing Sword. Although Eliwood is the headliner Lord for the set, all three of the game’s Lords have a prominent role, with each of Eliwood, Lyn, and Hector getting their own SR card.

Eliwood and Hector also have special joined-art SR+ cards together, showcasing both Lords in their promoted forms, wielding Durandal and Armads against the Fire Dragon.

The other SR cards of the set are given to Ninian, Nino, and Lloyd. Ninian appears in the beginning of the set right after the Lords, showcasing her as the plot-important character that she is. Nino was always expected to have an SR based on her large popularity in Japan, and she’s proven to be quite the sought-after card as well!

Lloyd isn’t the only villain who gets a place in the series, either. All four members of the Four Fangs are represented in the set, as is Limstella who gets a very unique, non-gendered card.

Although there are too many playable characters in Blazing Sword for all of them to be represented, we still get a nice assortment of characters from throughout the game. The early part of the set references Lyn’s mode, with those characters appearing in their Lyn Mode recruitment order, rather than the order they appear in Eliwood’s mode.

Many of the game’s more popular characters are given Rare foil cards, such as Raven, Lucius, Rebecca, and Florina, with some of them even getting alternate art R+ prints! Eliwood also gets a R card in addition to his SR card, to make up for his lack of ST card since this set is not getting a matching Structured Deck.

The remaining spots are spread out among additional characters, including the only playable Shaman, Canas; the plot-important Pent and Louise; and also the Hector Mode exclusive Pegasus Knight, Farina.

The secret card for this set is Roy from Binding Blade, a Purple card with the number B09-054R+X. This implies that Roy will play a rather large role in the upcoming Series 9 set, which will also feature characters from the Hasha no Tsurugi manga as well as the two Tellius games, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.

The second half of the set is devoted to Hoshidan characters from Fire Emblem Fates. Just like their Nohrian counterparts in S6, all of the Hoshidan siblings have joined-art SR cards that can be connected to form a long panorama.

Additionally, Ryoma from S7 and Xander from S6 also fit together, for a very long (and expensive) eight-card parorama of all of the siblings!

As you can see in the above images, all of the Hoshidan sibling SRs also have gold foil signed SR+ versions available, though, these cards do not get alternate art prints so that they can still be a part of the panorama. Instead, the Fates alternate art cards are found in R+ cards, such as Setsuna.

In many ways, the Hoshidan cards of S7 strongly parallel the Nohrian cards of S6. For example, the fifth SR slot is given to Oboro who, like Charlotte, was a very popular, non-royal female characters. The last SR slot is of a rather spoilery villain that also makes a joined-art with his S6 counterpart; you can see both of those cards together here.

Once again, we have a number of reclassed characters as well. In addition to Kinshi Knight Setsuna and Basara Oboro shown above, we also get to see Hana as a Master of Arms, Rinkah as a Blacksmith, Kiragi as a Kinshi Knight, Mitama as an Onmyoji, and Sophie as a Great Knight.

Saizo and Kagero keep their standard Master Ninja promotions, but get a very nice and festive joined art together, dressed up for a Hoshidan festival. Their R+ artwork is the first vertically-joined artwork, and shows Kagero tossing Saizo into the air with fireworks in the background.

S7 rounds out the Fates playable character roster by including the first cards for late-joining characters Yukimura and Fuga. As a result, the only playable character from Fates who doesn’t have a card yet is Izana.

The end of the set focuses on NPCs from Fates such as Mikoto, Sumeragi, and Lilith. Mikoto and Sumeragi both get unpromoted cards which show them at an earlier point before the events of the game. We also get some villain cards that are a bit too spoilery  for those who have not finished the Revelation path, but you can click here to view them.

It wouldn’t be a proper set without the Cipher mascots arriving, too. The newest mascot, Lando, makes his second appearance in this set. Funnily enough, he is depicted here as a much younger Cavalier, to explain his older appearance in the Binding Blade set. Yuzu from Hoshido appears as both a Master Ninja and a Dread Fighter.

Merchandise released alongside S7 includes four sets of card sleeves featuring artwork of either Eliwood, Lyn, Ryoma, or Hana. Additionally, the S7 Guidebook will be released later this month, featuring a special promo card of Lyn (P07-010PR).

Other promotional cards currently known for this set will be available at Comiket 91 on December 29-31. A Lyn promo (P07-009PR) will be available to anyone who attends the Cipher booth, and two promo cards featuring sprite artwork of Cain (P07-012PR) and Abel (P07-013PR) as musicians will be included in the Caravan Concert CD.

The final two Comiket promos are of swimsuit versions of Camilla (P07-011PR) and Hinoka (P07-010PR) from Fates, and will be included in the Characters and Dot Art versions of the Players Boxes respectively.

The remaining promo cards for S7 are currently unrevealed. Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream has announced that there will be a new Cipher promo included in its February edition (released in late December), and it is likely that Dengeki Nintendo will have one for its matching issue, but neither one has yet been shown.

Similarly, the S7 Tournament Promos have yet to be revealed. We know there will be six of them, two new and four that are alternate art prints. However, all currently scheduled events are giving out either S6 promos or the Felicia and Flora promo cards originally given away at the Caravan Events. We’ll share more information as it comes available.

In the meantime, a complete listing of all Series 7 cards, as well as their translations, can be found on the Booster Set 7 page of the Serenes Forest Cipher Wiki. For more general information about Cipher, including links and information regarding purchasing cards, please check out my Newcomers Guide.

If you’re interested in discussing Cipher with other fans, come visit the Fire Emblem TCG section of the forums! You’re welcome to ask questions, get help with card rulings, post your pulls, trade/buy/sell cards, or arrange for online matches.

Much thanks goes out to Wolt, Xendrill, and Samuel O. from various Cipher communities for providing some additional photographs used in this article to supplement my own.