On June 23rd, the 5th Series of the Fire Emblem Cipher card game, Overcoming Rivalry, will finally be released. As a celebration, and to show off some of the set’s most anticipated cards, Ryota Kawade and Tsutomu Kitanishi hosted another pre-release livestream on NicoNico.
The hosts had a number of special guests join them throughout the presentation. Hagi Michihiko, Ike’s Japanese voice actor, was there to start off the show, and they were also joined at various points by Hayato’s voice actor VALSHE as well as Koutarou Yamada, artist of the Hasha no Tsurugi manga and contributor to the upcoming set.
The main purpose of the livestream was to show off some cards from the upcoming set, which features characters from Binding Blade and Radiant Dawn. These included previously-seen cards shown in person for the first time, plus many cards that had not yet been revealed, such as some of the most popular and elusive SR+ cards.
The first SR+ card shown was a signed Sothe, confirming for the first time that signed cards will be making a re-appearance in S5. Naturally, Micaiah has a signed SR+ card as well, and the two alternate art cards can be put together to make a single art, just like their regular SR counterparts.
On the Binding Blade side, both Roy and Narcian will be receiving signed SR+ cards. Joining them are Lilina and Radiant Dawn’s Sanaki, with both of their SR+ cards featuring a gold text quote about the character.
Soon afterwards, we got to see all four promo cards that will be inserted into booster boxes. As usual, each box will be coming with one of two promos as a preview for the next set. Series 6 will feature characters from Fire Emblem Fates and Genealogy of the Holy War, so the two promo cards for S6 were revealed to be Xander and Sigurd.
In addition to the preview promos, each booster box will also come with one of two possible promo cards celebrating Cipher’s 1st anniversary. One is Marth, a reprint of his V-Jump promo, and the other is Chrom, a reprint of a card originally given out at Cipher demonstration events. Both cards come with a special anniversary stamp.
After this, more cards from the booster box series were shown, randomly chosen from packs that were opened during the presentation. Among them were an R+ version of Nailah from Radiant Dawn and the final SR to be revealed, Sophia from Binding Blade.
Many other new H, HN, and R cards were shown for a variety of characters from both games. See if you can name them all!
Of course, the presentation wasn’t all about the Series 5 cards. Riko Wakana reprised her role as Felicia and brought some comic relief to the show, and VALSHE sung one of her own songs as well as the beginning of the Fire Emblem opera theme. We were also graced with a lot of promotional artwork for Cipher and its upcoming anniversary.
Towards the end of the presentation, we were able to learn some new information about the upcoming Series 6 set, 閃駆の騎影 (Storm of the Knights’ Shadows), coming out on September 29th. S6 will feature Fates characters from Nohr and Revelation and will debut characters from Genealogy of the Holy War as well.
In addition to the above official image, many art pieces were shown of other characters that will be featured in the set, including Quan, Ethlyn, Siegbert, and Charlotte.
During this time, Kawade showed off a teaser image of the longest Cipher artwork to date! This whopper features Xander and Ryoma in the middle with space for six other characters, three on each side. Although the spaces are intentionally blanked out, the other royal siblings seem like the obvious choice.
We even got to see a few pieces of art for December’s Series 7 which will focus on the Hoshido side of Fates as well as characters from Blazing Sword. Lyn, Ryoma, and an unfinished sketch of Hector were all prominently displayed.
Since the livestream, a few more additional cards have been released by various sources, all of them upcoming promo cards for S5. Dengeki Nintendo and Nintendo DREAM both have new issues coming out on June 21st, and each magazine has its own S5 promo, Roy in the former and Lilina in the latter.
Additionally, Amazon Japan has released official images of the Micaiah promo that will be available in the Series 5 Official Guidebook. The guidebook will be released on July 22nd. Both the magazines and the guidebook come with 2 copies of their given promo card.
With Series 5 coming out in less than a week now, it’s hard not to be excited! Feel free to come chat with other fans about the upcoming cards in the Cipher subforum while you wait for your boxes to arrive. If you’d like some more information about Cipher, including links and information about purchasing cards, please check out my Newcomer’s Guide.