The sixth expansion for Fire Emblem Cipher was officially released last week! Titled Storm of the Knights’ Shadows, Series 6 features characters from the first generation of Genealogy of the Holy War alongside Nohrians from Fire Emblem Fates. Now that everything is released, we can take a look at everything the set has in store for us.

Booster boxes for Cipher don’t just include packs of cards, but they also come with some extra goodies as well. Boxes for S6 contain two extra gifts: a small pack of promotional sleeves and a set of promo cards. The sleeves for this set feature either the box art for Genealogy or some promotional art of Elise and Sakura from Fates.

Among the card packs, there are two preview promo cards for Series 7 as well, one of Eliwood from Blazing Sword and one of Ryoma from Fates. These two are the main characters for S7 which will be released in early December, and these cards use their existing official artworks.

The other promo cards are 1st Anniversary reprint promos featuring either Male or Female Corrin. These cards were originally printed in Dengeki Nintendo and Nintendo Dream in November 2015, and the reprint versions have a slightly different number as well as a special stamp in the upper right corner to mark them as anniversary promos.

The first half of the booster series’ cards themselves are dedicated to first generation of characters from Genealogy of the Holy War. Sigurd is the star of the set, and he and Arvis share a gorgeous joined-artwork card together in their SRs, locked in a deadly battle.

Other SR cards from Genealogy are given to a selection of popular and important Genealogy characters: Deirdre, Quan, Ayra, and Lewyn. The two SR+ cards in this half of the set feature alternate artwork Sigurd and Deirdre in a beautiful scene together, a much happier joined art than the Sigurd/Arvis battle scene.

Because of the small size of the cast, we’re lucky enough that every playable first generation character from Genealogy gets a card, though some characters and arts are ST Deck exclusive and therefore do not appear in the booster series. We also get cards for some other NPCs aside from Arvis: Eldigan and Mahnya.

Although we don’t have a Pegasus Trio to make a triple joined artwork, we do still get a 3-card panorama by artist Mayo featuring younger versions of Quan, Sigurd, and Eldigan as friends. Happy art like this is a nice contrast to some of the more poignant card, such as Ethlyn’s R card that depicts her battling in the Yied Desert.

Although this set focuses solely on the first generation, we do get a sneak peak of the Genealogy second gen cards coming in Series 8 next year with this set’s “secret” Seliph R+X card. Like the secret Eliwood from S5, Seliph’s card uses S8’s numbering, revealing himself to be “B08-052R”.

The second half of the set is devoted to Nohrian-aligned characters from Fire Emblem Fates. All four of the Nohiran Royal Siblings get joined art SR cards that can be laid next to each other to form a long panorama.

Additionally, all four siblings have signed SR+ versions available as well! Because these cards are part of the panorama, they are not given alternate artworks and are instead just signed versions of the regular SR cards, similar to how signed cards were handled prior to Series 5.

There are still plenty of alternate artwork cards to find found, however, primarily among the R+ cards, such as this alternate art R+ card for Felicia, shown for reference next to her regular R card.

Many of the other Fates cards are devoted to villains or reclassed characters, such as the final Black SR card of Charlotte as a Hero. Charlotte may seem like an odd choice for SR to some, but she’s a very popular character in Japan (especially as a partner for Xander), and was also given a set of sleeves and a tournament promo in this set.

Other reclassed characters include Niles as a Bow Knight, Beruka as a Malig Knight, Forrest as a Butler, and both Arthur and Peri as Paladins. For villains, we get to see Arete and also a younger, unpromoted Garon as a Cavalier. The other villain cards may be spoilery for those who have not completed Fates, so you can click here to see them.

Emma and Shade also make a return as the Cipher Mascots for this set. Emma appears as a Yellow card to help give them more Flyer support, while Shade appears as a Black card as either a Witch or a Maid.

In addition to the Booster Series, S6 also contains a Structured Deck starring Genealogy characters. The deck includes holo versions of the trio Cavalier art, new holo cards for Sigurd, Deirdre, and Quan, plus cards for Arden and Lex, who are deck-exclusive characters.

Other matching merchandise includes four packs of 65 sleeves featuring artwork of either Sigurd, Deirdre, Raquesis or Charlotte. Additionally, a S6 guidebook will be released later this month containing game information and a card compendium.

Additionally, we have information and images for all of the promotional cards available in S6. As usual, the preview promo cards shown above are the first two promos of the set, and the next six are all special promos available to players who compete in Cipher tournaments in Japan.

Arden and Charlotte are new cards, while Deirdre, Ayra, Leo, and Felicia are all alternate reprints of cards available in the main set. These cards are only available to tournament participants so they can’t be ordered from regular retailers, but they can be bought as singles from various Japanese auctions sites.

There are also two magazine promos available as a part of this set, P06-009PR Sigurd and P06-009PR Ayra, both of which were released last month in the most recent issues of Nintendo Dream and Dengeki Nintendo respectively. The last S6 Promo is of Eldigan, and this will be the promo that is released in the S6 Guidebook coming out late October.

A complete listing of all Series 6 cards, as well as their translations, can be found on the Booster Set 6 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.