This past Saturday, the Fire Emblem Cipher team held the Series 12 Pre-Release Livestream live over NicoNico! Voice actresses Hibiku Yamamura (Rinea and Shade) and Minami Takahashi (Peri and Alice) joined Ryota Kawade and Young as hosts.
Like most pre-release streams, the main draw was opening up packs to show off new cards for S12, which focuses on Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn, Genealogy of the Holy War, and Awakening. Kawade also revealed some additional artwork for the summer set, S13. Read on below for a full breakdown!
New Card Reveals
Half of the cards in S12 feature Tellius characters. As such, most of the cards shown off during the stream are characters from PoR or RD. The most exciting reveal in this portion of the set is the final green SR, which goes to the Black Knight. Following tradition, @fecipher posted the full digital version of the Black Knight’s SR later on Twitter.
Two new signed cards were also revealed during the stream, Mist SR+ and Soren R+!
Kawade showed off a few other Tellius cards throughout the stream. In addition to Greil and the Black Knight, whose cards we’ve already seen, more members of Daein’s Four Riders also get cards this set: Petrine, Bryce, and Bertram.
Other green reveals include some new characters as well as returning favourites: Astrid, Leanne, Rajaion, and Reyson. Astrid’s new card is an R foil card, while the others are Ns or HNs.
Most of the high ticket Genealogy and Awakening cards have already been revealed, but the Cipher team did save a few surprises for the stream. On the Jugdral side, we got to see a new R card for Nanna, and also a SR+ Lachesis! The card is signed by Lachesis’s Japanese voice actress in Heroes, Saori Ōnishi.
For Awakening, there was less to show off, but we did get a glimpse of a new card for Adult Tiki.
Promotional Cards & Goodies
As usual, S12 booster boxes come with an assortment of goodies. Kawade opened up a box himself early on in the stream to show off some of them. The card on the left here shows Fjorm from Heroes, a preview promo card for the upcoming S13. The middle card is a holographic marker card. Finally, the right-most item is a small pack of promotional sleeves featuring Nowi and Tiki.
Young showed off the other versions of all three promo items: a Laevatein preview promo, red marker card, and Path of Radiance sleeves. Each booster box contains one preview promo, marker card, and sleeve pack, assigned randomly.
S12 also features another release promo, this time with postcard packs. Cipher players or collectors can each get one pack of postcards per booster box (or 16 packs) purchased from participating retailers. As before, AmiAmi is participating, which is good news for those us us who import their cards internationally.
The Cipher team also took the opportunity to formally reveal the S12 tournament promos! Take a look at the assortment below. These higher-quality sample were released online after the stream.
The first two cards, Yune and Gregor, are both brand new cards that are unique to tournament promo packs. The other four cards—Soren, Lachesis, Ares, and Tiki—are each alternate art reprints of set cards. Tiki’s card is a reprint of her first Cost 1 card from S1, which was also reprinted recently as a Cipher Sai promo.
Series 13 Artwork
Our first look at S13 artwork this stream actually came in the middle and as something of a surprise. When illustrator Tetsu Kurosawa appeared on stage, he came bringing his own artwork of Linde from Shadow Dragon with him!
Later on in the stream, Kawade showed off a few other art pieces as well. Also from Archanea, we get some new art of Marth and also of Norne, who will be making her Cipher debut.
From Blazing Sword, we get to see another shot of Lyn’s tournie promo card art, and also some new art for Serra, Karel, and Dorcas.
Finally, we also get some new Cipher art for some of the Heroes original characters, Alfonse and Loki.
All three of these games will be represented in the upcoming S13 which releases in June. Based on the recently-revealed advertisement, it seems that FE7 will be getting the majority of the cards. We can expect to see proper reveals for S13 starting sometime in May.
Livestream Guests
As previously mentioned, Hibiku Yamamura (second from right) and Minami Takahashi (second from left) helped host the stream. Both have been guests on previous livestreams, and they were active and happy participants in opening up packs and showing off cards.
Cipher illustrator Tetsu Kurosawa (center) also popped by in the middle of the stream. In addition to the Linde art he brought with him, he also did some sketches during the show: Lissa and Makalov, Nowi, Nah, and Fae.
Series 14 News?
Surprisingly, the entire stream went by without any mention of the upcoming S14, which should release sometime this autumn. The set was confirmed during the recent Winter Livestream, but was not mentioned at all this past weekend.
Many Cipher fans speculate that this could mean that S14 will features characters from the upcoming FE Switch. If that’s indeed the case, then we likely won’t hear any news about this set until we get more information about the upcoming game.
Closing & S12 Set List
After around two hours, the stream came to a close. As usual, all of our hosts and guests pumped the air in closing with a resounding “Ichi! Ni! Cipher!”
With the set releasing in a few short days, the official FE Cipher website just today released the full list of cards for the set! Feel free to peruse the list here at your convenience. It reveals a few surprising cards, including the regular SR art for Micaiah and some surprising R+ and SR+ choices as well.
After S12 has properly released, we’ll publish another article breaking the full set down. In the meantime, feel free to join us in the Cipher subforum on the forums! You can also check out the Cipher Wiki for translations of the cards and more detailed information.
