Today, 28 June, is the official release day for Fire Emblem Cipher Series 13! The set titled Flame, Steel, Thought and Grief is now available in card shops around Japan.
S13 features cards and characters from Blazing Sword, Shadow Dragon, and Heroes. It also contains a new Structured Deck featuring more FE7 characters. Scroll on below for a look at the available cards and related promos!
S13 Booster Series – Blazing Sword
The first half of S13 contains cards from FE7. As expected, all three of the main lords—Eliwood, Lyn, and Hector— play a large role, with each getting an SR card. These three cards even fit together to form a joined-art panorama! Furthermore, each is also available as a rare SR+ featuring signatures from their Heroes VA, which you can see above.
Many new Blazing Sword characters also make their Cipher debuts in this set. Most notably, Nils appears for the very time as an SR, with this super cute image featuring himself, Ninian, and Elbert!
Other new playable characters appearing for the first time include Wil, Dorcas, Lowen, Legault, Karel, Vaida, Renault, and Karla. The two blade-wielding siblings come as R foil cards.
We also get to see an assortment of NPCs appearing in the set. On the villain side, Lloyd and Sonia both get R foil cards, while Nergal and Ephidel also get their first Cipher cards.
For non-villainous NPCs, Leila gets her first card. S13 also contains the very first card for Niime, who is playable in Binding Blade, but only appears in conversation in FE7.
Some popular FE7 characters also return this set after being previously featured back in S7. Serra and Canas both make it back in and also snag the final two SR cards for this portion of the set!
Other returning characters get special treatment in the form of R+ cards. Pent and Louise have a gorgeous joined-art as alternate art R+ cards. Matthew and Ninian also both get signed R+ cards featuring signatures from their Heroes VAs.
The three pegasus sisters of FE7—Florina, Fiora, and Farina— shared a joined-art panorama across their HN cards. Finally, the last returning FE7 character in the set is a rather enthusiastic Guy.
S13 Booster Series – Shadow Dragon
The next portion of the set returns to Archanea! This time around, the cards are focused around Shadow Dragon specifically, and S13 features many remake-exclusive characters, such as Frey, Norne, Athena, Horace, Etzel, and Nagi. Athena even gets a textured foil SR card!
As could be predicted, Marth and Caeda get two of the remaining SR cards. They both also get SR+ cards featuring joined art of the two about to embrace!
Draug, Norne, and Lena also get alternate art variant cards! Each has a regular R and an R+ with different art. You can see both versions of their cards below.
In addition to many of the remake-only characters listed above, a few other SD characters also make their Cipher debut this set. Darros, Castor, Rickard, Jake, and Gotoh are all new, as is Gharnef.
The remaining cards are split between a few returning faces. Linde gets an SR for the first time. Cain and Abel also share the last two R foil cards for this portion of the set.
Jagen and Gordin are the last remaining Archanean characters this time around. Both have been absent in Cipher since S1. Additionally, this is the first time Jagen has actually appeared in a booster series! In S1 he was an ST-exclusive card and a tournament promo.
S13 Booster Series – Heroes
Characters from Heroes make up the final remaining section of the set! This time around, the set focuses on Book II, with new lady Fjorm getting top billing, including a signed SR+ card. She’s poised opposite Laevatein, who also gets a signed R+ card.
Both Alfonse and Sharena still appear, of course. Alfonse got the SR last Heroes set, so this time it was Sharena’s turn to shine. She gets a cute SR card featuring many other female Fire Emblem leads that have appeared in Heroes. Alfonse gets an R.
The remaining R of the set goes to the player avatar, Kiran, who also gets shown with some other Heroes units. Loki, Surtr, and Feh get the final Heroes cards.
Cipher Mascots & Secret Cards
It wouldn’t be a Cipher set without a few more of the Cipher original characters showing up! Nieve gets two cards in the FE7 half of the set, while Yuzu and Randall both get their first colourless cards.
S13 also features, not one, but two different “secret” cards this set! Both are R+X cards depicting alternate, chibi-style artwork for Ninian and Laevatein. As these cards are considered “secret”, they are not listed in the official set list. However, we can see them in these nice photographs from reseller aruberuto1999 on Yahoo!Japan.
Booster Box & Release Goodies
Booster boxes for S13 come with a number of goodies included, in addition to the 16 booster packs they contain. Each box comes with one Preview Promo, one Anniversary Promo, and one Promo Sleeve Pack, chosen randomly from two possible options.
The two preview promos for S14 feature Lucina from Awakening and Male Corrin from the Hoshido path of Fates. These are two of the main focus point for S14, with the third being Path of Radiance / Radiant Dawn. Both the Lucina and Corrin cards will appear in S14, but with new art instead of the official art that is used for these preview cards.
Marth and Chrom are the two 3rd Anniversary promos. Both of these are reprints of earlier promo cards that were exclusively available in certain magazines in years past. This time around, they also have a small 3rd Anniversary stamp in the upper right corner.
Finally, the promo sleeve packs contain art from Shadow Dragon and Heroes. The SD art is based on the DS boxart, while the Heroes art is promotional art that was used to promote the start of Book II.
Furthermore, retailers in Japan also have special release promotion goodies for S13! Everyone who purchases eight Cipher booster packs also gets one clear file, while supplies last. There are three different styles, one for Eliwood, Marth, and Sharena. The front features S13 Cipher art while the back has custom pixel art.
S13 Structured Deck – The Blazing Blade
S13 also saw the return of Structured Decks. We haven’t seen an ST deck in Cipher since the first Shadows of Valentia Cipher set last year. This is also the first time that an ST deck has focused on a game that’s already been included in Cipher. This time around, the honour goes to Blazing Sword.
Lyn is the star of the S13 ST deck. Not only is she the face of the ST deck, but it also comes with a special ST+ signed card from her Japanese VA, Makiko Ohmoto!
The ST deck also contains four other ST-exclusive cards: Eliwood, Florina, Erk, and Marcus.
Furthermore, Hector gets some ST-exclusive art! The card on the left onto appears in the ST deck, whereas the card on the right is from the booster series. Both cards have the same text.
The deck also includes many other FE7 cards also included in the booster series. All of these cards feature special “wide” artwork without border on the left, right, or top sides, making them perfect for collectors!
Cipher Series 13 Promo Cards
S13 features a large amount of promo cards this time around! As always, the first two numbered promo cards are the Preview Promos shown above. The next six are the S13 Tournament Promos:
The first two cards, Lyn and Summer Tiki, are both unique promo-only cards. Marth, Female Robin, Xander, and Mia are all reprints of earlier booster set cards with alternate artwork.
The next two promos are both magazine promos featuring Sharena and Fjorm of Heroes. Both of these promos are available in the August 2018 issues of Nintendo Dream and Dengeki Nintendo respectively.
Finally, two more Heroes promos will be given away at the upcoming Cipher Summer Party events in Japan! Everyone who attends an event will get both of these promos of Fjorm and Laevatein.
That’s all we have for S13! With the set now released, there will be no further news to share, and it’s unlikely that there will be additional promos before S14.
Stay tuned for further news and information regarding S14, the Cipher autumn set. In a few weeks, we’ll share the pre-release information and art that we’ve seen so far. Reveals and a Summer Livestream will likely be scheduled for this August!
