Cipher Series 15 Pre-Release Livestream: New Cards & Art, S17 Announcement, & More!

On Saturday, 8 December, the Cipher team held the Series 15 Pre-Release Livestream live over NicoNico and YouTube! As usual, Ryota Kawade (Cipher Producer) and Young led the show, along with recurring guest Eri Suzuki (VA for Soleil, Delthea, and Emma).

The focus of the day’s stream was mainly to showcase pack opening for the upcoming 15th Cipher booster series! The set, titled “Shining World“, releases this week on 13 December! It features cards and characters from New Mystery, Conquest, Genealogy, Thracia 776, and TMS#FE.

A number of visitors joined in during the stream, including FE voice actors and artists. Later on, they also showed off new art for next year’s S16 and shared the long-awaited announcement of S17! Read on below for further details and pictures.

New Series 15 Cards

Of course, with any pre-release stream, the main focus is showing off new cards. The twitter has already shown off many featured cards from the set, but we were still missing two SRs. Kawade revealed both of those during the stream: Hinoka and Ogma!

Hinoka SR appears as a Kinshi Knight. Similar to Leo’s SR from S14, the card is taken from a hypothetical future after the ending of Conquest‘s story. Ogma’s SR is a bit more straight-forward, but it features the spiked shoulder pads from his original FE3 art.

We also got a look at our first secret card for the set: Chibi Marth! If S14 is any indication, there will be more more secret card in this set. My money is on a Chibi Camilla using this unreleased art from the Comiket tapestries.

All of the other new booster pack cards were non-holo N or HN cards. From Mystery, our guests revealed: Arlen, Luke, Roderick, Ryan, Samson, and Wendell.

From Jugdral, we also get new cards for Arion, Charlot, and Eda, all of whom are making their Cipher debut this set. We also got to see a new card for Randall, who gets a yellow card in S15.

Only one new Fates card was revealed aside from Hinoka, and that card goes to Lilith. This is Lilith’s second appearance in Cipher, and her first time as a dual-color card.

S15 Booster Box Goodies & Promos

As usual, S15 booster boxes with some with a bunch of add-ons. Kawade opened a booster box in the beginning of the stream to show off one set of possible goodies: Pixel Marth sleeves, a shiny Chibi Elise marker card, and a Roy preview promo.

Young was ready and waiting to show off the other possible options: Pixel F!Corrin sleeves, a Celica preview promo, and a shiny Chibi Sakura marker card.

Furthermore, anyone who purchases a Cipher S15 booster box (or 16 loose packs) on release will get a special Cipher-themed A5 notebook, one of three designs. Kawade opened up a sample of one of the notebooks to reveal that the inside pages also feature faded Cipher art in the bottom corners!

Later in the stream, he also took the time to formally reveal this set’s matching tournament promo cards. These six promo cards are available in special Tournament packs from Cipher events in Japan. The first two cards in the set are completely unique cards only available here. They feature Swordmaster Wrys and a winter-themed Camilla.

The other four tournament promos give alternate art to existing cards. Three of them have art based on alternate versions from Heroes: Groom Marth, Bride Caeda, and Summer Xander. The fourth card features a young Altena riding a wyvern with big brother Arion.

S16 Art

Towards the end of the stream, our hosts took the opportunity to reveal some more, new art for next year’s S16. This spring set will feature cards and characters from Binding Blade, Radiant Dawn, Shadows of Valentia, and Heroes.

Binding Blade seems to be the main focus of the set, as new artwork was revealed for Roy… as the center of one large artwork. The current prevailing theory is that the eight cards around Roy will feature wielders of Elibe’s eight Legendary Weapons.

We also got to see new art for Celdia, Fae, and Saul. If Celdia doesn’t seem familiar to you, that’s probably because she was a character from the Hasha no Tsurugi manga only, and does not actually appear in FE6. She’ll be appearing in Cipher for the first time the set, same as Saul.

From Radiant Dawn, we get our second piece of art for Sanaki as well as new artwork for Brom and Kurthnaga. Brom will also be making his Cipher debut this set!

The SoV art we got to see all seems to be focused on Celica’s army. In addition to new art of Celica, we also get to see him cute art of her together with her brother Conrad when they’re young, and finally also some art for Jesse.

Finishing up the S16 art reveals are a few side game characters. First up is Spring Sharena from Heroes, appearing as she does in her special spring-themed alt. We also get to see new art of Emma, one of the Cipher original characters. Emma might be appearing her based on her DLC appearance in SoV, or in any other colour.

Fun with Cipher Guests & Upcoming News

This stream was one of the more ambitious Cipher livestreams with a very wide variety of hosts!

From left to right, here is everyone who showed up for the stream: Ryota Kawade, Eri Suzuki, Kazuo Natsuka (VA for Hinoka and Nanna), Tsutomu Kitanishi (Outrealms Salesman, previous Cipher stream host), Tetsu Kurosawa (Cipher Artist), Yuko Oguma (Cipher/Heroes Artist), Yamada Kotaro (FE6 Manga and Cipher/Heroes Artist), and Young. What a group!

The above picture was taken during a segment where everyone exchanged Christmas gifts. Lots of Nintendo and FE-themed gifts were in attendance!

The three artists also showed off some sketches they made for the stream. Kurosawa drew an older version of Genny. Kotaro’s art featured a side view of Lucina. Oguma’s chosen art was a chibified re-draw of her joined art of Grima and M!Robin from S14.

Kitanishi appeared to share the news and details for next year’s FE Expo. For full details, check out VincentASM‘s article about the Expo.

In between showing off cards and art and other banter, the guests talked about various upcoming Cipher-related events as well. They took the time to show off an in-person look at the merchandise that will be available at Comiket 95 later this month. Check out our earlier article for a look at everything.

They also revealed that the 2019 Cipher Sai events will be later in the year than usual. Previous events have been held in February or March, but this time they’ll be in June, one of the 2nd and one on the 16th. Plenty of time if you’d like to plan for a weekend!

S17 Announcement & Close

At the very end of the stream, we finally got the long-awaited announcement for Series 17, the set that should release in June of next year. Many Cipher fans were expecting a Three Heroes set, but I don’t think hardly anyone expected this…

Every main series Fire Emblem game will be appearing in S17, along with the Heroes and TMS#FE spin-offs! We also got to see a glimpse of two partial cards and one in-progress card art by Oguma herself.

At this point, we still don’t know quite how S17 will be handling all of the games. This set may be a reprint set with new versions of older cards, or it may be something entirely new. We may get further insight with the other livestreams airing closer to release date.

Shortly after, the stream came to a close. Kawade and Young will be back in 2019 with the next Cipher Winter livestream, yet to be announced but likely appearing in February. Stay tuned for more news at a later date!

About the Author: Kirie
Fire Emblem Cipher & Heroes News Editor