Fire Emblem Cipher Series 15 Release!

Last week, 13 December, was the official release day for Fire Emblem Cipher Series 15! Titled “The Glimmering World“, this set is now available for purchase in Japan, or for import around the world from online retailers.

S15 is a rather ambitious set featuring characters from many different Fire Emblem games and spin-offs.The first half of the set is made of Red cards featuring characters from the NDS remake New Mystery of the Emblem and a few cards for Archanean-aligned characters and mirages from TMS#FE.

The other half of the set is split between Black and Yellow cards. The Black cards are for Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, a parallel to the Birthright-focus of S14. Yellow cards are split between Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776, with a focus on the House of Leonster.

Scroll on down below for a closer look at the cards and promotional items available in the set. NOTE: Some of the artwork and cards contained in this set do contain spoilers for their respective games. Proceed with caution if you’ve not yet finished playing these titles.

S15 – New Mystery of the Emblem Cards

Almost half of S15 goes to characters from New Mystery. In fact, this is actually the first time that FE12 has been featured in Cipher! As such, many remake-exclusive characters are appearing for the first time. At the forefront is Katarina, who gets a joined-art with herself in this SR/SR+ panorama.

Katarina became more popular lately after her recent inclusion in Heroes. Other New Mystery characters that appear in the gacha game also make their debut this set: Clarisse, who also gets an SR, and Legion.

The male version of the avatar, Kris, from FE12 also appears in S15, as seen in this joined-art panorama with Marth! The female version of Kris does not appear this set, though she may pop up later on. Malice also gets her first ever Cipher card.

Even characters who also originally appeared first in the older FE3 are getting cards for the first time! Ryan, Luke, Roderick, Arran, Wendell, Ellrean, Sheena, and Samson are all making their Cipher debut in S15 as well.

Some returning characters are having fun with FE12’s reclass system. Maria and Minerva switch places, with Maria getting an SR card as a Dracoknight and Minerva taking a turn as a Bishop! Yubello and Yuliya also decide to reclass as a Hero and Sniper, respectively.

A few other remaining characters get special cards in this set. Merric, Ogma, and Tiki each get one of the remaining SRs for S15. This is even Merric’s first SR!

Four other New Mystery ladies get R+ signed cards this set. All three WhitewingsEst, Catria, and Palla—shared a joined-art together with special gold foil signed variant cards. Elice also gets a special R+ card signed by Sumi Shimamoto, her voice actress from the old OAV.

S15 – TMS#FE Cards

The tail end of the red section of S15 contains a few cards for TMS#FE. Just like S14, it’s not a large portion of the set. However, it does give more cards to some returning main characters who will be rotating this year. This time around, it’s Tsubasa and Mirage Caeda who get some new cards. Tsubasa’s R even has her signature!

We also get another support character as a Colourless card this set: Barry Goodman! Barry is just as cheerful and supportive in his Cipher art as he is in-game.

S15 – Conquest Cards

The third quarter of S15 goes to characters from the Conquest version of Fire Emblem Fates. As you might expect, this portion of the set is a mirror of the Birthright section in S14. Most cards are Black, but there are a few White cards for enemies and also some dual-coloured cards as well. First up is an SR for our leading lady, Female Corrin!

The four Rs of this portion of the set are given to the four Nohrian royals: Xander, Camilla, Leo, and Elise. Xander and Elise also feature in specially foiled R+ variants.

Jakob takes the Black/White SR slot this time around, appearing as a butler. Lastly, as a counterpart to King Leo from S14, we also get Queen Hinoka as the final white SR this set. This beautiful lady is promoted as a Kinshi Knight, similar to her most recent Heroes appearance.

The few remaining playable characters in the set are all retainers. Odin and Niles share a joined-art this set, just like Hinata and Oboro from S14. Selena and Flora also get some new cards.

The last few cards go to NPCs or enemies in Conquest. First up is a new version of possessed Takumi, and also our first card for the generic Faceless enemies in Conquest. Last up is another dual colour card for Lilith.

S15 – Genealogy of the Holy War & Thracia 776 Cards

The last portion of S15 goes to characters from both Genealogy and Thracia. Like S12’s spotlight on Agustria, the focus for Yellow cards this set isn’t on a particular game, but on the House of Leonster. As such, Leif takes center stage with a new SR.

Leif’s parents Quan and Ethlyn get cards of their own alongside their son. Altena also returns to Cipher, snagging another action-packed SR for herself.

Travant makes his Cipher debut in this set, even getting a special joined-art R+ panorama with Quan. His son, Arion, also appears for the first time.

A few other Jugdrali characters make their Cipher debut this set. Leylea, Charlot, Friedrich, Eda, Linoan, and Reinhardt all get cards of their own. Perhaps due to his Heroes popularity, Reinhardt gets the last SR of S15.

Two other Jugdrali characters, also in Heroes, return this set as well. Seliph gets the last R and Olwen appears once again as well.

Cipher Mascots in S15

As usual, S15 includes four mascot cards mixed in the colours. Paladin Alice and armoured Sorcerer Valjean appear for the first time as Red cards. Nieve also gets her first Fates card as a dual Black/White “Chaos Hero”. Similarly, Randall gets his first Yellow card as a Duke Knight, rounding out the set.

S15 Secret Cards

This particular set features two secret cards: Marth and Camilla. Each is a reprint of their base R card from the set, but with special “chibi” artwork by Konfuzi Kokon. They also have some special foiling and even textured borders!

Booster Box Promos & Release Goodies

S15 booster boxes each come with an assortment of free goodies inside. This time around, each box includes one Preview Promo for S16, one holo Marker Card, and one Promo Sleeve Pack, chosen randomly from two possible options.

The promo cards are for Roy from Binding Blade and Celica from Shadows of Valentia. Both of them will be featured characters in S16 which releases next March. As is standard, these preview cards use the official art for their characters. Cards with the same text but with unique Cipher art will be included in with S16.

The holo marker cards each feature special, “chibi” artwork of Elise and Sakura. The art for these cards was originally used for promo cards given to attendees of this past year’s Cipher Sai festival in Japan.

Finally, the promo sleeves for S15 each feature unique, pixel artwork of Marth and Female Corrin. This breaks the previous sets’ trend of using box art or official promotion art for box sleeves. Each pack comes with five sleeves.

Furthermore, Japanese retailers also offered special release promotion notebooks for S15! Everyone who purchases one S15 booster box (or 16 loose packs) get one notebook and one sticker. There are three different notebook designs, each based on the three colours of S15.

The front of each notebook has larger art of Marth, Female Corrin, or Leif, while the backs have a collage of multiple artworks. Inside, the ivory-coloured pages also include a faded image of the lord on the bottom right corner. The sticker includes faces for all three lords.

Series 15 Promotional Cards

Thanks to Comiket, there are a lot of promo cards to go along with S15! As always, the first two promos of the set are the preview promos shown above. The next six are Tournament Promos:

The first two cards, Swordmaster Wrys and Nibelung Camilla, are unique cards only available in these tournament promo packs. Groom Marth, Bride Caeda, Summer Xander, and Smol Altena are all alternate art reprints. You can earn packs containing these cards by playing Cipher tournaments in Japan.

The next five promo cards of the set will all be available at this year’s Comiket! Christmas Lilina is a booth promo given to anyone who buys something from the Cipher Comiket booth.

The other four cards are all available within other purchases. Summer Lucina is in the white version of the Fan Boxes, and Summer Corrin is in the black version. Additionally, special Cavalier Duo versions of Abel and Cain will be included in the Galeforce CD.

One more S15 promo card has been announced so far for Marth. This unique card will be included in the February 2019 issue of Dengeki Nintendo which releases today! You can order a copy of the magazine via Amazon Japan. There’s been no word on whether Nintendo Dream will also include an S15 promo in an upcoming issue.

It’s possible that more S15 promos will still be forthcoming. If any are announced, we’ll be sure to post about it!

Set List and Closing

While this article aims to be an overview of S15, it does not include all of the cards the set has to offer. If you’d like to see clean, digital images of all cards in the set, including all of the rare + variants, you can view them on the Official Cipher website. You can also see all the cards and their translation on the Serenes Forest Cipher Wiki.

That’s all we have so far for S15! With the set now released, there will likely be no further news to share. However, we may still see some more promos revealed.

Stay tuned for further news and information regarding S16, the first set of 2019. Soon we’ll share the pre-release information and art that we’ve seen so far. Reveals and a Winter Livestream will likely be scheduled for next February. Details will probably be forthcoming sometime after Comiket has concluded.

Credits:

Much thanks goes to Chung F. and Xendrill for providing me with supplementary photographs for some cards! Additionally, the photo of signed Elice comes from the webshop Amenity Dream.

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