Cipher Series 18 Pre-Release Livestream: New Cards & Art for Upcoming Sets!

Ryota Kawade and Kubocchan held the exciting Fire Emblem Cipher Series 18 Pre-Release Livestream this past Saturday! Hibiku Yamamura (voice of Rinea and Shade) and Yusuke Kobayashi (voice of M!Byleth) joined them for a fun couple hours of news and pack opening.

The main focus of this stream was to show off cards from Series 18, Oratorio of Embarkation, which releases later this week! The set features characters from Three Houses, Awakening and The Sacred Stones.

We also got to see this set’s Tournament Promo cards and a sneak peak of some art from upcoming sets. Read More below to check it all out!

Correction: Originally I posted some untrue information about a few rarities of cards in this set. These mistakes are now corrected. Sorry for any inconvenience!

New S18 Booster & ST Cards

Early in the stream, Kawade showed off some new and exciting cards from S18. Going into the stream, there were still three missing SRs and we got to see all of them: Eirika, Lucina, and Marisa! All of these SR cards are also available in special + variants. The photos above show the alternate art + version for Eirika and Lucina, and both the alternate and regular versions of Marisa.

Correction: Eirika and Lucina in the first image are actually a new rarity of card: Hero Rarity (HR). More details about HR cards and their rarity are still forthcoming.

We also got to see the + versions for Claude and Tharja! Claude’s SR+ features the same art but with a signature from his VA, Toshiyuki Toyonaga. Tharja’s uses alternate art.

The last new SR art shown was for L’Arachel. Her twitter reveal included her alternate-art SR+ card, but now we get to see the regular version as well, also by Mayo.

Kawade also revealed two new R cards, one for Dorothea and one for Nowi. These two cards are the final R cards for the set as well.

Based on these reveals, we get a pretty good insight into the rarity structure of the set. Just like in S17, there don’t appear to be any R+ cards or secret cards. This implies that S18 booster boxes will have the same pull rate, with 5 SRs per box and a 1/4 chance for one of those cards to be an SR+.

The ST Deck also comes with some of its own exclusive cards, and we got a glimpse of two new ones during the stream, one for Dimitri and one for Claude. These cards come in both holo and non-holo versions, but only in the ST deck.

In addition to the shiny cards, Kawade also showed off a spectrum of new N and HN cards from various packs he opened. From 3H, we got glimpses of cards for Ashe, Capsar, Ignatz, and Marianne. From TSS, we get Franz and Selena, and from Awakening, Aversa and Lissa.

S18 Tournament Promos

Cipher tournaments after the S18 release will give out promo cards from a wide variety of colours. The two tournament exclusive cards feature Dancer Edelgard and Paladin Amelia.

The other four tournament promos are alternate art reprints of existing cards: Male Byleth, Tharja, Tibarn, and Alfonse.

New S19 and S20 Art & New Rarity Revealed

Towards the end of the stream, Kawade also took the opportunity to show off a bunch more art for the upcoming S19, which will come out in December. The set is titled The Holy Flames of Sublime Heaven and features characters from Three Houses and Genealogy of the Holy War. Check out all the art below!

The most exciting art in this bunch shows Sigurd and Deirdre holding baby Seliph. This art will be used for a new-rarity HR (Hero Rare) card next set.

We also got a few more pieces of art for S20, which will come out next March and features characters from Radiant Dawn and Fates. The first image shows Xander and Ryoma swapped classes, while the other is an in-progress sketch of Reina. Little is known about this set so far.

With the pre-release livestream complete, we won’t have much more Cipher news to share before the set comes out in a few days. Soon, the official site will update with a set list, and we’ll post an article with full set information and photos after release date. I hope you’re as excited as I am!

Much thanks to Fuckérinos from the Cipher Discord and Kizuna for providing the screencaps used in this article.

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