Today is the official day of the Fire Emblem Cipher Series 19 Release! Those in Japan can head to their favourite card shop to purchase S19, “The Holy Flames of Sublime Heaven“. Packs contain cards featuring characters from Three Houses and Genealogy of the Holy War.
Click on the “Read More” button below to dive in and take a look at the cards in the set. We also have some information on the set’s earliest promos.
NOTE: Some of these cards do contain spoilers for both Three Houses and Genealogy. If you have yet to complete either or both of these games, consider yourself duly warned.
Series 19 – Three Houses Cards
This is only the second Cipher set to focus on 3H, and the first to focus on a specific house. The leader for this set is Edelgard, and she gets three different cards, including the set’s first SR. She also gets a special SR+ with gold foiling and alternate artwork!
The next cards in the set all go to the various students of the Black Eagles house. All seven non-Lord students are represented, which means that Linhardt finally makes his Cipher debut! He gets both an unpromoted card and a promoted R foil as a Bishop.
Hubert, Ferdinand, Caspar, Bernadetta, Dorothea, and Petra all also get at least two cards each, one with their student design and one with their post-timeskip design, just like Linhardt above. Hubert gets the second SR slot while Bernie, Dorothea, and Petra all get Rs.
Once you get past the Black Eagles, Female Byleth and Sothis are next, each with an SR card. Additionally, both cards are also available as rare SR+ variant cards featuring foil signatures from their voice actresses.
Of the students, Sylvain and Lorenz also finally make their Cipher debut. We also get some more cards for some other returning students as well, such as Annette, Lysithea, and Marianne. Sylvain and Marianne both get R foils.
The final two R cards of the set go to the remaining house lords, Dimitri and Claude. Unlike the other students, they both only get a single card, appearing in generic class outfits for the Paladin and Sniper classes respectively.
The next portion of the set is faculty, with Flayn and Seteth appearing as the final SRs! We also get cards for Catherine, Cyril, Alois, and Rhea. Cyril’s promoted card features his timeskip design, just like the students.
Rounding up the last of the 3H portion of the set is a few cards given to antagonists. The Flame Emperor, the Death Knight, and the Immaculate One each get one card a piece.
Series 19 – Genealogy of the Holy War Cards
The second half of the set is devoted to cards and characters from Genealogy of the Holy War, with a focus on family bonds. Seliph and Julia lead this portion of the set, including a gorgeous joined-art together with their SR+ cards. As expected in a set based on family bonds, their parents, Sigurd and Deirdre, also appear.
In fact, throughout his half of the set, we get many lovely parent and child pairings. Quan and Leif both appear, as do Eldigan and Ares. In fact, Leif, Seliph, and Ares share an awesome joined-art panorama as a reference to this earlier art of their parents!
A few other mother and child pairings also spring up this set: Aideen and Lana, Erin and Ced, and Tailtiu and Arthur. Of these, Erin also gets her first SR card! Arthur’s and Ced’s cards are also notable as their HN card have two art variants, one featuring a sibling.
Aside from the mothers, the set also contains some potential fathers from the first generation. Arden, Midir, Dew, Jamke, Chulainn, and Lewyn all get cards this set. Arden gets an R foil while Jamke and Lewyn get SR cards.If you look at Lewyn’s SR, you an also see many other parents making an appearance in the artwork!
After this, the set moves onto more characters from the second generation. Both Ulster and Larcei are in attendance, the former getting an R card while the latter gets an SR as well as a variant art SR+! We also get cards for two new characters, Brigid’s substitute children, Daisy and Asaello.
The final portion of the set gives us cards based on some of Jugdral’s many antagonists and non-player characters. Ishtar and Julius sweep up the final R foil cards. The remaining cards go to others, many appearing in Cipher for the first time: Dithorba, Pamela, Lombard, Arvis, Manfroy, and Manya.
Series 19 – Hero Rares and Cipher Original Characters
S19 kicks it up a notch, with three special Hero Rare cards this set instead of the two of S18. These HR cards feature Male Byleth, Seiros, and Sigurd.
Just like previous HRs, all three of these cards are brand new, not based on existing cards. Additionally, they’re printed with a special, extra glossy sheen. Each one takes the slot previously held by R+(X) cards, with each box having a chance of pulling an SR+ card (1/4 chance) or one of the three HR cards (3/4 chance).
Lastly, Nieve and Poe take centre stage for the mascot placements in S18. Poe makes her appearance as a Faith magic user in Fódlan, while Nieve is another magic-wielder in Jugdral.
Series 18 – Booster Box Goodies & Release Promos
As usual, buying a booster box of S18 nets you a few additional goodies along with the included packs. The preview promos for this set go to Male Corrin of Fates and Micaiah from Radiant Dawn. We also get holiday-themed marker cards with Female Corrin and Lilina, as well as pixel lord promo sleeve packs for Edelgard and Seliph.
Each booster box contains one pack of sleeves and a promo pack featuring one preview promo and one marker card. The two designs are assigned randomly for each item.
Furthermore, the Memopad promo from S18 continues into S19 as well. This time around, the designs are based on Male Byleth, Female Byleth, and Sothis. Earlier purchasers can get one secretly-sealed notebook with each booster box purchase while supplies last.
Series 18 – Promotional Cards
As a winter set, S18 will have a larger amount of promos than usual, to accommodate for Comiket merchandise. Like usual, the first two promos of the set are the preview promos shown above, and the next six are all tournament promos. Check them out here:
Anna and Lachesis are both brand new cards, unique to tournie promo packs. Takumi, Arden, Marth, and Young Edelgard are all alternate-art reprints of existing cards.
At least one more additional promo card will be coming in the next issue of Nintendo Dream magazine. The February 2020 issue releases on 21 December and contains two copies of a new Dimitri promo card! If you’re interested, you can pre-order a copy of the magazine here.
We don’t yet know if Dengeki Nintendo will release a matching card of their own. However, Cipher artist Nijihayashi has shared a mysterious Cipher piece of artwork for Claude that does not have a matching card yet. It’s very well possible that this art will be used in a card in the next Dengeki issue as well. You can pre-order that issue here.
Furthermore, three more promos are arriving at this winter’s Comiket booth! The two styles of fan boxes will contain a promo each, one for Female Byleth and one for Edelgard. Additionally, anyone who buys anything at the Cipher Comiket booth will get a Sothis promo as a bonus.
More promos may still be yet on their way. We’ll make sure to post a new article if there are any updates!
Set List and Closing
While this article aims to be an overview of S19, it does not include all of the cards the set has to offer. If you’d like to see all cards in the set, including the rare + variants, you can view them on the Official Cipher website. You can also see all the cards and their translations on the Serenes Forest Cipher Wiki.
Stay tuned for further news and information regarding S20, our March set. Soon we’ll share the pre-release information and art/news that we’ve seen so far. With Comiket looming near, it’s unlikely there will be much new news until the new year, but we’ll be sure to keep you all posted.
