Cipher S22 Weekly Recap: New reveals include Arch Sage Soren, Guinivere with Aureola, and Claude magazine promo!

Welcome to a new installment of our weekly recap series of Series 22 of Fire Emblem Cipher. Launching as a new booster expansion dubbed The Heroes’ Paean, this all-star set serves as conclusion to the Japanese trading card game’s five-year run.

In the weeks leading up to its October 1st release, the official Twitter account, @FEcipher, is revealing the latest cards each weekday, and we’ll be looking over them together as an overview of what’s to come!

But first, in case you missed it, this past weekend gave us a formal introduction to a selection of cards previously unveiled during the most recent livestream. Try your luck in pulling from the new booster these Super Rare (Plus) cards of Chrom, female Robin, Eirika, or Ike.

The first day introduced cards of Soren, Commander Ike’s tactician from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. A constant pillar of support, his tactical genius has led to victory time and time again, including as an Arch Sage — his proper debut as one within Cipher. Soren will be appearing as one of the Rare cards of the booster.

Next, we got a look at a new card of Guinivere from The Binding Blade, being one of the possible Super Rare cards you can pull. A major character during the events of the story, the princess of Bern is proficient in light magic, and thus is able to wield the legendary tome Aureola.

With this card revealed, we are happy to admire the complete nine-card recreation of the Eight Legends, which started last year with Series 16!

This collection of cards features, from left to right: Sophia, Zephiel, Dieck, Rutger, Roy, Sue, Lilina, Guinivere, and Milady — each wielding a fabled weapon of Elibe. Only Guinivere is available through the final booster, as the others were originally released in previous sets. Does anyone have what it takes to actually assemble all the cards together!?

Following that, we were shown a new card of Mirabilis from Heroes. Known as a light elf, this sleepyhead is a friend of Peony, and helps Alfonse travel to Dökkálfheimr through the power of daydreams during the events of Book IV. Whether or not any other brand new faces from Heroes will appear in this set remains to be seen!

Afterwards, new cards of female Kris from New Mystery of the Emblem were shown, with one of them being another Rare card. Following in her grandfather’s footsteps in becoming an Altean knight, she gains Marth’s trust and becomes his guardian and fights as a hero from the shadows. While the male Kris has long since debuted in Cipher, this is the female version’s first ever appearance in the card game.

Lastly, a new card of Sigurd from Genealogy of the Holy War was showcased, to be available as both a Super Rare and Super Rare Plus edition with alternative artwork. Hailing from a heroic bloodline, his holy spirit endures whatever fate has in store, and lives on through his cherished son, Seliph.

As an extra update, the official Twitter account for Nintendo Dream magazine, @nindori, surprised us with an early reveal of their exclusive promotional card of Claude from Three Houses! Normally, the official FE Cipher Twitter would have said something about it by now, but as of the time of this writing, this news comes exclusively from Nintendo Dream.

Illustrated by Fire Emblem series veteran artist Senri Kita, this card will be bundled with the magazine’s November 2020 issue, which is due for sale on September 19th. The magazine is also said to include an interview with Claude’s Japanese voice actor, Toshiyuki Toyonaga.

You can order your own copy of the print magazine with the bundled card online via Amazon JP, which ships internationally.

As previously announced, the Fire Emblem Online Shop stocked its catalog this week with even more Cipher items, ranging from classic card sleeves and playmats to all-new Three Houses deck boxes. One item proved to be particularly popular: the Roy & Lilina edition playmat!

Out of consideration for those who couldn’t buy it before it went out of stock on their site, Intelligent Systems has opened a brief period in which one may purchase this playmat as made-to-order, but this special window only lasts until August 30th.

It was also reported that said playmat, as well as the Little Sisters edition featuring Elise and Sakura, were initially listed on the site with erroneous images, but these have since been corrected.

For fun, here’s a look inside Dengeki Nintendo’s August 2020 issue with an article on Series 22, recently provided by forum member jiayejoe.

These card artworks have all been shown and reported by us in the past, but the pages give us another idea of the names, illustrations, and associated colors of those whose proper card images have yet to be published!

As a reminder, the above arts belong to the following, from left to right: Marth, Alm, Sigurd, Leif, Roy, Eliwood, Eirika, Ike, Micaiah, Chrom, male Corrin, Alfonse, male Byleth, Caeda, Silque, Soren, Danved, Al, Fomortiis, Miranda, Edelgard, Mamori Minamoto, and Rowan


That’s all for this week’s recap! Check back with us next week for another round-up of Cipher news.

Feel free to visit our forums to talk about Cipher if you have any questions or are looking to share your love for the card game!

Fire Emblem Cipher’s next and very last booster expansion set, The Heroes’ Paean, will be available from Japan starting October 1st!

About the Author: Prince of Iris
A longtime Fire Emblem fan with a passion to make things better for everyone. Enjoys playing the FE Cipher TCG and having his favorite units in FE Heroes inherit every skill he can get his hands on. You can find him on Twitter.