Fire Emblem Cipher - Rules and Q&A

[DifferentFight]

Today's Camus card has been translated. This card seems extremely overpowered but I imagine it will be really tough to come by enough bonds to play him, let alone to then make use of his skill that often. That being said, this is just one more example of a card that makes the Shadow Dragon deck that much more interesting to me than the Awakening deck.

Camus (Sable Order) – Rarity: Super Rare / Series 1 Booster Card #050

Cost: 5 / Promotion Cost: 4

Insignia: Shadow Dragon

Affinities: Male / Lance / Mount

Quote: “I have lived as a knight, and I intend to die as one. There are no other roads left for me to walk.”

Skill 1: “Blessed Lance Gradivus” / α / [Flip 4 Bonds] All opposing units of cost 2 or less are destroyed as a result of battle. Until the end of this turn this unit has a range of 1-2, and for each unit that was destroyed by this skill this unit’s attack is increased by 10.

Skill 2: N/A

Support Skill: N/A

Attack Power: 70

Support Attack Power: 10

Range: 1

Promoted

Class: Paladin

Title: Sable Order

Card ID: B01-050SR

Illustrator: Rika Suzuki

Sooooo good, although you will have to stall hard and refrain from using skills to get his full potential. Not to mention that the opponent might realize what you're scheming and refrain from calling units of cost <=2.

Thanks for the translations, as always!

[FutureKnightX]

http://serenesforest.net/wiki/index.php/Template:FETCG0

I have no clue where to voice my critique, but now that the wiki is back up, we gotta start filling it in with info. And I think we should start with getting that template fixed. I was thinking that since every card will have affinities by series (which would also technically cover color), gender, and weapon, we can make those part of the template ("series", "gender", and "weapon"), and then add room for up to two more misc. affinities (like winged and beast), like "misc. 1" and "misc. 2". And cards have been show to have up to three abilities, so that needs fixing, as well.

As for the "comments" part, I think we should take a page from the CFV wiki and make a separate page for any tips people want to add, along with a gallery page for any and all versions of the card, especially since alt arts are already a thing so early.

[DifferentFight]

http://serenesforest.net/wiki/index.php/Template:FETCG0

I have no clue where to voice my critique, but now that the wiki is back up, we gotta start filling it in with info. And I think we should start with getting that template fixed. I was thinking that since every card will have affinities by series (which would also technically cover color), gender, and weapon, we can make those part of the template ("series", "gender", and "weapon"), and then add room for up to two more misc. affinities (like winged and beast), like "misc. 1" and "misc. 2". And cards have been show to have up to three abilities, so that needs fixing, as well.

As for the "comments" part, I think we should take a page from the CFV wiki and make a separate page for any tips people want to add, along with a gallery page for any and all versions of the card, especially since alt arts are already a thing so early.

I like the template; just hope everything fits, since a lot of skills have shown to be longer than others...

Also, on a side note; I'm planning to make an update video sometime next week since there's been a lot of news since the start of April. What do you guys think should be the most important things that I should include?

EDIT: I also looked around and found some videos of people from Japanese card shops playing the Cipher TCG with proxy cards; looks quite fun to see it in action!

Edited June 13, 2015 by DifferentFight

[FutureKnightX]

I like the template; just hope everything fits, since a lot of skills have shown to be longer than others...

Also, on a side note; I'm planning to make an update video sometime next week since there's been a lot of news since the start of April. What do you guys think should be the most important things that I should include?

EDIT: I also looked around and found some videos of people from Japanese card shops playing the Cipher TCG with proxy cards; looks quite fun to see it in action!

I'm not entirely sure you understand what I mean. The template isn't the graphics, it's where you input info to each new card page. As of right now, there is no way to input a card with three abilities, for example, since you cannot input a third effect in there. That leaves a number of cards out like the Lucina as Marth card and the SR Tiki. Also, the template will make room if it lacks it, so don't worry about it. Or, at least it should.

I think you should wait on that video until after the set releases and we know all the cards. That way, you can focus on various decks one can build with all the available knowledge. It would be bad to talk about a card and then find out later there's a derpy combo with another card that wasn't public knowledge at the time. You can make a video that shows the updated rules, now that we know most of them.

And you just reminded me of the fact that I don't think I subscribed to your channel yet lol. I could get used to a cute guy explaining a card game I probably already know enough of! XD

[Ayra]

Rules are the most important thing in my opinion. You could also showcase some of the more interesting cards (ability or visually) too to drum some interest.

A huge thank you again to aubergine for the absolutely amazing translations! I've said it multiple times before, but it warrants being said again!

I've looked at #3 of the video DifferentFight linked. They follow what we thought the rules were to the letter: the only things I was a bit surprised was the "units can attack the turn they come in play" (I can definitively see an argument for it though) and that "horizontal" placement doesn't matter at all.

To be entirely honest, after all the news and new cards we've seen lately, I'm a bit disappointed. The fact that there's only 100 main cards in the set is very low, and we've seen a substantial amount of the cards already. There's going to be a lot of characters missing (and I would not be surprised if many that are present don't have a class-changed version), but that's not what bothers me. It's that on the whole there's few interesting deck-building opportunities and it seems that it'll center mostly on a few rare power cards.

For example, all flyers have the exact same stats (Even wyverns have the same as pegasi), and there's an heavy overlap in their skills. Want a flying deck? You need the 4/3 Minerva; there's absolutely no other compromises. Then there's all the characters with cool skills, but not really much to synergise with. Like the two Tharja cards have interesting links with discard and enemy hand size, but no other cards do.

There's the mini combos (like the three axes dudes which are cool but you can't really base a deck on) and some useful cards on the Shadow Dragon side (like Tiki's that can fuel any bond-heavy or flip-heavy deck), but... It seems like it will mostly revolve around a few mega-powerful cards like the "boost everyone by 30" Marth, or the units that grow very big very quickly.

The base gameplay looks fun actually, it's just the initial card offering with the base that feels too limited deckbuilding-wise... But hopefully I'm wrong.

[eclipse]

I can see some possibilities, so far. For Archanea, you can build a rush-down deck with the Talys fighters, or you can bank on having Camus available to murder everything. Ylisse seems more like a clan you'd play with dual colors - they seem to have great support abilities, but they don't have the same synergy as Archanea. Imagine a Cordelia/Minerva build!

Thanks for the videos! But why is the background music Auld Lang Syne?

[Nanaka]

Today's Camus card has been translated. This card seems extremely overpowered but I imagine it will be really tough to come by enough bonds to play him, let alone to then make use of his skill that often. That being said, this is just one more example of a card that makes the Shadow Dragon deck that much more interesting to me than the Awakening deck.

Camus (Sable Order) – Rarity: Super Rare / Series 1 Booster Card #050

Cost: 5 / Promotion Cost: 4

Insignia: Shadow Dragon

Affinities: Male / Lance / Mount

Quote: “I have lived as a knight, and I intend to die as one. There are no other roads left for me to walk.”

Skill 1: “Blessed Lance Gradivus” / α / [Flip 4 Bonds] All opposing units of cost 2 or less are destroyed as a result of battle. Until the end of this turn this unit has a range of 1-2, and for each unit that was destroyed by this skill this unit’s attack is increased by 10.

Skill 2: N/A

Support Skill: N/A

Attack Power: 70

Support Attack Power: 10

Range: 1

Promoted

Class: Paladin

Title: Sable Order

Card ID: B01-050SR

Illustrator: Rika Suzuki

I believe that the effect should simply be " are destroyed" instead of "destroyed as a result of battle".

[FutureKnightX]

I believe that the effect should simply be " are destroyed" instead of "[/size]destroyed as a result of battle". [/size]

As far as I can tell, that was put so as to prevent killing off the opponent's main character so easily if theirs happens to be cost 2 or lower. In other words, it would just break an orb this way. Also, one would figure that this would trigger effects like "when this unit is destroyed by battle", as well. Of course, this is assuming the translation is accurate, but it does make sense in my mind, is all.

[Xem]

But if this Camus' card has a promote cost, does an unpromoted Camus' card already exist?

[aubergine]

I believe that the effect should simply be " are destroyed" instead of "destroyed as a result of battle".

As far as I can tell, that was put so as to prevent killing off the opponent's main character so easily if theirs happens to be cost 2 or lower. In other words, it would just break an orb this way. Also, one would figure that this would trigger effects like "when this unit is destroyed by battle", as well. Of course, this is assuming the translation is accurate, but it does make sense in my mind, is all.

Yep, this is one of the main reasons that I worded it that way. A discussion earlier in the thread came to the conclusions that we should err on the side of caution, especially with an unofficial translation, and make the wording as fool-proof as possible to avoid arguments in battle such as "should this ability instantly destroy the 1 cost Main Character or not".

The other main reason has to do from a translation standpoint. The cards already use a word for simply "destroy" which is 破壊. This is used in reference to orbs most of the time. However, when an ability talks about destroying units, most of the time it uses 撃破, which also means "destroy" literally, but it also holds the extra connotation of an attack or battle related incident that 破壊 does not. What solidifies my stance on this is the fact that Gaius' "Lethality" skill actually uses 破壊 instead of 撃破 when it talks about destroying a unit card that has not yet been placed on the battlefield. This means that there definitely is a distinction between these two terms, and so I make sure to make that known in my translations.

I do recognize that in an effort to cover all bases my translations are a bit too wordy at times. I appreciate all feedback, so if you have another way you think it would be worded while still preserving the difference between both "destroy" terms, then let me know!

Edited June 13, 2015 by aubergine

[Ayra]

Personally I'm fine with the way you phrase your translations. I personally prefer long and clear instead of short and you have to spend hours arguing with the other players as to what the card actually does :)

But if this Camus' card has a promote cost, does an unpromoted Camus' card already exist?

I don't think so. At this point, we know most of the cards for this first release and there's there's doesn't seem to have enough "space" for promoted/non promoted versions of all the characters we've seen so far. So for example, I don't think Camus, Frederic or Jeigan have non-promoted cards, and I don't think the three axe dudes have promoted cards for example.

So why would someone like Frederic have only a 3/2 promoted card if there's no base card? I can see two reasons. 1) The unit starts already promoted in his game so its not too jarring theme-wise. 2) They might add a non-promoted Frederick in a future expansion, which could promote into this already existing one.

... That's just my guess, of course.

[Nanaka]

Yep, this is one of the main reasons that I worded it that way. A discussion earlier in the thread came to the conclusions that we should err on the side of caution, especially with an unofficial translation, and make the wording as fool-proof as possible to avoid arguments in battle such as "should this ability instantly destroy the 1 cost Main Character or not".

The other main reason has to do from a translation standpoint. The cards already use a word for simply "destroy" which is 破壊. This is used in reference to orbs most of the time. However, when an ability talks about destroying units, most of the time it uses 撃破, which also means "destroy" literally, but it also holds the extra connotation of an attack or battle related incident that 破戒 does not. What solidifies my stance on this is the fact that Gaius' "Lethality" skill actually uses 破壊 instead of 撃破 when it talks about destroying a unit card that has not yet been placed on the battlefield. This means that there definitely is a distinction between these two terms, and so I make sure to make that known in my translations.

I do recognize that in an effort to cover all bases my translations are a bit too wordy at times. I appreciate all feedback, so if you have another way you think it would be worded while still preserving the difference between both "destroy" terms, then let me know!

Hmm i see your point in the difference in the use of kanji, both 破壊 and 撃破 auto translates to destroy in my mind. I went back to check the playing rules on the part about battle, and they use '撃破' in the section about units being destroyed in battle, while the only time they used '破壊' is during Orb destruction . So in FE0's case, 撃破 is 'destroyed by battle', and a Main Character has to be 'destroyed by battle' before a orb is destroyed. So i think in this case this Camus' ability can destroy your opponent's MC and will destory one Orb.

Gameplay wise,by turn 4 you would better have promoted your MC else you're just going to take lots of free hits right? And plus assuming there's no Bond rushing skills used, the play using Camus would only have 4 Bond cards, and using all of them just to activate the ability is actually quite costly.

Btw, the Gaius card you mentioned, is it this one? I can't find any other Gaius card in the spreadsheet, and this one doesn't have have 破壊 in it. http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Nindotendofreak/media/Cipher/Gaius%20Assassin%20B01-073SR.png.html

[Xem]

Btw, the Gaius card you mentioned, is it this one? I can't find any other Gaius card in the spreadsheet, and this one doesn't have have 破壊 in it. http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Nindotendofreak/media/Cipher/Gaius%20Assassin%20B01-073SR.png.html

it's me or there's the Lethality's icon in this card? In the up-right corner, halved by the edge

[aubergine]

Btw, the Gaius card you mentioned, is it this one? I can't find any other Gaius card in the spreadsheet, and this one doesn't have have 破壊 in it. http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Nindotendofreak/media/Cipher/Gaius%20Assassin%20B01-073SR.png.html

Whoops, I misread it back when I translated that card, hahah. I'm on the same page as you in terms of both terms being read as "destroy" in my mind when I see it, so I must of switched those around. Apologies for the confusion, but yeah it seems the distinction is still a fair one to make despite my erroneous Gaius example.

I don't think so. At this point, we know most of the cards for this first release and there's there's doesn't seem to have enough "space" for promoted/non promoted versions of all the characters we've seen so far. So for example, I don't think Camus, Frederic or Jeigan have non-promoted cards, and I don't think the three axe dudes have promoted cards for example.

So why would someone like Frederic have only a 3/2 promoted card if there's no base card? I can see two reasons. 1) The unit starts already promoted in his game so its not too jarring theme-wise. 2) They might add a non-promoted Frederick in a future expansion, which could promote into this already existing one.

... That's just my guess, of course.

I think this the best guess. I think they are just covering themselves in the future in case they want to make "original scenario" cards in later series for units like Minerva where they came into the game already pre-promoted.

Edited June 13, 2015 by aubergine

[Nanaka]

Whoops, I misread it back when I translated that card, hahah. I'm on the same page as you in terms of both terms being read as "destroy" in my mind when I see it, so I must of switched those around. Apologies for the confusion, but yeah it seems the distinction is still a fair one to make despite my erroneous Gaius example.

Ehehe it's all right, we all are unsure about a lot of things. Like i realised from Camus' effect, would we be able to destroy the enemy MC unit by battle multiple times?

[CloudLink]

Rules are the most important thing in my opinion. You could also showcase some of the more interesting cards (ability or visually) too to drum some interest.

A huge thank you again to aubergine for the absolutely amazing translations! I've said it multiple times before, but it warrants being said again!

I've looked at #3 of the video DifferentFight linked. They follow what we thought the rules were to the letter: the only things I was a bit surprised was the "units can attack the turn they come in play" (I can definitively see an argument for it though) and that "horizontal" placement doesn't matter at all.

To be entirely honest, after all the news and new cards we've seen lately, I'm a bit disappointed. The fact that there's only 100 main cards in the set is very low, and we've seen a substantial amount of the cards already. There's going to be a lot of characters missing (and I would not be surprised if many that are present don't have a class-changed version), but that's not what bothers me. It's that on the whole there's few interesting deck-building opportunities and it seems that it'll center mostly on a few rare power cards.

Ehh, I do agree 100 (isn't it 114? also the 10 Starter Deck Exclusives) is a bit small for a base set, but you gotta consider:

50 card deck

can include 4 of each Card (not Character)

So:

2 Unpromoted Lord (for Crits/Dodges)

4 Promoted Lord (to Promote ASAP, and Crits/Dodges)

4 Unpromoted Characters x5

4 Promoted Characters x5

4 Random Character(s)

Basically, it only takes 15 Individual cards to actually make a whole deck. So with 110 (+14?) cards to choose from, it's a good enough pool (it just depends how many of those 110 are viable cards). Don't forget, the 2nd set comes out in September, which is very soon after (though, I guess we can't expect to see any support for the older decks in the set, huh? hopefully mixing colors is viable).

But, as with all card games starting out, there probably will be some completely optimal decks dominating, it's just how it goes, but who knows.

As for the mechanics themselves, I feel like it's too big of a Vanguard rip off, and Vanguard isn't that fun to me (but I always loved the art), but I'm still hopeful and want to test the game out. Even if I don't find the gameplay to be fun, I'll be buying it for the art.

Also thanks to CloudLink for getting the Starter Deck lists compiled!

Thanks for the thanks, but I only compiled a list of the exclusives and foils. I don't mind making lists for the full decks though, but that would be later in the week.

And as always, thank you so much for all your translation work, you and the other translators are the ones holding this whole thing together. I love reading the translated tweets, and you get to the new cards almost immediately.

Edited June 14, 2015 by CloudLink

[audiotronica]

Hi all,

So I went to the FE Trial on the 13th so I'll write about my experience here. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures as the place was very small and it didn't seem appropriate, so bear with me. I'll try and say what I remember.

Background:

The event was in the back of a large book/game/tcg store in a shopping mall. I got there around 11:45 and looked around the store for the TCG section, and sure enough in the back I see 5 or 6 tables and three guys wearing black jumpers saying "Fire Emblem STAFF" on them. They told me the next trial was at 12:15 so I watched a few matches and wandered around the store until then.

Around 12:15 I sat at the table and one of the staff starting explaining the rules with a set of small posters. He walked everyone through the first steps of the game and the basic explanations, pretty much all the stuff we've seen before here. He made several comparisons to Vanguard, however I've never played Vanguard so I didn't understand the references. Once he explained enough of the rules he let us continue playing the game on our own.

Once I started playing the rules became familiar to me very quickly and I was able to explain them to the person I was playing with.

Physical card impressions

Before I started playing I got a chance to go through both of the starter decks. The decks used at the trial event are the same as those that'll be on sale for launch. Unfortunately I don't remember too many details of the cards we haven't seen yet, so I apologize. The cards are about 1 mm thick and on the lighter side. Not as light as regular playing cards, but I think the cards can be bent or creased pretty easily.. Be careful. The cards are more square than rectangular, and are about 1.5 cm wider and .5 cm higher than a standard credit card.They have a matte finish with vivid color and look great. There are two types of holographic cards, for the regular one the character is solid and the background and weapons have a kind of rainbow sheen to them. It's more subtle compared to YGO or Pokemon with the sparkles and stripes. The other type is only for the Marth and Chrom that are the cards on the boxes of the decks. These have a glossy foil finish on the gold parts of the card (around the information) and the quote also has a silver foil inlay, along with the rest of the holograph in the background. These look amazing and I hope we'll see more of them.

Gameplay impressions:

Playing with both decks, the Marth deck seemed to have the upper hand solely due to Marth's ability to move an opponent's character from front to back. It's easy to use and this means that the player can't have their Lord run away if low on orbs. Once Marth is upgraded to have this ability it seems a little unfair as you can keep bringing the opponent's Lord back and spamming attacks with your characters until one gets lucky with support skill/value. Besides this, the Chrom deck seemed to have more useful cards in general, and both decks had several characters with the same effects/stats.

Now to answer what we've all been wondering:

-no limit to characters out at once

-no limit to bonds out at once

-no limit to cards in hand

-only two positions, front and back. Any character in the front with a 1 for range can attack any char in the opponent's front.

-flipped bonds stay that way the entire game

-characters can attack the same turn they are put out

So the game is not very restrictive in these terms and is made so that you can easily have multiple units out at once. You can lose 5 units one turn and easily put out 5 the next. My biggest problem with the game was that it revolves around the upgraded lord units too much. Other units are not as important and most of the time it didn't make sense to go after the opponent's units other than the lord. Unpromoted units usually don't have enough strength to take down an promoted lord, so they stay back and fight other unpromoted units. It just seemed unnecessary as by the end of each game I played (just three), it was my promoted lord vs the opponent's promoted lord, and we were just going back and forth milling cards until someone got a high enough support value to take the other down (e.g. 20 vs 30 support) since both Chrom/Marth have the same values.

Besides this I thought the game was pretty fun and the fast pace made it easily playable, especially once both players remembered the effects of each card. It's hard to make a judgement call without seeing the rest of the cards, but there will need to be cards that can take the emphasis of Chrom/Marth, balancing the game and making other characters meaningful besides just as support. Or the players will need to be creative enough to get around this issue . The game starts out very strategy oriented because you need to choose your characters carefully, but later on it becomes less relevant as you can play a full hand of characters in one turn to spam attack your opponent without recourse.

I did think that there was a great potential for alternate gameplay methods outside the regular rules. Some of them

-character permadeath (remove all chars cards if they die once)

-moving left and right and only being able to attack appropriate units

-remove the "lord" card concept completely, either play until all characters are eliminated or make any character defeat draw an orb (more than 6 would be better)

-remove the support card drawing, tap a card on your side of the field to use its support skill and value.

Anyway I think that was pretty much it, I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot but that was my general idea. I'm definitely more excited to see what's next for this game and how players will adapt to the rules. Looking forward to it.

As promised I got one promo Chrom card. Here is a picture with a credit-card sized card as comparison.

Edited June 14, 2015 by audiotronica

[Nanaka]

The exact card size is 67×92mm

[FutureKnightX]

The exact card size is 67×92mm

Yeah, I take it this guy isn't too familiar with TCG card sizes, but I think half of TCG players are like that. These should be "standard" size, which is MtG, Pokemon, WS, and BF. It's likely Nintendo did this so people could use the same sleeves for either of their TCGs. "Japanese" size is for YGO and CFV and also typically used for other TCGs from that country. I only use these as an example as these are the TCGs I am familiar with.

On a similar note, thanks for going there and sharing your experience with us! It's good to see all this glorious new info! I had heard there was a limit of 4 in front and 4 in back, but if it's unlimited like in MtG, then hoo boy...

[Ayra]

Thank you so much for the report! It's extremely useful information

Yeah, I'm not surprised that the game revolved around Marth and Chrom from the starter decks: They really are a big cut over the non-super rares we've seen. I can see a few other characters being lord-worthy (like Minerva or Lon Qu for example), but in general most regular characters sounds like a very bad idea to pick as lord.

If you don't mind, I have a few more questions regarding the rules:

1) Can you have two of the same character in play at the same time? For example, two Chrom?

2) Can you upgrade a character? For example, change your 3/2 Chrom for a 4/3 Chrom?

3) You mention that you can "easily play 5 units in one turn"; what's the requirements to play units? Do you have to "spend" your bonds (but not flip them) or can you basically throw down anything you want as soon as you have enough bonds of the table?

4) To perform critical hits with Chrom, do you need to have the exact same Chrom card (Like if you have the 4/3 Chrom in play you have to play the 4/3 Chrom to crit), or does any Chrom card work?

I'm not too worried about the "unlimited amount of units in play". 4 units each row made sense based on the play mat, but unlimited can work since I expect the game to be extremely "bloody". Since there's no point in NOT attacking (if your attack fails you lose nothing), I expect the battlefield to be mostly clean most of the time.

[Nanaka]

^ 1. Iirc no, only one of each named chara on the field at any time

2 . yes, rules didn't say u can't put a promoted chrom on another promoted chrom

3. You can deploy your units once each turn, with cost equal or lesser than the number or binds cards u have,

4. No need exactly same card, same chara is ok

Edited June 15, 2015 by Nanaka

[audiotronica]

Yeah, I take it this guy isn't too familiar with TCG card sizes, but I think half of TCG players are like that. These should be "standard" size, which is MtG, Pokemon, WS, and BF. It's likely Nintendo did this so people could use the same sleeves for either of their TCGs. "Japanese" size is for YGO and CFV and also typically used for other TCGs from that country. I only use these as an example as these are the TCGs I am familiar with.

On a similar note, thanks for going there and sharing your experience with us! It's good to see all this glorious new info! I had heard there was a limit of 4 in front and 4 in back, but if it's unlimited like in MtG, then hoo boy...

Sorry, I only play card games online these days and don’t have any TCG cards at my place here to compare with. The FE cards are definitely slightly wider than YGO cards from my memory. And again there is NO front/back limit.

Thank you so much for the report! It's extremely useful information

Yeah, I'm not surprised that the game revolved around Marth and Chrom from the starter decks: They really are a big cut over the non-super rares we've seen. I can see a few other characters being lord-worthy (like Minerva or Lon Qu for example), but in general most regular characters sounds like a very bad idea to pick as lord.

If you don't mind, I have a few more questions regarding the rules:

1) Can you have two of the same character in play at the same time? For example, two Chrom?

2) Can you upgrade a character? For example, change your 3/2 Chrom for a 4/3 Chrom?

3) You mention that you can "easily play 5 units in one turn"; what's the requirements to play units? Do you have to "spend" your bonds (but not flip them) or can you basically throw down anything you want as soon as you have enough bonds of the table?

4) To perform critical hits with Chrom, do you need to have the exact same Chrom card (Like if you have the 4/3 Chrom in play you have to play the 4/3 Chrom to crit), or does any Chrom card work?

I'm not too worried about the "unlimited amount of units in play". 4 units each row made sense based on the play mat, but unlimited can work since I expect the game to be extremely "bloody". Since there's no point in NOT attacking (if your attack fails you lose nothing), I expect the battlefield to be mostly clean most of the time.

1) You can only have one of the same named character on the battle field at once, so only one Chrom in either Front or Back. If that char is discarded, you can play that character again from your hand on a different turn if you have that card. You can have as many of the same character in the Bond section. Also, if you attack with Chrom and flip over another Chrom card for support during battle, that card is just discarded and you don’t get any support bonus.

2) Yes, the card will say “Unpromoted” or “Promoted” on it. If the cost is 4/3, you can promote the character by putting the Promoted unit on top of the unit and paying the 3 cost. You also draw a card as a bonus for promoting units. If you don’t have the unpromoted unit, you pay the 4 cost. I think once a unit is upgraded you can't play another promoted unit on top of it (e.g. to change the ability), but I'm not sure. It doesn't say on the website, but I think the idea is that once a character is promoted you can't stack more on it.

3) Each turn you can put down one character as a bond. You can play as many characters with costs as bonds that you have. So if you have three bonds out, you can play three 1 costs, one 2 cost and one 1 cost, or one 3 cost. Bonds aren’t flipped over , just spent when you use them to put out units. You can either move them from the left to right of the bond area or tap them to keep track of how many you used. Bond cards are only flipped over due to character skills. Say you have two bonds out and want to use a skill that says “flip over two bonds and draw one card,” that means you can only use that ability one time until you put out two more bonds. Flipped over bonds are still usable to be spent, (it seems) they are just flipped to prevent spamming abilities.

4) As long as the character name says Chrom, any Chrom card can be used for Crit/Evasion.

I think the unlimited units in play is a good thing, you will need a lot of units to buff up certain characters and have more skills at your disposal to make the game interesting. Even if a character has no chance of defeating the other, you need to consider that attacking will cause you and your opponent to discard a card as a support. There is a chance that you can discard a card you don’t need and your opponent discard’s a card they do need, but the reverse is also true, so it’s a gamble. And yes I found my hand and the field empty frequently due to the ease of playing and destroying characters. A lot of the units feel very disposable; you might be able to use their ability once before they get destroyed.

[FutureKnightX]

So, if I have this right the detailed technical rules are:

1) 50 card deck, no more, no less

2) set aside an unprompted cost 1 unit as your main character at the very start

3) opening hand is 6 and you can mulligan, but you mulligan the whole hand

4) you may put any card from your hand into your bond area, with the only restrictions being the effects of cards (like Jagen)

5) only one of the same character out at a time, even if they have different names

6) any card of the character, even different named ones, may be used for crits and evasion

7) unlimited number of units out at a time

8) no deck out; if your deck runs out of cards, you shuffle your "retreat area" and use that as your deck (presumably if your deck is out of cards and you have no cards in your retreat area, you lose, like in WS, but I don't see that happening except at very rare times)

9) when deploying units, you pay the costs with bonds; when paying for character effects, you flip bonds

10) flipped bonds stay flipped and only unflip due to effects (of which none have been shown yet, but it's bound to happen at some point)

11) when promoting units, you get to draw a card

12) up to 4 copies of the same card in a deck (presumably, the MC is included in this count)

13) bonds are public knowledge (important to note, since, you know, flipped bonds are face-down and all) and the player may rearrange them as they wish

14) moving a unit is an action that makes you "tap" them (so, no tapping for costs or attacking that turn)

15) you may attack with a unit the same turn it is deployed

16) it goes: choose an attacker, choose a legal target, attack support, defense support, option to go for a crit, option to go for an evade, defender gets destroyed if they lost the battle (regular units go to retreat area and MCs lose an orb), send the support cards to the retreat area (except when effects say otherwise like with cost 5 Tiki)

17) effects that you activate can only be done so during the "action phase" (attack phase), but can be done so any time during that phase as long as the cost is paid (obviously, effects that operate outside of that phase are exceptions)

Forgetting anything? Oh, and sorry for being wordy, I wanna make sure all the bases are covered, is all

[eclipse]

Thank you! That's quite a bit of useful information~!

Oh dear, permanently flipped bonds. . .this WILL be interesting! That means the heavier skills (Camus) can't be spammed, and Olivia's suddenly not so ridiculous. The "go after the opponent's lord" isn't much different from Vanguard. . .there's a time and place for attacking rear guards, but most of the time you want to attack the vanguard.

[Nanaka]

So, if I have this right the detailed technical rules are:

1) 50 card deck, no more, no less

2) set aside an unprompted cost 1 unit as your main character at the very start

3) opening hand is 6 and you can mulligan, but you mulligan the whole hand

4) you may put any card from your hand into your bond area, with the only restrictions being the effects of cards (like Jagen)

5) only one of the same character out at a time, even if they have different names

6) any card of the character, even different named ones, may be used for crits and evasion

7) unlimited number of units out at a time

8) no deck out; if your deck runs out of cards, you shuffle your "retreat area" and use that as your deck (presumably if your deck is out of cards and you have no cards in your retreat area, you lose, like in WS, but I don't see that happening except at very rare times)

9) when deploying units, you pay the costs with bonds; when paying for character effects, you flip bonds

10) flipped bonds stay flipped and only unflip due to effects (of which none have been shown yet, but it's bound to happen at some point)

11) when promoting units, you get to draw a card

12) up to 4 copies of the same card in a deck (presumably, the MC is included in this count)

13) bonds are public knowledge (important to note, since, you know, flipped bonds are face-down and all) and the player may rearrange them as they wish

14) moving a unit is an action that makes you "tap" them (so, no tapping for costs or attacking that turn)

15) you may attack with a unit the same turn it is deployed

16) it goes: choose an attacker, choose a legal target, attack support, defense support, option to go for a crit, option to go for an evade, defender gets destroyed if they lost the battle (regular units go to retreat area and MCs lose an orb), send the support cards to the retreat area (except when effects say otherwise like with cost 5 Tiki)

17) effects that you activate can only be done so during the "action phase" (attack phase), but can be done so any time during that phase as long as the cost is paid (obviously, effects that operate outside of that phase are exceptions)

Forgetting anything? Oh, and sorry for being wordy, I wanna make sure all the bases are covered, is all

1) you can have a deck with 50 or more cards

9) Not all card effects are paid with bond flips, unless required. Some effects's cost is tap that unit itself, or a Formation Skill will requrie you to tap other units

12) Yes, MC is part of your deck so it counts towards limit of 4. Because In most other main tcg tournaments, finals are play as best of 3, so meaning you could switch MC between matches.

13) Not sure if the players are allowed to rearrange the bonds or not. There may come a time where effects such as 'if you have 3 Red bond cards side by side', or the Alarm effects like in WS