Fire Emblem Cipher Primer – Micaiah
Micaiah is arguably one of green’s strongest MC options after her set 22 variant released. Her newest promotion is a 5-cost deploy; 3-cost master class with two different abilities.
First, once per-turn, she’s able to stack a “Micaiah” card from the retreat under herself to growth. She then gains +30 power until the end of the turn.
Her second ability states that any time she growths, the player can draw a card if they have 4 or less cards in-hand. Also, note that a class change is not a growth, just because you class change into this Micaiah doesn’t mean you get to draw 2 cards. Growth is a term specifically for stacking a card underneath a card of the same name. Also, this ability isn’t once per-turn. So, if you happen to be running cards that let you growth other units, you’ll get to keep drawing as long as you pick Micaiah.
Set 22 Micaiah will always be hitting base 90 for attack on the player’s turn when built and ran properly. Her ability to consistently draw also means it’s easy to keep the player’s hand size up to do further plays that way. Micaiah isn’t a combo starter in the same way a deck like Eldigan might be; instead, she provides a good consistency boost and a powerful offensive unit with zero bond costs.
Most decks I’ve seen and played tend to settle around 20-22 copies of her, including the 1-cost starting card. Speaking of, you typically want to go with her set 22 for that one as well. She’s a base 30 mage that can once-per-turn, discard another Micaiah card to add any other non-Micaiah card from the retreat to your hand. She’s an exceptionally strong healer early on, letting you get back any other card without something like a color or cost restriction. Discarding a copy of herself isn’t that much of a downside either, since her final promotion will be looking to use those later for her attack boost.
Micaiah has other 1-cost options, but most of those tend to be better as support choices in other decks. Most of them also have miracle emblem as their support skill, which doesn’t do much unless you’re specifically expecting to fight that will need to use critical hits to get over your units’ power. You can run a few if you want just to fill up your copies of Micaiah for later, but having access to other promotions is worth a bit more in the long run, so don’t overcommit on 1-cost variants.
As far as bridge promotions go, any of her 2-costs are fine, but you for sure want her set 20 to help get your retreat filled up as soon as possible. Her ability lets you send the top 3 cards of your deck to the retreat, and gives her a +10 boost until the end of the turn if all 3 cards revealed are green. Her set 5 gets attack bonuses against specific unit types, letting you potentially pick off mid-game supporters. And finally, her set 12 can help setup other characters with growth abilities by letting you stack a card from the retreat under an ally with a matching name.
We’re still a bit short of that 22 total threshold though, so you can use some of her other 3-cost promotions to fill in the gaps. I think most people tend to go with either her set 17 for added consistency with its ability to look at the top card of the deck and draw once-per-turn, or her set 5, which acts as a good finisher if you can hit a good full board. Her set 5 can flip a bond to stack two Micaiah cards from the retreat underneath her to draw a card, and if she has a total of 5 cards in her stack, she’ll give a +10 boost to all ally units during the player’s turn.
So, what support cards does Micaiah like? Well, things that setup the retreat like Kurthnaga, Ashunera, and Elincia are all viable options. Kurthnaga comes with bond acceleration on his support skill, so he’s a main priority, and Ashunera is a 0-cost deploy that replaces herself at the end of the turn by destroying herself and letting the players draw. Elincia is good if you’re running a mono-colored deck, but her spot is better dedicated to a secondary color.
Finally, I want to talk a bit about Tormod, who is sort of the go-to inclusion in a lot of green decks. He’s one of the better draw engines in the game, and can easily overpower a lot of enemy options. His one cost variants aren’t really important, but you should aim to have 3 or 4 1-cost Tormod in total. What really shines, is his Master Class unit. He gains +20 during the player’s turn while in the front line, and can move between lines at the end of each player’s turn. To top it off, he has an ability that let’s the player draw an additional card when they class change into him.
As for other higher-cost options, a lot of the staples in other green decks will apply here too. Kurthnaga is an amazing healer for high-cost units, and he can easily become a base 80 or 90 without much effort. If you find yourself unable to draw into any of your set 22 Micaiah’s, he can just grab them back from the retreat for next turn. Likewise, Jill is able to grab Kurthnaga back from the retreat, enabling a chain of deploys in 1 turn. These two just go together really well. If you’re running one, you kind of always want the other there.
Sanaki is also an excellent option here. Micaiah doesn’t really need her bonds to do her thing, so Sanaki can reset the turn and go into more deploys or combos. Sanaki’s discard 2 effect is also good for setting up the retreat with more copies of Micaiah.
As far as other choices go, it’s kind of up to preference. Green has access to decent effect removal with llyana, Set 20 Ike, and I guess also with the Black Knight if you feel like getting cheeky.
Soren also provides good non-destruction removal, but it comes at the cost of having to discard a copy of himself. Where Soren ends up really shining is in his second effect that prevents his opponent from drawing if they have 4 or more cards in hand. Being able to keep your opponent’s hand at a tight size will limit their options. You can play slower game and methodically destroy their orbs so just enough get added to their hand each turn to prevent them from drawing.
As for secondary color options, purple is your best bet. Nino is an exceptionally good healer for Micaiah, letting you get back extra copies to dodge or crit with while also fixing your top card to avoid support failures. Set 22 Roy does a bit of the same, but instead turns into a base-80 attacker that replaces the card he fixes, and finally, Eirika helps avoid support failures when they happen and can give potential extra draws. The most important inclusion by far though is Rebecca. You’ll never actually being playing her, you want her specifically for her support skill that makes her support value equal to the total number of copies stacked with your main character x10. Considering Micaiah will probably be reaching 8-12 copies, that’s an extra 80 to 120 power to either get over or defend against big threats.
Here’s a Micaiah build that mixes in purple, based on a topping build from a regional event in Aichi.
Micaiah’s early game playstyle is going to be very different from most other MCs. You want to be dodging a lot early on, just to fill up your retreat for later. Micaiah can be really annoying for a lot of decks to deal with once she gets into her tempo and is constantly making use of growth for draws and boosts, while using her support options to dig copies of herself back. She benefits a lot from support fixing on offense to help her avoid needing criticals to finish off enemies, but also needs to keep her hand stocked with units she can deploy.
If you’re looking for an MC outside of the usual base-80 wall, then give Micaiah a try. She offers a vastly different playstyle from your typical MC options.