Dream Smashers – Micaiah

This guest article was written by TroyKV of the Micaiah Supporters for Smash group. You can find him on Twitter and Smashboards if you have any questions about the article and their cause.

There are always controversial characters when we talk about the possible roster for the Super Smash Bros. series. This could be because of their moveset potential, their character, and, most commonly nowadays, how they fit in with the series representation. Micaiah is one of these controversial characters, especially now with the introduction of six characters from the Fire Emblem universe. The idea of a 7th character would sound insane, but in my opinion, there are some characters with a great hidden potential that deserve to be known. Today I’ll talk about Micaiah, the Priestess of Dawn, and one of the most wanted Fire Emblem characters in Japan.

Who is Micaiah?

Micaiah is one of the main characters of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. She is a member of the Dawn Brigade, a rebel group that fights against the Begnion’s occupational army, that has taken the Brigade’s Country, Daein, after their big war with Crimea in Path of Radiance. Micaiah is a key member of the team as one of the original members, and even is considered the de facto leader of the group, as the second in command but also the most influential member of the team thanks to her magical powers to occasionally predict the future, heal even the deepest wound with her exclusive “Sacrifice” innate ability, and she also is gifted with light magic; her influence and abilities attracted the Daein Principe’s and his advisor’s attention (especially the latter) to convert Micaiah in the actual leader of the Daein’s Independence.

Importance to her series.

Micaiah is one of Fire Emblem’s more unique main protagonists and can represent different aspects of the series in Smash. Robin is able to use magic in some of his/her moves (six of them), but Micaiah takes this to another level representing a type of magic that Robin doesn’t (light) and a completely different aspect of Fire Emblem: the Staves. There are a lot of different utilities with these, from healing an ally to placing a debuff on an enemy. This is an element present throughout the whole franchise that has yet to see its Fire Emblem debut. Her use of magic also goes towards showing that Fire Emblem has more to it than just swords.

Micaiah would also be the first original, female Fire Emblem character in the Super Smash Bros. series. She is not a clone nor relegated to an alt. for a male avatar. This helps to support the game’s female representation.

How will Micaiah play?

Micaiah’s colors are based on playable characters from her original game. The first five alt. colors are based on members of the Dawn Brigade. The green alt. is based on Sothe, Micaiah’s partner. The red color is based on Edward, the blue one on Leonardo and the yellow on Nolan. Lastly, the white alt. with black hair is based on Laura, the priestess of the Dawn Brigade. The final two colors are not based on playable characters in Radiant Dawn but important ones connected to Micaiah: specifically Yune and Ashera, the two goddesses. Yune especially is the bird that follows Micaiah throughout the game so their connection is strong.

Stats:

• Can they crawl: No
• Can they wall jump: No
• How many jumps do they have: 2
• Is there any exclusive ability they have: No
• Weight Class: E+
• Height Class: C+
• Speed Class: D
• Are they mirrored when they face left: No

Micaiah in her original game is a complete anomaly compared with other main characters from the Fire Emblem series whose stats are mostly focused on being the all-around balanced character, a fragile speedster or even a lightning bruiser. Micaiah’s design is more like a support glass cannon with low movement/speed and low defense/hp. On the other hand, she has some interesting utilities with her light magic, like I already mentioned. Micaiah has the ability to use Magic Tomes (like her Thani) and Staves. In Smash Bros., these are key elements in Micaiah’s design.

She is a lightweight character, extremely vulnerable to direct damage that will launch her easily. She is also on the slow side of the cast (outside of her air mobility that is actually pretty decent, and her low gravity, causes for her magical abilities makes her floaty), Micaiah is an extremely fragile character; with these two big disadvantages comes some important advantages, several long-range attacks and particularly high damage/knockback output.

Micaiah is a character that wants to play defensively, prefers to wait for the enemy to attack her first and then use some of her projectiles to punish the opponent or even try to put opponents to sleep using the Sleep Staff while following up with a powerful smash attack. If Micaiah wants to have a more active role in the battle, she can make use of one of her fast Jabs and her higher air mobility.

But, why don’t you check out her moveset and let that do all the talking?

Action	Description
Entrance	Micaiah teleports herself into the battlefield using her Rewarp Staff.
Stance/Idle 1	Micaiah has the same battle stance she had in Radiant Dawn.
Idle 2	Micaiah looks to the horizon, while she puts her hand on her forehead and sighs.
Idle 3	Micaiah lifts up her book, opens it and reads for a brief moment, holding it with her two hands.
Crouch	Micaiah kneels on the floor, holding herself with her right hand on the floor, and holding her book with her left hand.
Walking	Micaiah moves slowly without moving her arms from their original position when she accelerates the walk this aspect remains.
Running	Micaiah runs moving her arms in rhythm with the legs while she still holds the book with her left arm.
Jump	Micaiah crouches briefly and jumps, in the First Jump she lifts her arms and stretches them a little bit. In the Second Jump, she does a backflip, like Roy. When she starts to fall, Micaiah puts her right hand on her dress (a typical anime situation where a character tries to avoid wind lifts).
Damaged	Micaiah backs a little bit, dropping her arms from their original position and lowering her body (Weak attacks). Micaiah ends with her arms down and her head is pushed backward (Strong attacks). When Micaiah starts to fall after a strong attack, she hugs her book by her abdomen while she spins in the air. She remains with her arms by her abdomen when she falls on the floor in this condition.
Roll	Micaiah does the same move she does in her original game when she dodges attacks: Micaiah does a spin while she moves to the indicated side.
Sidestep/Dodge	Micaiah moves to a side while she hugs her book for an instant.
Broken Shield / Dizzy	While Micaiah staggers and tries to stay up, she puts her right hand on her face.
Sleep	Micaiah completely collapses on the floor and lays down.
Jab	First hit: a swing with the right hand (from right to left from the point of view of the model) with her hand surrounded with light magic in the first strike. Second hit: the same as the first but this time using the left hand (the book is held in this hand during the animation, but doesn’t affect the range of the attack). Third hit: both of the previous movements forming an X motion with her arms. When they get separated they create a light explosion.
F-Tilt	Micaiah slices the air with her right arm creating at the same time a luminous slash, which can K.O. in higher percentages.
U-Tilt	Micaiah lifts her right arm and creates a light spell around her upper body with low power. However, this move can sometimes stun the opponents.
D-Tilt	Micaiah lifts her right arm slightly and casts a low-range magic sphere that moves on the floor.
Dash Attack	Micaiah puts both of her arms (with the book in the left arm) ahead and casts a small light attack. When the attack finishes, she loses momentum and stops.
Edge Attack	Micaiah casts a low-range magic sphere like the one in her D-Tilt while she is climbing up.
Floor Attack	Micaiah radiates a damaging light magic aura while she is getting up.
Forward Smash	Micaiah concentrates (closes her eyes and starts to move her right hand in circles), and when she finishes the charge, she creates light waves ahead from the floor that starts to move upwards. The damaged enemies are launched in a diagonal direction. (Based on FE4 Aura Animation.)
Up Smash	Micaiah channels magic (closes her eyes and begins raising her right hand in the air), and when the charge finishes, Micaiah lifts her right hand in the air and two powerful light rings appear around her; these rings move upwards and disappear when they arrive at a height slightly above her right hand. (Based on GBA Aura Animation.)
Down Smash	Micaiah begins to move her right hand (but this time horizontally), and when she finishes, Micaiah points to the floor, summoning from the height of her head a light beam directed at the floor provoking a small explosion. (Based on GBA Divine Animation.)
N-Air	Micaiah radiates around her a magic aura that slightly damages the opponent. It’s fast and effective to avoid your opponent’s movements.
F-Air	Micaiah, using both of her hands, releases a powerful vortex (whirling rays) of light almost of the same size as her. The attack is incredibly strong (especially in the beginning of the animation), so much that it even pushes Micaiah in the opposite direction, which can leave her vulnerable if this attack is avoided.
B-Air	Micaiah casts a small but strong magic explosion facing the same direction as the attack. If this move hits, Micaiah will be propelled in the opposite direction.
U-Air	Micaiah raises her right hand in the air and summons a wiggling light wave (resembling a whip or a snake), and the top part of the wave (before the animation ends) does more damage and knockback.
D-Air	Micaiah, using both of her hands, creates a powerful explosion below her, and the center of the explosion is a Meteor Smash.
Grab	Micaiah uses both of her arms and tries to grab opponents and hold them.
Pummel	Micaiah holds her opponent and knees them.
F-Throw	Micaiah pushes her opponent forward with a small light sphere. It is fast but weak and launches opponents to the floor.
B-Throw	Micaiah gets behind the opponent and kicks them a short distance to the floor.
U-Throw	Micaiah, using her right arm, creates a light column from the floor. It damages and pushes opponents, and it can K.O. in high percentages.
D-Throw	Micaiah uses her right arm to create a light column above the opponent and strikes them, pushing them slightly upwards (an ideal tool to connect additional attacks).
Neutral Special: Light Tomes (Light / Shine / Purge)	Micaiah starts to charge magic. As soon as you press the button again it will shoot a light magic attack from her right arm (chest height). The attack is not particularly fast and has a short range but the more it is charged the more powerful it is (and the explosion will be bigger). The move has three levels: Light (a simple light ball attack). Shine (a light magic attack with multiple hitboxes) and Purge (a light magic attack with a wider range; it’s the most powerful version of the move, able to kill with decent percentages).
Neutral Special 2: Merciful Tomes	The move has a lot more range and it charges faster, but the attack pushes the opponent (like several Water and Wind-based moves do) instead of doing knockback. It still does damage, however.
Neutral Special 3: Shattering Tomes	The move charges slower, but the attack does more Shield Damage.
Side Special: Thani	Micaiah makes some light particles appear on the floor that can move further depending on how long the special button is pressed. As soon as the particles reach their limit or you release the special button, it will summon a light pillar from above (a little bit higher than Ganondorf’s height) that explodes in the direction where the light particles were located originally. If the hitboxes in the center of Thani connects, this attack will be a Meteor Smash. Thani does massive shield damage. This attack is based on Micaiah’s Signature Tome, essentially a Magic Rapier (a.k.a. an anti-armor weapon).
Side Special 2: Valaura	This attack is similar, but the light pillar appears faster, is weaker and has less knockback. Additionally, the attack has a darkness effect (like the While Pikmin attack). The light pillar and the explosion are purple.
Side Special 3: Blue Flames	The attack is more powerful, but it has more ending-lag and does recoil damage when released too close to Micaiah (like Roy’s fully charged special). The attack has fire properties and instead of a light pillar, it’s a blue flare (the explosion is blue too).
Up Special: Rewarp	Micaiah uses a Staff to warp herself in any direction with a decent reach (this can’t do damage, but it can push the opponents slightly). Micaiah is invincible when she is warping.
Up Special 2: Instant Warp	Rewarp has a shorter reach but Micaiah doesn’t fall helpless (she can do any action other than teleport herself again) and the teleportation is faster.
Up Special 3: Powerful Warp	Rewarp has a particularly longer reach, but the move has a longer start-up.
Down Special: Sleep Staff	Micaiah uses the Sleep Staff to create an AoE ahead her, any opponent in the AoE’s range will fall asleep.
Down Special 2: Silence Staff	Micaiah uses the Silence Staff this time, and the AoE will reflect the characters inside it and block the Special Moves for a brief moment.
Down Special 3: Sacrifice	Micaiah leans forward to heal a percentage of an ally’s damage in the AoE. Micaiah suffers recoil damage (25% of the recovered damage) if her heal hits the allies.
Final Smash: Great Corona and RexAura	After she casts a small magic ball flying upwards, Micaiah summons a big light magic sphere from the sky in a diagonal trajectory. If opponents are hit by the sphere they will be pulled inside, and when the sphere hits the floor and explodes they will be sent flying away.
Up Taunt	Like one of the original Micaiah’s poses, she does a bow-like pose and greets.
Side Taunt	Yune (a small orange bird) appears and flies around Micaiah. Micaiah lifts her right hand at the height of her upper body and then Yune lands there. Micaiah smiles during the animation.
Down Taunt	Micaiah’s eyes change their color to red, her hands begin to glow, and then she says something. As soon as she finishes, Micaiah closes her eyes and they’re yellow again.
Victory Animation 1	The camera focuses on Yune flying. After a brief moment, a right hand appears. Yune lands on that hand, and then the camera focuses on Micaiah’s upper body. Micaiah starts to smile and pets the little bird (based on the Radiant Dawn intro cutscene).
Victory Animation 2	Micaiah stretches her arms and starts to cast a blue light around her hands. When she stops this animation she asks, “Are you okay?” (She is performing healing magic.)
Victory Animation 3	Micaiah removes her right glove, and shows her hand and a brand on it; this brand glows a little bit. During the animation, she says: “I’m not afraid anymore.”
Loss Animation	Micaiah smiles and claps.
Kirby Hat	Kirby has long silver hair with a blue ribbon.

And as expected, Micaiah’s victory theme is the standardFire Emblem fanfare.

This concludes my most ambitious work of Smash speculation, finally finishing this moveset and showing how Micaiah would work in Smash Bros. Even if Micaiah is never selected as an official Smash character this was a wonderful journey. With this little article, I hope I will do justice to a character that deserved more than what she received; seeing anyone interested in this idea makes me really happy.

Micaiah and Ike Art by 74 (Yes, that is his artistic name)

I hope you enjoy it, see you next time, and thanks for reading.

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Joshua 'NantenJex' Goldie

A historian and avid gamer, NantenJex is the Editor-in-Chief for Source Gaming, overseeing videos and reviews for the site. He has a passion for obscure gaming so any article you see on uncommon titles like Nazo no Murusame Jo, Yuyuki and Marvelous, to name a few, are most likely from him. He also likes game design leading to the creation of Dream Smashers, a series on potential newcomers for Super Smash Bros. He wants you all to know that Yoshi is objectively the best Nintendo character.

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