For people talking about Toad being generic and "toad" being a species, keep in mind that's only true in English. In Japan, the species is called kino, and Toad the character is named Kinopio. To Sakurai and the Japanese devs, he won't seem quite as generic as he does to us. Although I'm sure they're aware that Kinopio the kino is Toad the toad in the US.
Toad
Popularity: Toad's the 8th most popular video game character in Japan. Like, overall.
http://kotaku.com/5035884/and-japans-favorite-video-game-characters-are
That makes him the 3rd most popular Nintendo character in Japan. He's fairly wanted by Smash fans both in Japan and the US.
Relevancy: He's been in pretty much all Mario games, from the beginning. He's been playable in a number of them, but usually fairly generic in those cases. But he did star in Wario's Woods.
Design: Kinda hard to think of a move set for him though.
Competition: Bowser Jr and to a lesser extent Paper Mario and Waluigi are also fighting for a spot.
Other: He's part of Peach's move set. That could be fixed by replacing him with Toadsworth though. Or giving her a new move. If, when Peach is revealed, they don't show Peach's neutral-B in any screen shots, you should be at least a little suspicious.
Toad chances: 23%
The move set problem is pretty significant, as is the fact that he's fairly generic, unique name or not. Bowser Jr has more personality and more move set potential, so he's the most likely Mario newcomer. Toad's popularity and long history put him in second - Sakurai will solve the move set problem if he wants to.
Toad want: 60%
I like him alright, but I have a hard time envisioning what he'd do. Still, he's more deserving than a lot of others.
Tingle prediction: 8%
Tingle has some fans in the West and is decently popular in Japan, but there's a lot of hate out there. And we know that Nintendo has responded to the West's hate of the character. I don't think most people will think he's very likely.
Nominations:
5x Simon Belmont
To answer you're question, it would different as the amount of ways a person can fight with a sword. I don't think any character can be deconfirmed on the basis of being not unique, because that's very subjective and doesn't even deal with the fact that any clone-like character can be given a different moveset.
I specifically said I didn't think it disqualified him. Why are you responding as if I had?
I was saying that I was annoyed at people defending Chrom and saying he's unique, when he just isn't that unique. I wasn't arguing that meant he wouldn't be in.