I have mentioned her, yes - and
Lina's explicitedly based on the manga / anime Slayers' Lina Inverse (Dota 2's Lina's spells are Light Strike Array, Dragon Slave and Laguna Blade. The references are that deep.) She is one of the figureheads, yes - to the point that she was one of the
original poster children Valve chose for Dota 2. Not the most popular pub pick: that honor routinely goes to the Skill-Shot zombie known as Pudge - based on Diablo 2's Butcher. But he'd not be fit for Smash anyhow.
Picked her not just due to her being a favored character - there's another reason. I chose to throw my support behind Ahri due to that too:
both these characters would be instantly recognizable to the Japanese audiences. While MOBAs are incredibly niché at best in Japan*, picking major characters that would be recognizable even to a largely unfamiliar audience might help soften any percieved blow. Hoo boy it would not eliminate it - not amongst Japanese Smash fans who wish for a different character I'm aware, but still perhaps soften the blow.
(While Ahri's inspired by a
Korean Kumiho, Japanese audiences would instantly see the nine-tailed fox and that she wears a kimono.
Spirit Blosson Ahri is especially Japanese: "Her kimono is wrapped left side over right side as in Japan it is believed that only the dead wrap left over right." Not to say that the specific costume would neccessarily make it into Smash, but saying that Riot's not pidgeonholed her.)
As for others:
Eldrake has mentioned
Juggernaut in the past, and I could honestly see that (he's been stylized as a samurai, so he'd also fit the "instantly recognizable by Japanese" criteria)... my only problem with it is that Juggernaut's Ultimate is Omnislash. As in, directly inspired by Omnislash - only lacking a huge finishing blow. Still, a recent update changed the-spell buffing item Aghanim's Sceptre and its effect on Juggernaut - now the Sceptre grants him a mini-Omnislash (Swiftslash), so if Sakurai (or S-E) in this scenario has a hang-up about using Omnislash again there's Swiftslash.
Outside of Juggernaut there's also
Anti-Mage, one of the prototypical farmers. His gimmick of Mana Burning wouldn't work on the Smash cast (
but he would hard-counter !), thus I'm leaning on Mana Burn being instead a stacking passive effect. So that his trade mark Ultimate Mana Void could work. In Dota (2), Mana Void essentially
deals Damage per Mana Missing. So what happens when an enemy hero with a huge but now empty mana meter gets hit by it?
Yes, this beautiful bull**** is AoE too. In Smash it'd be best to cap Mana Void damage (and capping any potential Mana Burn stacks) since Smash's not a teambased game.
I'd also imagine Tencent wants to push Unite primarily in the West / Japan, where AoV doesn't have a strong presence. They held a separate Pokemon showcase just for Unite, after all.
*(The Japanese broadcast of the Korean pro LoL league on Twitch averages around 2.5K viewers, while the Korean and English numbers are obviously much higher.)