I guess we have dueling rumors and theories now... They didn't totally disagree, but with Vergeben saying that Isaac is an AT and the Grinch is wrong, one of them has to be at least somewhat wrong. The box theory also disagrees with the Grinch leak.
Reading the tea leaves I see reasons to doubt both Vergeben and the Grinch, but stronger reasons to doubt the Grinch leak. Fundamentally, while it's a complex image, the image quality is very low, and we've seen fakes of comparable quality/required effort before, while Vergeben has had his predictions hold up even if they're not comprehensive (he didn't know about K Rool, for example). I'm inclined to think the runtime suggests the box theory is wrong (only an Echo + one newcomer for a 40 minute Direct?).
I can pretty confidently predict that we'll be able to rule at least
one of them out tomorrow though! Because the only thing that fits with all three is Geno and/or Ken being revealed, and a Smash Direct only revealing a single Echo character. But it's pretty likely we'd see something different from that.
If we see...
Incineroar - Grinch is false
non-Geno Square Enix - Grinch is false
Isaac AT - Grinch is false
Isaac playable - Vergeben is at least partly wrong, possibly was only ever just lucky
Shadow - box theory is false
any other non-Ken Echo - box theory is false, Grinch is false
Mach Rider, Banjo-Kazooie, Chorus Kids - Vergeben's credibility is questioned due to providing support for Grinch (more or less depending on which, since BK is a more obvious choice than Mach Rider)
any two non-Echo newcomers - box theory is false
any other character playable - box theory is false, Grinch is false
obviously, any character said to be playable revealed as not playable (AT, Pokeball, trophy, whatever) will disprove the corresponding rumor...
So at least
one of them will
probably be disproven. Now watch and we'll only get Ken and Geno and we won't be able to say
any of them are definitely false...
Post characters that you would like to be on the schedule if they are not confirmed tomorrow, I want to get this game ready for DLC soon
.
If info suggestive of the Grinch leak being true is revealed... any character not included that we rated highly.
If Vergeben AND the Grinch seem to both be wrong... Dixie, Incineroar, other top Pokemans, Shadow, Isaac, Geno, other Square Enix
If we only get Ken and Geno, then of course... Incineroar, Isaac and the other Grinch characters, and any other Square Enix character
If nothing that disproves Vergeben, but does disprove the Grinch... then I'd have to wait and see, because I don't think we actually rated the Grinch characters after that leak, did we? Their scores should only be affected if they were rated between the Grinch leak and the Direct. The Grinch being false shouldn't affect their scores if they weren't inflated by the Grinch in the first place (other than any characters shown to be non-playable, of course).