Alright, so here's mine. While I don't feel super confident in the names I'm picking here, I do feel pretty good about the pass make up looking something like this:
1. A major regional appeal character. Most of pass 1 went like this so with 6 spots in pass 2 I'd be shocked if they didn't dip back into that well at least 1 more time.
2. Another hype E3 reveal. There's no way we don't get another pick set for E3 and E3 always has someone big shown off there. Leaning towards this being a character the west is fond of as well.
3. A lesser known 3rd party character with a solid history with Nintendo. I basically mean a Terry spot here. By this I also don't mean the character is a literal who or is completely and totally obscure. Just a character who isn't as big of a name in the overall gaming world.
4. A Nintendo character from a 2021 release. So far we've ended 2 cycles of DLC with a character from a recently released game and IIRC Sakurai said something about liking to end on characters like that since they are more fresh in people's minds
Could easily see spots 1 and 3 being flipped. Think 2 and 4 and pretty solidly locked in order however.
So with that said, here's who I predict will be our final 4 DLC characters in Smash Ultimate:
1. Ahri - Still feel solid about a League of Legends character happening here. Let's go over the reasons why again. First, the Switch is newly introduced in China. Not sure how COVID has effected that, but this was planned before Covid so I doubt that it's going to effect Smash DLC picks. 2nd, LOL is massive in China. Not so much in Japan however, but huge in China and in the west. The partner for the Switch in China project is Tencent, who owns Riot games who makes LOL. And as we;ve seen with the Pokemon MOBA they're clearly working together on more than just that. And while I understand Smash isn't out in China yet there's no way its not coming. There's just way too much that makes sense here. I have this listed as our next DLC character but I could see it being flipped with spot 3. Not sure who else could contend for this spot other than maybe Heavy who would be a big UK pick which I don't believe we got yet.
2. Crash Bandicoot - Here's the 2nd E3 reveal of the pass. While I don't exactly trust names once they start getting big in Smash speculation anymore I think there's a lot going here. Perfect E3 reveal here. A gaming icon that's super popular worldwide and has a fair amount of request. Would also match up with the recent trend of getting a western developed character added at western events(Joker, Banjo, and now Steve). Even should E3 not happen again, the DLC was already picked back when that wasn't a thought out there yet so that won't factor in. And although it seems like Sakurai/Nintendo doesn't really believe in doing things this way, it would be one killer way to expand the crossover for what would probably be the last time in Ultimate where literally everyone is losing their minds. Other contenders for this spot include Tracer, Geno, and Sora among many others.
3. Phoenix Wright - Here's the pick I'm the least confident in. Not because of explanation above, but because there's a lot of people who could fit in here. I'll explain why I think Phoenix first though. Ace Attorney has a long history with Nintendo with most if not all games of their showing up on Nintendo somewhere. While not being iconic Phoenix is a known character. There's also a connection to Sakurai here that might help him out, which is the GBA trailer story I
linked here. Which helped get us to the Smash trailers and reveals we have now. While it might not be much, it does seem like having a connection to Sakurai has helped more than it hasn't really. And by that I don't mean the dumb "Well, Sakurai tweeted that he liked this game back in 2010, that means ____ is for sure coming next". I mean like actual connections that inspired or influcenced him. On top of that, Capcom is a really easy company to work with and I'd be very surprised if we got 0 DLC from them. Think Hayabusa is a good contender here too but as far as I know he doesn't have the same connection that Phoenix does to Sakurai and Capcom has already gotten playable characters, which feels like a big hurdle to overcome for some reason in which KT hasn't yet.
4. A Nintendo character with a 2021 release(Right now only real contender seems to be BOTW 2 character) - Yep, still confident in this happening. Like I said above there's a clear pattern here and I swear a Sakurai quote out there explaining why they do this. So who could it be? Well I kinda have no clue at this point. The only 1st party game out there for 2021 we know for sure is BOTW 2 right now. So Zelda or the new Impa seems likely for it at the moment. However, Nintendo for sure has stuff in development right now that we don't know about. Until we know about them it's kinda hard to talk about their chances, so instead I'll take a minute and talk about who doesn't make sense for this spot. First, we have 2020 releases who were speculated for this spot. That includes Paper Mario and a Gen 8 Pokemon. Both those games/dlc are way too late for that spot. Like I said, this is usually a promotional spot and I can't imagine a scenerio where they decide to promote a game and DLC packs that will be well over a year old when the character even gets announced. I also dont see it being Monster Hunter or a SMT character right here. Although I do think they're in a good time window for it seemingly, they are also both 3rd parties and Nintendo seems to want to drop their own characters in those spots. Also since I know somebody is thinking it, no, it won't be a FE protagonist. We're likely at least a year away from another FE game being announced. So what exactly am I looking for here? Probably a 1st party game released somewhere in the Spring-Summer(or because of delays as late as the fall maybe). We don't really know what that'll be right now but I'm confident we'll get a character in the same vein as Corrin and Byleth.
Predictions:
IDK who we're on but I'm already 3 hours past when i should have gone to bed(watched Iowa State upset OU) so I'll just toss a 25% at whoever and call it a day
Noms
Stretchers x5
Non Steve/Chief Microsoft rep x15