if you do gardevoir and gothitelle you have all gens up until when smash ultimate was proposed represented (since pichu is back).
you could then do a gen7 for DLC (pokemons a big draw its the type of thing casuals will pay to download).
Now the smash ballot obviously would have gotten a TON of pokemon requests. the smash ballot had a few major things on it, one thing was to vote in a character and with 700+ pokemon, while im sure some came out ahead, i'd wager there wasnt an overwhelming winner, probably a large list of "favorites" that stood out but no one having say double the votes of all the other pokemon. Well another thing that was on the smash ballot was a section where you could write in your reason WHY you wanted a certain character... this is where I think gardevoir with a gothitelle echo starts to have some logic behind it... now i said i bet there wasnt one pokemon that got voted for significantly more than others BUT i'd also guess if you catogorized peoples reasons for asking for certain pokemon you'd get a very common theme with "This Generation of pokemon isnt represented yet". In fact I'd bet that might have been the #1 reason for a pokemons inclusion people wrote down on the ballot... stuff like "gen3 was the first gen i played" or "gen 2 was my favorite and we dont have a rep" or "us younger fans would really like a Gen5 pokemon"... Sakurai is definitely the type of guy to appreciate that pokemon has stood the test of time and many different generations of kids have grew up playing and loving different generations of pokemon and want their time with that series acknowledged in smash... If sakurai saw THOSE out cries as the MAIN reasoning for a pokemons representation I think him settling on gardevoir and gothitelle makes a TON of sense. First hes already bringing everyone back so Pichu comes in and reps Gen2. the missing reps at the time of smash development then become Gen3 and Gen5 (with Gen7 not out yet), Sakurai then has to find a way to rep two gens in a game where he isnt adding "too many more characters", the obvious solution is one will be an "echo fighter". So now he has to choose a pokemon popular enough to warrant inclusion in smash AND has a pokemon from the other unrepresented Gen (either 3 or 5) that can be its echo fighter...
Suddenly Gardevoir with a Gothitelle echo doesnt seem like a crazy choice at all.
Now we COULD just get incineroar but honestly we could save Gen7 for DLC and calling this smash "ultimate", feels like every gen of pokemon having a rep seems like a fitting task to try and accomplish. THAT on top of the fact the ONE leak to guess at richter also didnt guess at anything that would have gotten it deconfirmed like guessing at ashley or mimikyu or something else that would have "deconfirmed" it after this direct AND it has a plausible story about how the information was obtained (not necessarily a LIKELY story but plausible) AND it wasnt a leak JUST saying richter, it also guessed at things that could have easily gotten it deconfirmed (dark samus ending up being an assist trophy or gardevoir being shown as a pokeball pokemon would have instantly killed the leak)...
Gardevoir is a popular pokemon and is from Gen 3 (a generation with no representation in smash). the Gen3 remakes were also the newest pokemon games out around the time smash ultimate goes into development. after this last direct echo fighters seem to be fairly plentiful (guessing at gothitelle when the only echo we had was daisy is, much like richter, leak poison. why even say it if you are faking a leak it kills it almost instantly) and Gothitelle COULD work as a gardevoir echo. Gothitelle is also a Gen5 pokemon, the one other Gen not represented in smash...
Also i think "Mario2" is Geno. call me biased but i think geno is going to be the FINAL "everyone is here" base game rep, and i could see sakurai going to great lengths to "hide" him and using a code word for his data.
I have more to say about this leak, mostly about how vergeben and lok18 seem to not know exactly which pokemon we are getting just who we arent and just how impressive guessing richter without faltering and guessing someone who got deconfirmed AND guessing a few other characters (although commonly guessed ones: k rool/dark samus) gives this leak, imo, a LOT of credibility.
im going to make a more in depth video on it if no one can give me a good reason it is likely fake, i seriously think its one of our most likely leaks right up there with skull kid and isabelle right now.
