Hey so I just want to point out that that quote leak that was posted last night is currently completely undebunkable. It didn't do anything stupid to make it so that its obviously fake, and every character it suggested is supremely likely, and matches up with what Vergeben's been saying (though obviously that means nothing with how easy that is to do, but its worth pointing out)
Since y'all might be interested, the characters its saying are:
Unknown Pokemon Rep (Most likely, at least)
Skull Kid
Isaac
Waddle Dee
Rhythm Heaven Rep
Dixie (Diddy echo)
Isabelle (Most likely a villager echo)
Jin Kazama (from Tekken!)
Geno
Banjo-Kazooie
Shadow the Hedgehog (i dont even need to say who he's an echo of)
Ken (i don't have to say it here either)
The last character is one that literally nobody has been able to figure out, but I've hypothesized that it could be Elma, but I dunno. Now, obviously I could just be... way too into this leak because it has four of my biggest wants on it, but its worth noting how none of these characters have been deconfirmed, and all have something going for them.
Isabelle, Ken, Poke rep, and Geno all have the Vergeben leak going for them, so they might as well already be confirmed from where I'm standing (Worth noting is that Vergeben has never definitively stated it was Incineroar, just that he was assuming it was, which is interesting). As far as echoes go, Dixie and Shadow are obvious choices, with evidence for Dixie being that Diddy's jab was changed, and shadow having gone missing as an Assist Trophy. Skull Kid is also MIA, and like Shadow seems to have been replaced with a very similar Assist Character (thematically, I mean). Isaac is also missing, and Sakurai has kind of teased him at this point. Waddle Dee has the pure popularity behind him, and a Rhythm Heaven rep has that they were cut previously as evidence. Jin has the obvious connections with Bandai going on, and Banjo has Nintendo's frankly weird, chummy relationship with Microsoft.
Final thing to note is that this roster ends up completely even (86), no matter if you remove the echoes (76), or cut Pokemon Trainer down to one slot (84, 74), which means the roster is completely feasible with that one new mode everyone's saying the roster has to be connected to. There are also only 13 non-echo newcomers, making it the smallest batch of newcomers in franchise history (minus the first game, obviously), which goes with what Sakurai said of not expecting too many new characters. Though obviously if you put in the echoes, it becomes the largest batch at 21.
Speaking hypothetically, if this is real, then this is a fantastic roster. It has everything I personally want out of the game, and is basically truly an ultimate experience. New reps for long neglected franchises, excellent third parties, and a small but fun selection of completely new franchises. Speaking of this as a fake leak, which is still a massive possibility, this is one of the best I've seen. No drama BS, just going straight to cryptic hints, which in turn make trying to figure out the characters into a fun game rather than a generic list. It helps that some of the quotes used are genuinely really hard to figure out. 10/10 leak right here, making this stuff actually fun is great.
Now, I'm probably going to cling to this leak until it inevitably ends up being revealed as fake. I really, really just need something like this for the moment, because speculation and arguing about characters is the worst. The best thing I can compare it to is a colander filled with water, with a thin sheet of plastic covering the holes that you have to hold up to keep from falling to the ground. One wrong move, and the entire thing is gone.
that was probably too long for what its covering, nobody's probably going to read it. oh and if someone can figure out where this quote comes from, that would be appreciates
"Look above! They've been testing those three for awhile now! We will have to dig deeper for more though..."
