Recently with people digging into the Data and comparing it to the characters we already have in the game the character entitled "Brave" seems to be Approximately Sa- Ness sized which does not instantly rule out Erdrick as a whole sure it rules out Mr. Adult Erdrick but not Kid/Chibi Erdrick or a Slouching Erdrick which in turn with the size comparison it raises Geno's and Slime's/Whoever's chances. In my mind there are four possibilities to who this character is 1) He's in. It's some form of Erdrick. 2) It's a Tales Of character 3) It's a different character as a whole like Sans or someone or 4) Nintendo did a galaxy brain play and it turns out to be Geno/Another Square rep.
the first option still is by and large the most likely scenario but the character APPARENTLY fitting how a Zoner plays and that he's slightly smaller than Mario gives me a VERY slight glimmer of hope for it being Geno as cannonically Geno is slightly smaller than Mario, Geno in game has never hit an opponent with his Bare fists which would make him fit the Zoner archetype IIRC and as
Slender
pointed out in the Geno thread and this is just paraphrasing but he/she basically stated that the Code labelled the fighter with "fighter_Skin_kind_Bio" which only appears with specific character like R.O.B, Samus/Dark Samus and Mega-Man which appears to be a Metal Specifier and everyone in the bio group is made of Biological material Humans, Animals, Plants and yes WOOD is a biological Material which Geno is obviously made out of that which is why he slides he is made out of Wood has a tendency to slide when moving fast.
of course this is all speculation but it adds up except why would the Codename be Brave? Easy, to mislead people into thinking it's a different character sure the past two DLC characters have been straightforward but there's no proof that the previous character codenames weren't changed after being revealed to show who the real character is, and while that's a long shot and just a hypothetical there (from my knowledge) is no proof debunking that hypothetical situation. and let's say there is proof of that not being the case they could start doing that at any point in the future or in the present. Anyways even if it isn't my boy Geno it could be different characters.
like Yuri lowell from Tales of Vesperia who as people in this very thread brought up is SO popular in the Tales of fanbase that She is disqualified from Popularity polls! that's crazy! I don't really have to go too in-depth with this do I? we all know about the pros going for her to the point people expect either Eddy or Yuri as the two frontrunners of who "Brave" May be. Yuri is insanely popular as people have pointed out, Leakers like Polarpanda have been talking about how Namco-Bandai may get another Rep and that Lloyd and Yuri are in the running to the point they're the only two Namco reps being taken seriously and whatnot.
Even Mr. Funny man haha Skeleton Sans Undertale fits the data of "Brave" with the Data looking like a zoner and Sans can use Magic as Zoning with him throwing Bones and shooting Gaster Blasters and whatnot and well, Sans is Ness so they obviously would be a similar size /s no but for real Sans could be a Zoner with the attacks he uses and He does seem to be the size of Toon Link/Ness if he were to be in Smash. Plus IF we were to talk about how Sakurai likes DQ being a point in Eddy's favor it also applies to Sans as Sakurai has stated he enjoyed playing Undertale in one of his Famitsu articles.
now with me talking about how other characters could still be likely case and point My Boy Geno, the recent developments also don't totally count out Erdrick with him having a multitude of different designs throughout the years from a chibi version which COULD be the size of Ness to his multitude of other designs, I don't really want to get in-depth about this as I'm lazy and not passionate about Erdrick like I am with Geno at all and we all know Erdrick is far, FAR from being unlikely and is still without a doubt in the running as the most likely character with Square probably wanting to push DQ in the west and Sakurai being a fan of DQ, Leakers being all for Erdrick being in like Polar, Hitagi (even though I don't take this dude seriously anymore), and Verge talking about how Erdrick is the most likely guy by far.
with all that said I want to finish up here by saying to the fans of other characters, Erdrick may be the most likely guy Right now but there's a possibility it's not him, there's always a possibility even when all hope is lost there always is a chance no matter how slight. If it is him we may not win this DLC but maybe if there's a season 2, if not then there's always next game. Geno will eventually come we all thought K. Rool was never gonna happen, he happened. we all thought Ridley was too big, He wasn't. don't lose hope no matter how doom and gloom it is right now. and to fans of other Square characters like Sora, You guys are HUGE Sora is a big name character in this day and Age of gaming if Sakurai could get you guys I'm sure he eventually without a doubt will just give him time and He'll eventually come like Geno will.
and to Erdrick fans, if "Brave" really is Erdrick while I'm not a fan of DQ at all (I tried one of the games and I got lost and couldn't progress and it was kinda boring) DQ is without a doubt the only big JRPG series not yet in Smash and DQ is super influential to this very day. it is THE JRPG series it's the one that fathered in JRPG's/RPG's in general, I may have wanted Geno and will be admittedly dissapointed if DQ really gets in over Geno for how long people have been clamoring and rooting for Geno you guys won fair in Square (No pun intended). GG's guys GG's. Hope you guys enjoy Erdrick guess IF "Brave" Really is DQ guess I'll move to my second most wanted character which is Banjo who IMO is looking like the most likely Microsoft rep right now. But if "Brave" Isn't DQ While I would be happy I'm sorry you guys got so close to getting Erdrick/Whoever yet to get yeeted upon from Square. as I stated with Geno/Sora you're time will come eventually just give it time.