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The Definitive Lloyd Irving Thread - fall down seven times, stand up eight (Mii costume confirmed)

Midget Master

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Joker is amazing, and Lloyd too would be an absolute treat. I'll fight anyone who complains about "too many anime swordsmen", I'll fight them with annoying disjoints and possibly demon fang projectiles.
 

Nauzgo

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Well, Jokers reveal lead me to have even more hope in Lloyd (and 2B). Let's hope they keep the announcements on this high level.
 

VashTehStampede

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Yes I definetly think Jokers addition really does make me think Lloyd's chances are at maximum! Cant wait for the next reveal! One thing that puzzles me, When joker was announced it said "Challenger pack 1" is that meaning more is to come after the 5?
 

Flyboy

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Yes I definetly think Jokers addition really does make me think Lloyd's chances are at maximum! Cant wait for the next reveal! One thing that puzzles me, When joker was announced it said "Challenger pack 1" is that meaning more is to come after the 5?
I believe they mean that each character is a "pack" - as in they each come with music, character, and a stage.
 

Ypsen

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I'm kinda worried because of Joker actually...

If Vergeben's right (once again), and we do obtain a Square Enix rep, if we count Lloyd, that will make 3 characters from J-RPG for the Fighter Pass.
Isn't a bit too much ?
 
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Nazyrus

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I'm kinda worried because of Joker actually...

If Vergeben's right (once again), and we do obtain a Square Enix rep, if we count Lloyd, that will make 3 characters from J-RPG for the Fighter Pass.
Isn't a bit too much ?
I dunno, their focus is mainly to bring cool characters from new series… not to bring a character from specific genres in gaming just for the sake of variety (I mean it could end being that way but there is no reason to believe that's their secondary focus just yet)
 

Flyboy

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If anything this makes Lloyd or Yuri way more likely. Cool characters, series has Nintendo ties, surprising while still being fan favorites. I'm Lloyd all the way and there is nothing I don't love about the idea of Persona vs. Tales Of in Smash.
 
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Nazyrus

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I know it's almost impossible now to expect Lloyd to be revealed within this month, but then again… Joker reveal was a teaser, it didn't need gameplay, so they can reveal characters whenever they freaking want to push the sales for the Season pass, which matters most than waiting for each character individual release date… therefore, i'm gonna still cross my fingers to see what is revealed during the Tales of Anniversary. Tomorrow we are gonna have (or rather today at some hour, i can't remember) the tales of broadcast featuring lloyd's VA, i'm guessing it's gonna be in japanese but hopefully there is a tales of community out there that will translate anything juicy from it.
 
D

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I think Lloyd has a good chance

- Mii costume in Smash 4

- Best candidate for a new Bandai Namco rep (only other Bandai Namco character to get a Mii costume in Smash 4 was Heihachi, but people have said that Sakurai said Heihachi's moves were too difficult to implement into Smash bros)

- In an article in 2016, Sakurai was asked why he chose Lloyd over other Tales reps, and Sakurai's response, "I'm not sure if there was any other appropriate choice?" Why not the protagonist of the first game, Cress, he was asked. "I really think it has to be Lloyd here (laughs)."

- With the announcement of Joker joining Smash at the VGAs, Nintendo isn't going for only promotional picks or mainstream picks. Joker isn't a mainstream character, not a lot of people know him. Persona 5 hasn't been released on a Nintendo platform, and this even better for Lloyd, because Tales of Symphonia is for the Gamecube. Joker was added to please the fans (and as a new Sega rep), and Lloyd is the most requested BN character, and is highly, or at least fairly requested overall

- Lloyd has worldwide recognition and appeal, like Joker

I think he will be one of the 5
 

Icedragonadam

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I think Lloyd has a good chance

- Mii costume in Smash 4

- Best candidate for a new Bandai Namco rep (only other Bandai Namco character to get a Mii costume in Smash 4 was Heihachi, but people have said that Sakurai said Heihachi's moves were too difficult to implement into Smash bros)

- In an article in 2016, Sakurai was asked why he chose Lloyd over other Tales reps, and Sakurai's response, "I'm not sure if there was any other appropriate choice?" Why not the protagonist of the first game, Cress, he was asked. "I really think it has to be Lloyd here (laughs)."

- With the announcement of Joker joining Smash at the VGAs, Nintendo isn't going for only promotional picks or mainstream picks. Joker isn't a mainstream character, not a lot of people know him. Persona 5 hasn't been released on a Nintendo platform, and this even better for Lloyd, because Tales of Symphonia is for the Gamecube. Joker was added to please the fans (and as a new Sega rep), and Lloyd is the most requested BN character, and is highly, or at least fairly requested overall

- Lloyd has worldwide recognition and appeal, like Joker

I think he will be one of the 5
That and Heihachi is a sprite in Pac-Man's Namco Roulette taunt along with the Katamari character. Plus Japanese VA cultures treat a VA that died like the character also died as well.
 
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Nauzgo

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Since Bamco developed the game, they deserve a proper, own character. I mean, Pac-Man pretty much stands for his own as a icon. Like, you don't immediately think of Bamco when you see him.

I previously stated this in another thread and mention it again: If Joker is any evidence to go with, we should believe Nintendo's word when they said DLC's gonna be surprises. For me, that means that those characters aren't present in Smash at all yet. So Lloyd's mysterious absence may really be an indicator.

Also, it seems like they're really going for Japanese characters, like they did back then with Ryu, Cloud and Bayo and now with Joker. That's pretty good for us, too.
 

DogManStar

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I don't know why Namco doesn't have another character yet. If this pack of DLC is really going to be all third-parties, I can't see why Lloyd would be excluded.
 

VashTehStampede

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Crazy how on twitter so many people posting about Lloyd Irving since the joker reveal
It’s gotta happen now, all the odds are in his favor
The anniversary stream is happening today and Lloyd’s voice actor is going to be there so hopefully if they announce like a tales or symphonia remaster/remake for switch that might go hand in hand with a later reveal
 

~ Valkyrie ~

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Crazy how on twitter so many people posting about Lloyd Irving since the joker reveal
It’s gotta happen now, all the odds are in his favor
The anniversary stream is happening today and Lloyd’s voice actor is going to be there so hopefully if they announce like a tales or symphonia remaster/remake for switch that might go hand in hand with a later reveal
Pretty appalled but happy too how things keep going on Lloyd's favor as they come over time.

On that end, highly curious how things in the anniversary stream will be going there indeed. ToS Chronicles or a full remaster would be dope.
 

Nazyrus

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Did anything happen at the Tales broadcast though
Apparently Tales of Crestoria is getting an english version of the game. I'm still browsing to see if anything else has happened during that broadcast… The actual anniversary is happening next week tho so there could be a chance for an announcement then as well, altho i don't know if smash is possible, but at least a new game could be announced or something.
 

VashTehStampede

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Apparently Tales of Crestoria is getting an english version of the game. I'm still browsing to see if anything else has happened during that broadcast… The actual anniversary is happening next week tho so there could be a chance for an announcement then as well, altho i don't know if smash is possible, but at least a new game could be announced or something.
Yeah I’m thinking if symphonia gets a remaster or port to switch that might be a key sign to look for
 

Nightguything

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A Symphonia port to the switch would be amazing, day one buy if it happens.

Also, I agree with you all saying Bamco is due for another rep, and with Heihachi seemingly out of the picture, the only other candidate is a tales rep (preferably Lloyd).
 

VashTehStampede

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So I just found out Lloyd's JP Voice actor is in the Credits for Smash bros. Seeing how there was a connection with Master Hands = Joker, it's a fun little thing to add on when it comes to Lloyd
 

Icedragonadam

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So I just found out Lloyd's JP Voice actor is in the Credits for Smash bros. Seeing how there was a connection with Master Hands = Joker, it's a fun little thing to add on when it comes to Lloyd
Well I know the VA also voice's FE's Xander. Is he one of the shop keepers in the game?
 

Nightguything

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Can we expect anything from the anniversary though? I thought they celebrated early this year with the announcement of Tales of Crestoria mobile?
 

Icedragonadam

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The anniversary stream is the 18th right? That's a Tuesday. Oh man if Nintendo announces a Nintendo Direct on Monday for Tuesday......
 

VashTehStampede

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Very excited for the anniversay stream. Even if no smash info comes from it, as a tales fan it’ll be great. My big wish is we get a Symphonia port announced. I feel since joker was the first character announced Yuri’s likelyness dropped because there’s no way another character announcment is happening so soon. If they announce a symphonia port for sometime next year. That could Lead to a Lloyd reveal
 

RandomAce

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Very excited for the anniversay stream. Even if no smash info comes from it, as a tales fan it’ll be great. My big wish is we get a Symphonia port announced. I feel since joker was the first character announced Yuri’s likelyness dropped because there’s no way another character announcment is happening so soon. If they announce a symphonia port for sometime next year. That could Lead to a Lloyd reveal
Do you have a link for the stream? I’m willing to be potentially blown away.
 
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DaybreakHorizon

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I just posted this in the Smash Ultimate General Discussion thread and I figured ya'll would appreciate it.
The Definitive Case for Lloyd

Hello everyone and welcome to the third post in a series of speculation posts written by your's truly. In this post I'll be arguing for Lloyd Irving, whom I believe to be the closest thing to a shoe-in for inclusion as a DLC fighter. This may sound ironic coming from one of most vocal detractors of the concept of shoe-ins, but I will legitimately be surprised if Lloyd isn't one of our DLC fighters. Let me tell you why:
  • "But tehponycorn," you say, "this has already been done!" You would be correct, as Not-Neuro on Reddit (who I believe is our own VashTehStampede VashTehStampede ) wrote a long post detailed potential points supporting Lloyd's inclusion. However, I'll be diving deeper into the argument of why Lloyd should be included more than "here's how cool of an inclusion he'd be."
  • I'll acknowledge my own fan bias up front, as I highly regard Tales of the Abyss and enjoyed both the Tales of the Abyss and Symphonia anime series. That being said, I'll be leaving my bias at the door and, like my other two speculation posts, arguing more about "why I believe he's likely" instead of "why I want him."
It's a well-known fact that Bandai Namco helped with the development of Super Smash Brothers for 3DS and Wii U (which will be referred to as Sm4sh for the rest of this essay), and that same team came back to help develop Smash Ultimate as well. This is amazing for relationships between Nintendo and Namco, and naturally lends itself towards facilitating the process of including Namco characters in Smash Bros. Sakurai echoes this sentiment in his "My First Conception is My Landmark" Famitsu Column, wherein he reflects on the inclusion of Pac-Man in Sm4sh:
Since I am creating the new Smash Bros. in cooperation with Bandai-Namco Games, it makes sense to include one of their characters, and Pac-Man is perhaps Namco’s most iconic character, so Pac-Man should join the fray.
So, it's established that since Nintendo is working alongside Bandai Namco, it's a logical step to include their characters in Smash Bros. Despite this, within the same column Sakurai says this:
Interviewer: Between Bandai and Namco, were there any other strong candidates for inclusion as a fighter?

Sakurai: There were none. We basically thought of all the characters at the start of development. We decided on characters we knew we could make. However, there were a few in consideration, such as Heihachi from “Tekken.
This may seem like a hard disconfirmation, but it's important to note the statement in the question "any other strong candidates." The interviewer is asking if compared to Pac-Man were there any other strong candidates. Any other IPs from Bandai Namco pale in comparison to the arcade legend that is Pac-Man. Sakurai even states this when he says that "Pac-Man is perhaps Namco’s most iconic character." He additionally says that there were other characters in consideration, such as Heihachi, showing that other characters were considered alongside Pac-Man, but ultimately Pac-Man was the one chosen. Now that Pac-Man is a character in Ultimate, the doors are open for other Namco DLC characters to be included. Now the question is:
I previously discussed what I believe to be the criteria for a third party's inclusion within my Square Enix Character Argument (which you should totally read if you're into current speculation or any Square Enix character in general):
While Sakurai has commented on third parties in the past, he's been quite vague, only saying that the characters must have some association with Nintendo, both companies must want them and Sakurai must have some artistic license, the character must carry history with them, and (more recently) implying that third parties must have worldwide popularity

Based off of this, I'm going to argue that a third party representative must be at least one of two things: historic and iconic
So, does the Tales of series fit these criteria?

The Tales franchise debuted in 1995 on the Super Nintendo, and has been between Nintendo and Playstation systems with a singular prominent appearance on the Xbox 360. Prominent gaming journalist Jeremy Parish called the Tales franchise "quite arguably Japan's third-biggest RPG series, right after Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest," which where the claim of it being one of the "Big Three" JRPG series originates from, and certainly the sheer size of the series speaks for itself. The series has spawned multiple spin-off games, CD dramas, anime and manga series, and even has its own fan conventions in both America and Japan. The conference in Japan is so big that it's called a "festival. It's two days long and attracts tens of thousands of fans (there were 22,000 in attendance in 2014). Did I mention that this festival has been held yearly for 11 years now? In my opinion it's more fitting to call the Tales of series a multimedia franchise instead of a simple video game series, but I digress. The series meets both of the two primary criteria for inclusion as it is both historic and iconic, even having a prominent relationship with Nintendo to boot, unlike Tekken or other Namco series. Faithful representation is incredibly easy given that the series plays like a conventional fighting game, and special attacks are attributed to directional inputs, similar to the well known neutral, side, up, and down specials, which is another pro for the series.

All that being said, we return to the main question: "Why Lloyd Irving?"

At a surface level, Lloyd doesn't seem likely as a Tales of representative at all. Tales of Symphonia isn't as relevant as more recent Tales of titles such as Zestiria or Berseria, nor is Lloyd the most popular character within the series, as he's lucky to place within the bottom half of the Top 10 in official fan polls (his most recent results are 11th in the 8th character poll in 2017 and 9th in the 7th character poll in 2014). Two characters, Yuri Lowell and Leon Magnus, are legitimately banned from the poll because they were too popular and kept winning. Yuri Lowell, the most popular Tales of character and the protagonist of Tales of Vesperia, also just so happens to have a remastered edition of his game coming out in less than a month from the time of writing, making him a natural pick for inclusion as the Tales of representative, right?

Wrong.

You see, the thing about Lloyd Irving is that he is THE Nintendo Tales of character, and Tales of Symphonia's impact on the series is large enough to make up for a lack of relevancy and popularity.

Tales of Symphonia is interesting because Nintendo stepped in to personally advertise it themselves alongside Bandai Namco. It was a prominent Nintendo Gamecube release, and stands as an outlier in a series predominantly on Playstation systems at the time. The game itself was popular enough to warrant a sequel which was another prominent Nintendo title, making the Tales of Symphonia games the closest related to Nintendo in the series.

In 2013 series' producer Hideo Baba stated that Tales of Symphonia was the most popular Tales of title in the West, specifically citing the support from Nintendo:
Another huge component was that we had a lot of support from Nintendo, so that allowed us to reach out to a broader audience that we weren't able to reach before.
In 2014, Tales of Symphonia was further called the most successful title in the series for the 6th generation of consoles by product manager Dennis Lee, beating out Tales of Rebirth, Tales of Legendia, and Tales of the Abyss for that position. Both of these interviews occurred after the releases of Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Destiny, where the two most popular characters in the series originate from.

Tales of Symphonia is significant because it did what Dragon Quest still has yet to do: break into the Western market. Prior to its release, the Tales of was largely unknown in the West, but Symphonia changed that. While the series is still largely based in Japan, Symphonia introduced the series to the Western market with a splash, thanks to Nintendo. From there, it's managed to establish a community prominent enough that Bandai Namco takes feedback from them for the series. Lloyd is perfect mix between the series' Western and Eastern popularity and has the most prominent association with Nintendo out of any character in the series, and that is what makes him the most likely pick.


"but tehponycorn," you say, "Sakurai chose Cloud instead of Bartz or Terra because he was more popular despite having no association with Nintendo!"

You would be correct in that there is no precedent for Sakurai taking solid relationships with Nintendo into account when choosing a representative for a long-running franchise like Final Fantasy or Tales of. However, it's important to figure out why Sakurai chose Cloud over another Final Fantasy character:
But on the other hand, if you think about who to add from Final Fantasy, it’s hard to come up with a choice that’s not Cloud. We could have used Terra or Bartz, protagonists in their own right, but I feel like there would be some people who wouldn’t know who those characters are.
Everyone knows who Cloud is compared to other Final Fantasy protagonists. Lloyd doesn't have this problem compared to Yuri Lowell or Leon Magnus, and i is more well known in the West than the former two due to Symphonia's success, and is well known enough in Japan to make up for a lack of popularity; he is arguably the most "globally recognized" character in the series given Symphonia's worldwide popularity.

Sakurai even acknowledges this within an interview with Nintendo Dream Magazine about Sm4sh's DLC, wherein he addresses the inclusion of Lloyd's Mii Costume:
Lloyd:

The Tales series has 20 years of history, how did you decide on Lloyd for the costume?

Sakurai: I’m not sure if there was any other appropriate choice?

For example, how about the protagonist of the first game, Cress? [TN: From Tales of Phantasia]

Sakurai: I really think it has to be Lloyd here (laughs). I could have gone down the route of choosing from the first entry in the series, but for old games it’s somewhat common for the editorial supervision from the original creator to make the process difficult.
While Sakurai, vague as always, doesn't elaborate on why Lloyd was the only "appropriate choice," the two characters mentioned, Lloyd and Cress, are the two characters in the Tales of series with the most prominent ties to Nintendo. Regardless, Lloyd is apparently the only choice for a Tales of representative, and that is incredibly significant. It's very well that the answer to the question: "Why Lloyd Irving?" could simply be "Because Sakurai said so."

I'm omitting the argument that Mii Costumes are concessions to fans of popular characters given the speculative nature of it (we will never truly know how well a character performed in the Ballot, but I will acknowledge the possibility that Lloyd's Mii Costume was added due to a successful turnout within the Smash Ballot. Characters such as Inklings, King K. Rool, and Chrom all made the jump from Mii Costume to playable in Ultimate, and it's a reasonable conclusion to believe that Lloyd could make the same jump. If we choose to believe the statements of insiders such such as Vergeben and BKupa666 BKupa666 's source this conclusion becomes more solid as the Ballot was taken into heavy consideration when deciding to include Simon and King K. Rool respectively.

I'll also acknowledge the common counterargument that Heihachi would be considered instead of Lloyd. Within the column mentioned in the "Background - Why a Namco Character" section (man I'm really milking this one) Sakurai mentions that Heihachi was considered, but ultimately dismissed and elaborates a bit as to why that happened:
That’s right. However, implementing Heihachi’s movement in Smash would be difficult…
Tekken is a 3D fighting game, further than that, another essential aspect of the game is its controls: different buttons control different limbs instead of having different buttons for light, regular, and heavy attacks like other fighting games. These factors among make it difficult to faithfully represent Tekken within Smash Bros, and therefore it isn't worth butchering the series core mechanics to incorporate it into Smash Bros. Faithful representation is an essential aspect of a character's inclusion in Smash Bros., and if Sakurai and co. can't be true to Tekken's gameplay, they simply won't include him.

Sakurai has revisited scrapped ideas before, such as the Miis, Villager, Pac-Man, and Ridley, all of whom he believed couldn't be faithfully represented within Smash Bros., but this isn't a matter of being a non-fighter or being too big; the dissonance between Tekken's gameplay and that of Smash Bros. is too large to viably come up with a compromise and still faithfully represent the series. Heihachi will likely remain an aspect of Pac-Man's Namco Roulette taunt, and will get a Mii Costume at best.
Lloyd Irving is, at the very least, the most likely character for inclusion from Bandai Namco. No other franchise of their's bar Tekken comes anywhere close to the impact and legacy of the Tales of series, and Tekken is far too difficult to viably include in Smash so it's a nonstarter. I will admit that KOS-MOS and maybe Agumon could be dark horse picks, but neither have the popularity or relevancy to match the Tales of franchise, especially in regards to Smash Brothers, where the only two well-requested characters from Namco are Lloyd and Heihachi. Hopefully through writing this you can understand just why I see Lloyd as being so likely, and why I would more be surprised if he isn't one of our DLC fighters instead of if he is.
Wow this post took way too long to write. I started writing this almost immediately after finishing my last one on Monday (if you haven't read it yet, it's a lovely little essay about why we shouldn't be so quick to trust insiders using The Game Awards as an example), but I got sidetracked and experienced writers block up until now. To add insult to injury, my computer auto-updated Thursday night, deleting any progress I had (I foolishly hadn't saved anything) and forcing me to rewrite the entire essay. Fortunately, nothing of major substance was lost, but it was a large inconvenience.

I have an idea for one more speculation post, but I don't know if I'll actually get around to writing it. At worst I'll write a mini speculation post about it as I don't know if I have as many sources as I'd like for it and need to actually search for sources instead of having them on file from previous speculation like my last two posts (and parts of this one). If there are any topics you'd be interested in me discussing more in-depth I'd love to hear any suggestions or feedback in general you have for me. Believe it or not, I enjoy writing large essay-length arguments like this, and I find them particularly interesting to research and (relatively) easy to write, and if a topic interests me I'm more than willing to go in-depth in researching it and then report on what I find. Again, feel free to suggest topics and we'll see what happens from there.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this!
 

TCT~Phantom

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Lloyd is being rated in the Rate Their Chances thread, come show your support. Just be sure to leave enough reasoning for your scores!
 

Icedragonadam

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So Blocked Content posted a new video about a rumor about the 3 other DLC characters(Sylux, Banjo, and Lloyd). Granted this should be taken with scepticism, but the boards are stale right now and we're probably going to have wait until January for Joker gameplay and a possible 2nd DLC reveal.
 
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D

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There is also a rumor going around that Erdrick (I think that's his name?) from Dragon Quest is rumored to be in. That kind of makes me nervous because I feel like that would lower Lloyd's chances, provided if the rumor is true of course.
 
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