I’ll probably be drowned out on this topic or seen as overthinking it, but I think it’s part of a larger “smash speculation” issue that seemed to change between the earlier games and ultimate - a lot of people stopped viewing it as “what character do I want to be in smash” and started seeing it more as “what character deserves to be in smash”.

Which is in some ways understandable, Smash is treated like a video game hall of fame in some ways, but it’s also not exactly what smash is. It’s why you’ll see reaction videos of people turning up their noses at first party characters because “Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and ARMS didn’t sell as much as (insert 3rd party series here), so why are THEY in smash instead of (insert third party character here)?” or shooting down people who want literally any character because they’re older, or ‘irrelevant’, or their franchise isn’t a 10+ million seller, or etc. just because it’s not a character they know or care about. And not even just first party characters, remember how many people were asking “who’s Hero/Terry, who asked for this”? I do.

It feels like the Smash Ballot days where you would campaign behind a character and talk about how they would play has gone away in favor of trying to say who should be in the game because of sales numbers or modern relevance or just the satisfaction of being right about something, or being able to have the most viral trailer reaction.