Medeus

Times like these, I'm glad Medeus and Formortiis got in when they did. At this point I'm starting to doubt we'll get any lore mythics anymore.

I feel the biggest winners of that are ATiki (she becomes Naga at the end of the Future Past DLC), Nemesis, Loptous, and Idunn, I don't think Loptous is coming anytime soon, but I could see the others, especially Idunn as she's rather popular. Yeah, Bernadetta gets a lot of unnecessary bile from the fanbase. I can understand having criticisms with the character as the writing can fumble her, but some fans take it to another level and go overboard with their hate of the character. So it's understandable that fans and even those neutral on the situation would go for her to push back against all of the negativity.

Like everyone I'm surprised Engage got none of their characters in their respective top two. Granted, it was closer on the female side, but males were generally overshadowed by previous favorites. I do think Ivy and Yunaka could probably take it next year provided there's no major shake ups, but I can see the Engage males being behind for at least another year if MByleth and Sigurd keep it up. In terms of the actual winners, the only one I'm excited about is Alfonse as I like his character and I would like a useable version of him. Not happy with Emblem Heroes as the concept is OK, but it feels like another excuse to sell popular lords which doesn't really appeal to me (even as someone who likes many of them). It also means characters like Soan, Athos, and Anri are going to be pushed back even more for the Emblems. As for Lumera, she's fine, honestly I was surprised she wasn't a Mythic before.

Hmmm, Anri would be a fitting Light Mythic, especially following Medeus. I just hope if that's the case it's not another hard counter like Freyr to Elimine.

Late on this: Skrimir Deghinsea (regular) Nasir Volug Nergal Fogado Deen Shin Forseti (using Lewyn as a base) Glen Muarim (non-Fallen) Nolan Elm Fafnir (regular or dragon) Merrin Scarlet Panette Kurthnaga (regular) Eda Soan Honorable mention: Jesse

If we get two, I also think we'll get another mixed banner. Nergal and Athos would be great, but doing two different games allows them to appeal to two different audiences so I think they'll follow what happened last year and do the same. Following a similar thought, I do think they'll also try to have different aesthetics and themes to their choices like how Gotoh was a kind wise sage vs. Fomortiis' big bad demon, though I don't think it'd be the exact same since there's very few characters that come to mind with the same surprise factor and appeal as the latter (offhand, it's just Grima and Loptyr, the latter of which would be muted since he overlaps somewhat with Medeus). If they're willing to make a human form, then I think Soan could slip in somewhere. He'd definitely have a surprise factor since there's still doubt around him, and a cool lion would be pretty striking even with Caineghis in the game and they refuse to add Giffca or Skrimir.

I think the most interesting part about this is that Alcryst isn't in the top spot. Everyone was certain he'd make it, but judging by Engage's top 5 he's at least below MAlear and Diamant. Between them and the others like Leif, Sigurd and Felix he may miss out this year. You're overestimating the overlap between the two avatar genders. For instance, FByleth winning two years ago didn't catapult MByleth to win the following year and he only at best got a fraction of her votes. I wouldn't expect everyone who prefers FAlear to automatically jump to MAlear or vice versa.

Doesn't seem like it, at the very least Fomortiis, Ulir, the Cipher quartet, and the like are still missing. For now, it only looks like we just got the Engage cast, minus everyone's favorite Somniel resident. Personally, I'll stick with my usual favorites plus two more from Engage. None of my favorites look like they'll win this year so no point in funneling votes.

I have to be honest, the OCs that interested me the most are the ones that didn't appear in the trailer. Both the new guy (I'm assuming he's the stags at Yggdrasil) and girl (the horn makes me think she's Heimdall) actually look pretty neat and I'm curious what their story roles will be. New Awakening banner is what I expected minus Noire, but I'm guessing they're holding off since looking at the chart there's only five Awakening characters left that's on CYL and she's the best bet to help carry things. Other than that, I don't like how Laurent is a Prf-less Colorless tome as his options are abysmal outside of the Vulture tome and I don't like the new Lucina so for me it's a skip. New mode seems too passive, maybe it'll be a bit more in-depth once it releases, but after Seer's Snare it feels like a step down. All in all, not too exciting of a Channel for me.

His human form would be easy to differentiate I feel. Fenrir is generally portrayed as an angry and brutal wolf, which can easily translate into being a strong and rough looking character. That would stand out from Keaton who is pretty well-kept (despite his quirk), and Volug who looks aloof at worst. His Beast form I agree would be harder since basic wolves and werewolves have been touched on, but they could probably pull it off by drawing from Fenrir's other traits like the sword in his mouth, the river that springs from him, or fiery elements due to his relation to Ragnarök.

Her being a Mythic is a bit odd to me as she always felt more like a Tiki, Fae, or Myrrh of her game and honestly (as said before) feels less 'mythical' then Alear, but it is what it is. May pull a bit on Blue since I have no one in that group, but I'm probably not dipping that much into it. Veyle's pretty decent as a character, but the handling of her writing left me feeling a bit mixed overall so I'm not as attached to her as I am other Engage characters.

Sorry for the late reply, but to respond to this: I'll give you Helbindi and Fafnir (though following Nott's own death scene put a damper on that), but I wasn't very impressed with Laegjarn's or Freyr's (especially the latter). It makes sense for the story they want to tell, but the former happens at almost the very end of said story and the following events are very rapid fire in trying to wrap things up so for me it didn't really sink in (and the TT+ story undid it anyway) while the latter Freyr barely did anything before so it felt more like writing him off. Gustav I probably would like more if the whole parent dying thing wasn't a common trope in FE, but as you said it does fit the story and did have a proper follow-up with his undead version later so this is more on personal preference. Regardless though, that's still only 4-5 deaths that were handed with any care, which is still a very poor track record for a game that has been going on for seven years and should've learned from its previous shortcomings six times over. Honestly, with Elm I'm pretty sure they meant for him to kick the bucket at that point. His final scene has him badly hurt and Ash's last words to him kind of read as a send-off, but it cuts off so suddenly and move on to the next thing so quickly that it doesn't have any weight to and ended up completely undercooked. It says a lot when a common question from fans following that scene was 'did Elm really die?' (thinking back, Ash had a similar issue, though that was clarified earlier). The TT+ felt like them walking it back as he just pops back in with no explanation for how he survived, but in the end I'm glad they did. It would've been a very poor exit for the character if left as is and it fleshed out both him and Ash who both needed it.

That's one of the biggest problems with FEH's writing. They want us to care about the characters by killing them off for sympathy points, but often forget that the emotion that comes from such scenes is us knowing the character in the first place. Kvasir barely did anything, and as much as they try to play the 'poor little child' card it doesn't change the fact that we barely know her or even her situation as she's the least developed of the three 'Gullvegs'. We'll probably get more from her unit quotes when she's summoned next month then we will from the story itself.

Honestly, I don't get why they didn't just finish off Echoes. They have three playable characters left, four if you ignore Deen's alt status, and with Engage now in rotation knocking out one of the older games to free up slots for the future would've been a better move. The banner may've taken a hit, but that's what the OCs are for and I'd think taking the blow now and moving on to more popular candidates would be better than stretching it out with even less popular candidates in the future. I also don't like the precedence of having two OCs on the banners, it feels like unnecessary bloating. The only good thing about it is that it may mean Fafnir, Bruno, and Elm may not get screwed out of alts as long as they have female counterparts to carry them. As for the banner itself, I love Sonya, but I will admit the fact that she's alongside other alts is really muting my excitement of her. Mycen's neat but I'm not too fond of the character so not too excited about him either. Peony and Triandra just remind me that their story arc fell flat in Book IV and I don't like the new skill slot mechanic they're pushing. Finally, Marla's neat, but it's weird we got her over Nuibaba or Jedah (even if I dislike the latter). In short, it's all in all an underwhelming banner, only one character interests me and even she's getting dragged down by the circumstances around her.

Why is Lysithea trying to make me do Algebra? Other then Ayra finally getting her first alt nothing really makes me want to pull, especially with the Freyr banner and the upcoming CYL banner in play.

It's silly that they've withheld him for this long and I agree with Sunwoo that he should've been released closer to his book, but in the end I'm glad we finally got him and hopefully it means Fafnir and Elm will join him in the following years. As for pulls, Blue has Ingrid with Guard Bearing/Arcane Luin (the former of which I need for Cormag) and two great Mythics so I'm planning on pulling to see who I get.

Good to finally get Engage, it was really weird how long they held off on it and MAlear in particular. As for the banner itself, I'll stick to Blue and Colorless. I like Alcryst so I don't want to miss him, and Eitr's weapon and Beast Sense will be great fodder for my cats.

That's definitely Ivy, everything about the head from the headpiece, the 'horns', and the hair is very similar to her's, and the addition of what seems to be a rose sells it even more. If that's the case though we legitimately got a Summer Engage banner before we even got the other protagonist in the game, I continue to be baffled by their handling of them.

IS really doesn't like Engage and MAlear do they? Nice to get Dorothy and Noah in the game, but having Elffin missing this long despite being pretty important to the story of Etruria is pretty confusing. At least Murdock's finally in so that all of the Wyvern Generals are playable in the game.

That Maria will be perfect for my villains team. Also, with a version of Anankos finally making his debut we're just missing the Fire Dragon, Sombron, and Fell Xenologue spoiler before we have all of the final bosses. Probably just the not-evil one. The base human form already exists in Fates DLC with the Awakening trio and they actually gave us artwork of the dragon form in both Cipher and concept art so he can easily be made into a Mythic unit. It'd also dodge any potential issues with the JP VA since they can reuse the human form's VA for him again and it'd be fitting since it's his non-corrupted form.

Looking at this makes me wonder how far many of the players who voted got. This was conducted in February, many of the Elusian and Solm characters are very low and Saphir and Lindon are flat out missing. It does give a good impression of what earlier characters are popular, but I'm hesitant to use it for anyone's standing past Chapter 10 (except maybe Pandreo).

Easy skip for me. Felix is nice to get him out of alt hell but he's still not a favorite of mine, Sylvain I do not like as a character so I wouldn't have pulled for him anyway but even I'm baffled at how screwed he got considering his popularity, Rhea I like but nothing about her kit makes me want to pull her, and Ingrid at best I'd go for the lance if Cormag's refine turns out to be bad. Just as well as I'm still picking at the AHR banner, so now I'm free to get that second spark. Also, where is Engage? There is no good reason to hold off of a main protagonist this long from their counterpart, especially the opposite gendered avatar when every other one came debuted within a month of each other.

To be fair, I'm not sure how you could do Mark without making them a duo. It's not even like Byleth where they at least have lines in battle, Mark never talks and any conversation with them is basically the other characters bouncing off of them. As a result, the only option (outside of making them suddenly talk) is to have another character right next to them doing the talking. From there you're pretty much going to go with a lord as they're the ones who talk to Mark the most and of them Lyn's the one with the strongest connection to Mark. She's the first lord you meet as Mark, she's the one who talks to them the most as Mark doesn't really interact with Eliwood or Hector much past a certain point in the story whereas Lyn Mode she spends a good amount of time with them, and they do have Lyn refer to Mark on different occasions outside of FE7 such as the Awakening DLC, her Robin support in Warriors, and so on. As a duo, Mark makes the most sense with Lyn due to how the writing has been around those characters.