Othin

Maybe Linoan, Homer, Shannam, and Raydrik? All three playable characters in that group are from a similar span of time, while also being some of the more popular missing ones.

Those do sound workable. Eyvel and Dagdar would probably come along with Marty, and maybe Halvan as well. Maybe regular Lifis as the GHB? Dryas and Robert could round out the Finn banner. For Nanna and Homer, maybe Shannam would fit in? Meanwhile, Machyua, Brighton, Fergus, and Dalsin could constitute a banner's newcomers all by themselves. I'm not sure who Misha would fit well with, though.

That's fair. It'll be interesting to see what they go for.

So with Thracia making its return, it looks like Engage/SD/Fates will probably be the Feb-Apr banners, usual Fallen in May, maybe Tellius/Sacred in Jun-Jul, CYL8 in August, and then probably Engage/3H/Binding for Sep-Nov to finish Book 8. With the main rotation stretching out to about a year and a half at this point, Genealogy/Echoes/Blazing will probably skip Book 8 and next show up in Book 9. Do we even still need a yearly Fallen banner at this point?

Ooh, that'd be neat.

True. And matching Diarmuid with Nanna would make a lot of sense. As little importance as it may have, I'm curious to see how the positions of Thracia characters change on CYL8.

Original Ced is classified as Genealogy only, Ascended Ced is Genealogy+Thracia. I think the Whitewings are a special case since they appear on multiple continents. I don't expect the same kind of doubling up between Genealogy-Thracia or POR-RD, at least not in regular slots. Note that the CYL7 votes for the new Thracia characters on this banner were: Tina 336, Lara 100, Safy 98, Perne 55. For comparison, Linoan, Machyua, Marty, Misha, Amalda, Fergus, and Homer all scored lower than Tina but higher than the other three, while Shannam (100) and Carrion (96) are roughly tied with the middle two, but with the disadvantage of being guys. Diarmuid, Dagdar, Lifis, and Cain are the others who out-scored Perne (Lifis and Carrion narrowly, at 56 votes). Scores for some other distinctive characters are Dryas 45, Eda 40, Raydrik 36, and Selphina 33. Alva is lowest of the missing Thracia characters at 12. (Why is he so far apart from Cain?)

Right, thanks. And yeah, that's a problem.

At this point, the Thracia characters missing regular versions are: Halvan, Dagdar, Marty, [Lifis], Machyua, Brighton, Fergus, Dalsin, Hicks, Shiva, Carrion, Selfina, Cain, Alva, Robert, Fred, Troude, Glade, Deen, Eda, Homer, Linoan, Ralph, Ilios, Seluf, Misha, Shannam, Xavier, Amalda, Conomor, [Dryas], and [Raydrik]. 32 missing characters, out of a total of 58 votable on CYL. Out of those, only 6 are female, which... huh. That particular resource just got a lot thinner than it was yesterday, didn't it. One (Lifis) already has a seasonal version, one (Dryas) is an NPC, and one (Raydrik) is a boss. Of the playable characters, Marty, Lifis, Dalsin, Shiva, Troude, Ilios, Misha, Shannam, Xavier, Amalda, and Conomor all appear as enemies, and therefore could be plausible GHB candidates. Theoretically, the roster could be completed in eight banners. At a rate of one banner per year and a half, that would take about twelve years. But maybe that will speed up as other games finish their rosters.

Now that is a home run. I don't care as much about Perne, and I'd been hoping the alt slot would go to Eyvel, but Tina, Safy, and Lara are all excellent picks. I'd been concerned by Safy's CYL rating, but she even got a 5* version! Fast Reinhardt feels wrong, though.

Wendell Jedah Safy Lara Linoan Raydrik Elffin Athos Nergal Franz Glen Kieran Tormod Edward Volug Vaike Scarlet Sophie Fogado Rosado That was fast!

I hope it's Thracia, but I'm not optimistic. Engage, Fates, and Mystery all seem more likely, and as much as Engage needs its Elusia and Solm banners, I can't say I'm particularly excited for any of those possibilities. I think they're interested in trying to offer more limited-pool units, so Rearmed and Attuned seem more likely to double up than Ascended. If they can supply Florets some other way, there won't really be a need to continue releasing Ascended Heroes at all.

Ordered by game, not priority: Wendell Jedah Safy Lara Linoan Raydrik Elffin Athos Nergal Franz Glen Kieran Tormod Edward Volug Vaike Scarlet Sophie Fogado Rosado Honorable mentions to the 10 characters dropped from my longer previous list: Cecil, Rudolf, Chulainn, Brigid, Lombard, Skrimir, Kellam, Reina, Leonie, and Dorothea. (Although I'm willing to count Reina's seasonal version, honestly.)

Fallen Robin M + Fallen Chrom. We've already gotten a Chrom/Robin duo, but I want one that expands on their whole "let's burn down the world together" thing from Fallen Chrom's Forging Bonds.

Red has 14 units. I have Linde, Flavia, Ayra, Seadall, and Byleth. That leaves 9, but 3 of them (Hana, Ashe, and Kana) are demotes, which are easier to pick up elsewhere. The 6 interesting ones are Nino, Eliwood, Shez, Fjorm, Dagr, and Sanaki. Blue has 13 units. I have Byleth, Shamir, Tharja, and Edelgard. That leaves 9, with 1 of them (Catria) being a demote. Takumi, Bernadetta, Mark, Say'ri, Sigurd, Timerra, Zelgius, and Seidr are the 8 interesting ones. Green has 14 units. I have Leo, Karla, Anna, Ephraim, Ferdinand, Anna, Reina, and Dimitri. That leaves 6, with no demotes: Ursula, Hector, Ivy, Claude, Heather, and Kvasir. Colorless has 11 units. I have Triandra, Rebecca, L'Arachel, Kagero, and Yunaka. That leaves 6, with no demotes: Elise, Tiki, Ymir, Lysithea, Flayn, and Nerthuz. Blue has the best odds of having a new rare unit at 8/13, and it includes Mark, the one I'm most interested in. The units I'd consider particularly compelling are: Red: Fjorm, Sanaki (2/14) Blue: Mark, Timerra, Zelgius, Seidr (4/13) Green: Hector, Ivy, Claude, Heather, Kvasir (5/14) Colorless: Elise, Tiki, Ymir, Nerthuz (4/11) From that perspective, colorless takes the lead followed by green, with blue falling behind. Colorless also has the most duos, but unlike blue and green, it doesn't offer seasonal-exclusive characters. Meanwhile green isn't offering any duos, and also it has lower odds of a new unit in the first place, even if the ones it does have are particularly good. Assuming nothing changes in the meantime, I think blue wins out for me overall.

I finally got regular Deirdre from the Arena tickets! With that, the only revival pool units I'm missing are Lucina, Minerva, Sanaki, Mist, Fallen Berkut, and Midori, with a full two-year gap between Mist and Berkut.

Well, we knew it was going to happen eventually. I guess the C skill is an upgraded Savage Blow? Wonder what the inheritance restrictions will be.

Gullveig and Kvasir's spirits are now magically bound to Seidr, which seems like it could be used as reasoning for them to appear as a trio unit - which would at least mean only taking up one unit slot. There's also precedent for using multiple character slots on duplicates in the form of the Valentine's banner that featured Alfonse, Veronica, Lif, and Thrasir.

Honestly, based on precedent, this is what I've been expecting. No different from Embla last year, really.

Looks like I got 7/24 of my previous picks. Starting with the remaining 17, and adding some others from Book 1: Gwendolyn Hawkeye Abel Cain Catria Cherche Henry Olivia Virion Laslow Oboro Peri Genny Klein Mist Soren Titania Ayra Narcian Zephiel Arvis Lute Joshua Dorcas

No prfs on Claude, that's rude.

The skills look interesting, but that is a lot of words. As for characters... not much new territory. I do want to spark for Yunaka, though.

Hanneman would make a lot of sense, he's become a particularly striking omission by now. While looking into missing units, I found this neat resource: https://missingheroes.github.io/

It can at least be useful for blocking warps, and for overriding opposing Divine Veins like Corrin's.

And also there's a new event, because we didn't have enough of them already. Hopefully it isn't too annoying. There's something that stood out to me about the Lucina art as odd, but it wasn't the shield.