Medeus

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.

So we're doing that type of pandering this book, huh? Too bad I have no interest in Seidr so that falls flat. I will give credit that I'm now not sure who Gullveg is anymore, so at least they threw me off the trail a bit.

So... Is this the longest gap we've had for the opposite gender avatar to wait to get into the game after their counterpart? The closest I can think of is FRobin with her GHB coming out at the end of the launch month, but MAlear has already beat her and is going on three months by April. Anyway, I like Tana and bows so I could see myself pulling on this, but it's not a priority. The AHR banner is coming and my orbs are dedicated to that banner first so at best I'd do some free pulls and try my luck. Edit: Oh, Gilliam would actually be nice too, BClaude would love to free up his S slot.

I'm honestly happy with the result, all of them are either units I wanted more merges of or could use their fodder so it was a good result for me. I'll stick to voting for Fomortiis as I'd like a free copy to use so I don't have to pull Colorless, but whoever wins I don't mind. Also, it's just funny to me that both Edelgard lost in the first round, she's cursed to not be on the AHR banner. And then they forget to upload the event and cancel it.

The big problem with the big bads is two-fold I find. Either A) they keep their involvement in the background until the end, and/or B) they lack any meaningful development or characterization and if they get it, it tends to be plot dumped at the very end or you have to dig for it via other media or DLC. For the former, offhand the only villains that have a clear notable involvement in the plot before the end are Julius/Loptous, Nergal (if you count him), Formortiis, Sombron, and maybe Ashnard. The rest are either sitting on their thrones either due to not being able to get involved due to plot reasons like Medeus or Ashera, or are more plot devices like the Fire Dragon. For the latter, I feel this is what hurts them the most. I can count on one hand the amount of villains with interesting stories presented in the game, and even less that have it presented throughout the story. Sombron for instance has a backstory, but they plot dump it in the final chapter so by the time you're seeing it you may have already stopped caring about him and it's little too late to get invested. Some villains do get potentially interesting backstories in supplementary/additional materials, but it's supplementary so unless you look it up many players end up missing it. Medeus for instance suffers from that as his backstory plays into the themes of the Archanean games and the lore, but I can't blame anyone for not caring when it's easily skipped over in-game and the remakes didn't give it any depth. Finally, their characterizations are also a big problem as they tend to be generic evil baddies/tyrants with little else to them. Formortiis was doing snarky and manipulative evil overlord long before Grima and Julius/Loptous was playing with that before him, and let's not forget all of the evil dragons that tend to be different flavors of Medeus. Honestly, whether you agree with them being villains or not, Edelgard and Rhea did their roles as the final bosses better because they are very present in the story with fleshed out motivations, backstories, and clear involvement. They're likeable in those roles because they have multifaceted characters that the story makes you care about, whether it's agreeing with them or hating them and that's something that needs to be done more with other final bosses. I can agree with Evil Veyle being better, but I can't call Sombron the weak link when most of the villains are pretty bad. Honestly, I'd say I like the Four Hounds less then Sombron since at least he doesn't overstay his welcome and maintains his threat level throughout the story, the Four Hounds come off more like annoyances and fail more than they succeed. I also dislike how they tried to force sympathy points with their backstories and motivations, with Zephia in particular being bad as she wants a family and yet proceeds to treat the other Hounds like crap and kill Marni without any sort of remorse (quite the opposite in fact).

Pretty surprising as while I knew there was a rally for Gullveg, I didn't know it was so strong that it'd place her in first. Personally, I'm not too invested in this set outside of M!Robin. Gullveg I'm ambivalent on since I barely know the character, Soren I'm OK with but I'm not as invested in him either, and Corrin I don't really like due to how they were written in Fates (though they are better in other games I'll admit). Unless there's some good skills I'll probably just stick to getting Robin and leave it at that.

I can't say how happy I am with this. Formortiis was one of my most wanted characters for the game for a long time and while F!Lyon did give a taste of what he could be, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. So I'm glad that I'm finally able to play as the big bad Demon Lord, and I'm equally happy that it's fully represented in his fantastic artwork unlike most other beast and dragon units. Gotoh is also pretty cool to see as he's one of the last remaining important characters from SD/New Mystery.

May throw a vote Lief's way, I didn't expect him in the Top 20 and while I doubt he's winning the Top spot I'd still like to give him a little support. After that, it's back to Ranulf and Skrimir.

Heroes: Fafnir (regular or dragon), Elm (regular) Shadow Dragon/(New) Mystery of the Emblem: Gotoh Shadows of Valentia: Jesse Genealogy of the Holy War: Arion Thracia 776: Deen Binding Blade: Murdock Blazing Blade: Nergal Sacred Stones: Formortiis, Glen Path of Radiance: Dheginsea (regular), Nasir Radiant Dawn: Skrimir, Volug Awakening: Laurent Fates: Scarlet Three Houses: Dorothea (regular), Cyril Engage: Anyone who brings Wolf Knight

1. Skrimir 2. Deghinsea (regular) 3. Nasir 4. Medeus 5. Volug 6. Nergal 7. Nyna 8. Tine 9. Formortiis 10. Dean 11. Shin 12. Arion 13. Hardin (regular) 14. Forseti (using Lewyn as a base) 15. Glen 16. Muarim 17. Vanessa 18. Nolan 19. Fafnir (Regular or Dragon) 20. Limstella Only six, so not too many and only one was in my top five. Oh well, at least I got that many.

I'm pulling for Elm, I don't care how good or bad he is, I want bat boy to go along with Embla. After him would be Ash or Askr, with Panne being a nice bonus if I get her.

Why is she Astra? I thought Light and Anima needed more help, giving Astra more tools to play with is just making things harder for the latter. Rest of the banner is not for me as I don't care for the majority of the Fates children or Hans, so it's an easy skip. Book-wise, not too impressed so far. Writing-wise FEH has always struggled so I'm not expecting too much, but usually the presentation in the intros and the like tend to be good and this one didn't do really sell it for me. I'm also not too fond of the character designs, but admittedly I'm bias since I liked Book 6's so it always going to be a tough act to follow. One positive I will give is that the theme is nice, I like soft tone in the background and the vocals. Getting Book 4 and under units is nice, but over $50 is very steep so I can't see myself ever investing in that. Arena on the other hand, giving out free tickets is nice, the odds of getting my preferred character is low but at least I'll be able to fish for them so I can try to max them out. All in all, not the best Channel. Some neat things, but many parts were pretty underwhelming.

Embla will be a fine addition to my collection Dark Defense team... Veronica also looks neat, but at best she'd be a bonus.

Ash may pop in one of the future Forging Bond stories if they meant for her to have lived, but I doubt they'll have any meaningful follow-up for her character until the TT+ story considering Fjorm and Eir barely touched on their stories. Elm will probably have to wait until the Book 6 TT+ story for anything major involving his character.

Unfortunately, I could see Elm sit out New Years. Ash is likely secured a slot and between the Taguel/Gallian Beasts we're already looking pretty set for Beasts unless they want a full banner, which so far they've avoided the past three years. Additionally, there's also Bruno, Letizia, Askr, and maybe Veronica to consider who would be bigger banner sellers then any of the Beasts and I doubt they'd throw out that banner without a reliable clutch. Between those options I can see Elm get kicked off to make way for other options, particularly since they unceremoniously threw him away in the story already.

Well, screw Ash and Elm I guess, even Nott got more acknowledgement. Cute video otherwise though.

Pretty happy to see Griffon Knights are back. They were a neat addition in Awakening, but being attached to Wyvern Knights, two of which are very devoted to their darling Minerva, and having no representative for the class otherwise left them feeling poorly slapped in. Hopefully Engage will give them a better deal as they're a cool concept for a class. Speaking of new mount classes, Wolf Knight looks very interesting. We haven't had a different mount used for a cavalier type class unless you count the Mechanist from Fates, so I'm looking forward to seeing them in action.

So, did they just... forget Ash and Elm existed? Ash flat out disappeared during the final battle and part and Elm has been MIA since Chapter 11.

Oh yeah, I forgot about him. I don't know if he'd replace Nyna on here since they probably wanted her alongside Hardin, but he could've taken over for Elice since she could've been saved for a later banner.

In terms of unit choice, it's nice to get more of the major characters out of the way as regular Hardin, Nyna, and Elice were big absences in Heroes like Medeus earlier this year. Putting them in almost (missing only Jiol I believe, but he's not on CYL for some reason) rounds out the entire main cast from the game. In terms of treatment... Eh, Hardin looks good, but Nyna and Elice being staff demotes with no other notable features is underwhelming. Also, can we please have QR3 in the 4 star pool now? If you're going to sell us the upgraded version, at least make the outdated one easier to access.