Who do you think will win CYL 8?

[DefyingFates]

CYL 7's come and gone and Engage has been out for over half a year (and Fell Xenologue's been out for almost five months) so... yeah. While I would have said an Engage sweep was inevitable, seeing how much of the Engage discourse is about how bad it is and people warning others not to play it, I think we may only get 2 or 3 reps from there. On the other hand, I'm convinced IS is drip-feeding us Engage banners to create a sort of artificial scarcity that will get people voting for Engage characters anyway. Heck, just look at what happened to Three Houses in the first two years after it came out: we got a Fodlan banner just after CYL voting ended, and each had a bunch of characters people wanted to win on the sole basis that they weren't already in Engage. It's why Yunaka was skipped in favor of both of Alcryst's retainers, change my mind.

Anyway, here are my personal expectations for CYL winners or at least high rankers, vaguely in the order of how likely I think they are to win, and why. I'll keep the Engage spoilers vague.

Spoiler

Ivy - I suspect some will just vote for her for her outfit, but for someone who just seemed to be Camilla 3.0 she wound up one of Engage's most interesting characters, as well as having the whole "failwife" thing going for her. I think Ivy's a lock personally.

Yunaka - again, she's one of the most fleshed out characters in Engage and the first one you meet whose depth is apparent as soon as you meet them, compared to some others that only "open up" as it were in their supports. Another one I'm certain will rank highly if not win one of the top spots.

Alfred - on the surface he's just a lovable goofball and true companion right off the bat. While I doubt many bothered looking into him too deeply, I really like how stuff you learn about him later on recontextualizes the way he behaves. He probably won't win a spot, but this is just me being a wishful thinker.

Alcryst - another one whose true charm shines best in his supports. At the risk of sparking a war, I think he's Bernadetta/ Marianne done much better: he has a painful lack of self-confidence, but his scenes do a good job of showing what else he brings to the table, namely his ability to see the best in everyone around him. He seems pretty popular already and I can already see a campaign for him built around the hope that a Brave alt would give him a confidence boost so... I think he has a better chance than Alfred at least.

Alear - if the amount of fanart they get is an indicator then F!Alear has the better shot. I've said in the Engage forum how much I personally like them and I think they have a nice character arc over the story on top of being another lovable dork like Alfred. Speaking of, both Alear and Alfred could get King/ Queen based outfits for CYL, akin to Eliwood and Camilla considering they're the heirs to their respective territories.

• Also, while I think Alear has a fair shot at winning CYL eventually, I think they're more likely to win in future years, similar to the Byleths ranking high each year until F!Byleth won in 2022. Depending on whether Engage's cast drops off sooner than later, I could see F!Alear win CYL 9 for example. M!Alear may stand a better chance due to the relatively smaller roster of guys gunning for the top spots.

Hortensia - she's in a similar boat to her sister: she seems to be completely one-note at first glance but turns out to be a lot deeper than you'd think once you learn more about her. Considering how obnoxious she comes off as at first though, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people didn't even bother paying attention to or looking for her more interesting scenes though.

Nel and Nil - I'm not going to spoil Fell Xenologue, but I really enjoyed the story. Nel in particular was a really interesting character and I liked her dynamic with Alear, but Nil has his own merits that make him stand out too... unless people are too bitter about him being a walking escort mission. I think Nel has the better shot at winning a spot of the two, but... yeah.

Griss - he's just a really fun villain.

Zephia/ Zelestia - Zephia isn't as fun as Griss, but I imagine she'll get votes for the outfit if nothing else in which case Zelestia may stand a chance for being more developed as a character (probably not).

Veyle - another personal wish, I admit, but she's another character I really liked and would love to see do well. This one I do need to get into spoilers for though:

Spoiler

Both versions of her will probably be votable in which case her evil self is another "fun" villain to watch, though I'd vote for the normal version myself. Just think about how fitting and wholesome an Alear-themed Veyle would be!!! :'3

Celine - this is also just me being wishful, but for those who look past how she presents herself at first, she's actually quite loyal to Firene and pragmatic about defending it. This is just me hoping more people stuck with her long enough to see that, I suppose.

Sigurd - a non-Engage character! He and Leif are the only major Lords left without a CYL alt I think, and Sigurd gets more focus than any other non-Marth Emblem. AND if people are hoping for a FE4 remake soon, maybe they'll also want him to get some extra attention?

Lyon - hey, he's slowly been creeping up the rankings each year and has been in the top 20 for the last two(?) years in a row, so...? Yeah okay, this one is absolutely just me wanting to manifest a winning spot for my favorite FE character.

So, who do you think will win, and as a bonus question, how do you think you'll be voting when the time comes? Thanks for your time!

Edited August 31, 2023 by DefyingFates

[vikingsfan92]

I think the Byleth's waiting  for a while until female finally won and the just released legendary Alear likely mean we won't see Alear winning this year. Male Alear probably has better chances but I still see him not. winning this year. 

I personally would want any of Ivy, Veyle, Goldmary, Chloe, Hortensia, Yunaka and Celine to win.  Wouldn't mind Zephia but her having a unit already probably hurts her chances more than Ivy having a version does just on popularity alone. My guess would be Ivy and Yunaka. Might personaly split votes between Goldmary and Ivy. 

I could see Sigurd winning on the guys side since he is in Engage and did pretty decent recently. Don't really care fir the guys side though so pretty much my only thought of note for that side.

Edited August 31, 2023 by vikingsfan92

[DefyingFates]

Just now, vikingsfan92 said:

I think the Byleth's waiting  for a while until female finally won and the just released legendary Alear likely mean we won't see Alear winning this year. Male Alear probably has better chances but I still see him not winning this year. 

This is fair. I forgot to say so in the original comment but Alear's probably winning CYL 9 or 10 at best. Next year is almost certainly going to be four of the others mentioned.

1 minute ago, vikingsfan92 said:

Hortensia

I also forgot to include her in my post! But yeah, she has a similar deal to Ivy as someone who seems one-note at first but turns out a lot more interesting when you learn more about them.

[Othin]

Ivy, Veyle, and Yunaka seem like the strongest contenders to me. If none of them get regular versions in the meantime, I'd bet on two of them winning.

I don't know what to expect out of the guys' side, but I hope Sigurd finally gets in. The inflow of Engage characters will make it an uphill battle, but I'll be voting for him.

[Humanoid]

I don't want any Engage units, but do feel that the only possible competition will probably come in the form of the new book OCs. Maybe traditionalists might rally hard enough behind one of the older lords, but then again perhaps someone like Sigurd is better served waiting for the FE4 remake to be out first. Maybe Sommie will be votable and get memed in?

I'll say Ivy plus new OC in the female bracket. I know from polls Yunaka is popular but I didn't use her in my own run, maybe her not existing in FEH at all vs Ivy having a seasonal will help her I suppose.

The male side is a lot more even. I see from the polls (Google brings up two, the Nintendo Dream one and the Reddit one) that the top four are Alear, Alfred, Diamant and Alcryst, and all have their base versions but nothing else in the game so far. Will it be a straight shootout between them? Don't know, personally don't want any of them but them's the breaks. The highest ranked male not in the game seems to be Pandreo, who I did not use outside of his recruitment chapter (but then the same applied to Mr "1 battle 0 wins" Alcryst). There is no-one else even close to Pandreo.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

If I had to guess, I'd say that Diamant, Sigurd, and Alear are the top candidates for the male side of the bracket. For the ladies, Ivy, Yunaka, and Bernadetta are the top candidates.

[vikingsfan92]

5 hours ago, Othin said:

Ivy, Veyle, and Yunaka seem like the strongest contenders to me. If none of them get regular versions in the meantime, I'd bet on two of them winning.

I don't know what to expect out of the guys' side, but I hope Sigurd finally gets in. The inflow of Engage characters will make it an uphill battle, but I'll be voting for him.

4 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Maybe traditionalists might rally hard enough behind one of the older lords, but then again perhaps someone like Sigurd is better served waiting for the FE4 remake to be out first. Maybe Sommie will be votable and get memed in?

I mean Sigurd technically is an engage charcter so not sure engage hurts his chances. It is the first time people who only play official US released games get to see him so that might help more than people think.  I kind expect his engage appearance to help him alot tbh. I know if they let me vote for one chacter of each gender Sigurd rose for personally alot because of engage.

 

2 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

If I had to guess, I'd say that Diamant, Sigurd, and Alear are the top candidates for the male side of the bracket. For the ladies, Ivy, Yunaka, and Bernadetta are the top candidates.

Bernadette I honestly don't see beating out other engage chatcters this year at all. The year after sure it will be more of a race but her competition is far from the engage charcters not named Ivy, Alearand Yunaka is going to be alot tougher than expected imo.

Edited September 1, 2023 by vikingsfan92

[Humanoid]

20 minutes ago, vikingsfan92 said:

  I kind expect his engage appearance to help him alot tbh.

If this was CYL1 where he would have been a complete non-entity without his Engage representation, then yeah it'd be a huge impact. CYL voters these days though would pretty much be the existing FEH player base who have now had years of exposure to Sigurd, and I would also suggest that those voters will have learned more about Sigurd from his many appearances in FEH than from his relatively threadbare characterisation and minimal screentime in Engage (just like every Emblem bar Marth).

[vikingsfan92]

12 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

If this was CYL1 where he would have been a complete non-entity without his Engage representation, then yeah it'd be a huge impact. CYL voters these days though would pretty much be the existing FEH player base who have now had years of exposure to Sigurd, and I would also suggest that those voters will have learned more about Sigurd from his many appearances in FEH than from his relatively threadbare characterisation and minimal screentime in Engage (just like every Emblem bar Marth).

I think you are underestmating the group of people who are sticklers about only playing official US released games a bit.  I am more optimistic on his chances despite not voting for him.

Also Sigurd does more than most emblems in engage (spoilers for engage)

 

he is the one who confirms that Alear is a fell dragon after Griss reveals that to Alear and gives lore dumps on Alear's past and dual nature of mix between divine and fell dragon. He also does so in a good pep talk way imo so Alear doesnt give into deapair when Alear was freaking out about it.

Edited September 1, 2023 by vikingsfan92

[Sunwoo]

Diamant and Alcryst seem to be be pretty popular, I wouldn't be surprised to see at least one (if not both) in the top two slots. I don't think any of the Engage dudes not yet in the game are so much more popular than they are that they'd get a boost from being non-existent in Heroes.

For the women, Yunaka seems popular and I don't see her getting in before the next CYL. Ivy, maybe, although she already does have a version of herself. Maybe f!Alear, who knows.

[Florete]

I think the female side will be two Engage winners for sure (unless we get another Gullveig, I guess). The male side is also possible, but not quite as certain.

For the female side, I think it's a race between Ivy, Alear, and Yunaka. I think Ivy has the best shot, and if Yunaka isn't in the game by then she'll probably get that boost to win as well. I've seen a lot of people on other sites calling Yunaka a lock, but it feels like a case where everyone is saying it just because they heard others saying it, and not because the evidence leads to it...She's definitely popular and I do think she'll rank high, but I won't be surprised if she gets Marth'd.

On the male side, as much as I'd rather not see it, Alcryst might be the one to beat. He's not just popular, his fans seem to really love him, as opposed to characters like Diamant or Alfred who are liked but not as often a person's favorite. I could also see Sigurd rising up this year. I don't see Felix or Byleth beating out Engage characters, though.

[Jotari]

Maybe I'm biased because I do really like Engage, but I heavily dispute the statement that Engage's discourse is "the game is bad don't buy it." The overall sentiment is Gameplay=Good, Story=Bad. Of course, Story= Bad is what impacts something like CYL.

I have collected the data of all the CYL votes, so when I go home I'll check who statistically has the best chance of winning from amongst the non Engage characters.

EDIT: Okay, the most popular character who hasn't one CYL yet is Bernadetta. In fact, her voting average is actually higher than Gullveig, Celica and Eliwood. That being said, it mostly comes from her debut banner, with her having been hemorrhaging votes since. After her, the most popular character to not win is Felix, whose best year was actually 2022. Female Robin's overall average is actually pretty close to Male Robin's, so with Male Robin in, Female Robin might actually stand a chance. Male Byleth is also in the same range. Azura and Tharja also have pretty good scoring, but mostly from early CYL. That's a bit of an issue, a lot of these characters were popular early on, but lost steam over the years. So let's just look at last years results and see who has been rising stars.

Even though his best year was 2022, Felix pops up again as one of the highest voted units in CYL 2023. In fact, he actually scored higher than Female Corrin and would have won CYL 2023 if not for sexism. Bernadetta comes next, nowhere near as popular as her first banner, but still taking in the votes. CYL voting overall has dropped off a lot in the past few years. We then get similar results to the overall averages with Male Byleth, Female Robin and Azura ranking high. The new difference is Sigurd who came 10th, doing well above his average, 2023 was his best overall year.

If I were to make a statistical analysis, ignoring Engage units who we don't have any solid data on, I would predict Female Robin and Bernadetta in the female category, and Felix and Sigurd in the male category (male Byleth actually has stronger data behind him than Sigurd, but I feel like Sigurd might have a stronger rallying potential due to his expanded role in Engage).

Just my own feelings from Engage, I don't hugely like her myself, but I feel like Yunaka is a shoein. Ivy might also beat Robin and Bernadetta for a female Enage sweep. On the male side I could very easily see us getting Alear and Felix as our two winners.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Jotari

[Karuu30]

For the male category, one of the Brodian brothers will take a spot in the top while the others remains in 5th or something similar. Personally I wish for Diamant to win.

Not too sure about Alfred and/or Sigurd. I can see the support, but Felix is still around and might end up making it harder.

Poor, always in third place Bernie. I really hope we don’t see another 3H winning even though it can just be wishful thinking. Her support is for sure nowhere as strong as it was, and with Yunaka being a menace in the women’s category, she’ll probably drop from 3rd to 4th or 5th.

Also, I hope next CYL’s midterm results won’t be a mess like this year and go back as they used to be, not alphabetically.

[Mercakete]

Oh wow, I didn't realize people hated Engage. (I still need to play the Xenologue. I should get on that at some point, but things outside of video games has been happening, so...) Anyway, all I know is that I'll be giving all of my votes to Elena again. I keep hoping beyond all hope that she wins the female division (though I don't actually think that's at all likely.)

As for who I think will win....it's just too nearly to tell, I'd say. That said, Ivy and Yunaka are kind of popular, right? But, interestingly, I feel like "popular choices" (especially on the fem side) are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Heck, we keep getting avatar votes. That seems desperate to me. It also feels less like people are treating this as "vote for character" and more "smash or pass" you know? (Not necessarily here on SF, just in general.) You don't need to be attracted to the person you're voting for, you just have to want a brave alt/the character to get into the game. Also, characters don't need to be main characters (who people say "deserve it" for some reason.) In fact, this is a great chance to get lesser-known characters into Heroes.

Of course, people can vote for whomever (so long as said character is eligible for voting) for whatever reason, but these are just my thoughts and observations. Honestly, it would be great if we got, like, Mycen or someone in via CYL. Why not make it interesting?

[Midnox]

On 8/31/2023 at 5:45 PM, DefyingFates said:

CYL 7's come and gone and Engage has been out for over half a year (and Fell Xenologue's been out for almost five months) so... yeah. While I would have said an Engage sweep was inevitable, seeing how much of the Engage discourse is about how bad it is and people warning others not to play it, I think we may only get 2 or 3 reps from there.

Really? Is Engage that disliked? I DID get the impression it was seen with indifference, but kinda dismissed  it due to my absence, but I didn’t think it would be this bad. Anyone would like to fill me up? I didn’t buy Engage because I’ve only finished Crimson Flower and Ashen Wolves in 3H, and leaving Claude’s campaign mid way, not because of any particular dislike

[Jotari]

40 minutes ago, Midnox said:

Really? Is Engage that disliked? I DID get the impression it was seen with indifference, but kinda dismissed  it due to my absence, but I didn’t think it would be this bad. Anyone would like to fill me up? I didn’t buy Engage because I’ve only finished Crimson Flower and Ashen Wolves in 3H, and leaving Claude’s campaign mid way, not because of any particular dislike

Engage is great. Don't listen to the hate. It's the same with every new release.

[Humanoid]

I finished it without requiring a months-long break mid-campaign so in that regard it's ahead of Three Houses, where I burned out around the timeskip of my first and only route (Claude's) and eventually forced myself to finish it. So on one hand, it wasn't bad enough for me to cut my losses and quit it. On the other hand, if I had my time again I would have just not bought the game in the first place.

Don't want to go too off-topic though, and my more detailed opinion of it is present over the last few pages of the Engage autopsy thread in that sub-forum.

[Midnox]

On 9/15/2023 at 12:50 AM, Jotari said:

Engage is great. Don't listen to the hate. It's the same with every new release.

I mean, don’t know about hate, but I do have the impression Engage just came and go compared to 3H. I’m sure to remember 3H has been heavily promoted and present when it was released and at least until Ashen Wolves DLC. I feel Engage was released and everyone just kinda forgot about it by the week

[Etrurian emperor]

I doubt Engage is going to dominate like Three Houses did, but I think Ivy and Yunaka have a very strong chance to be the new winners. 

[vikingsfan92]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I doubt Engage is going to dominate like Three Houses did, but I think Ivy and Yunaka have a very strong chance to be the new winners. 

Tbh I kind of feel the last cyl kind of proves otherwise. A lot of the heroes people really want are already had their brave alts. Decent portions  of the fandom already have the one brave unit they really wanted. Which is a big reason the number of votes is what it was last year. New eligible charcters is going to increase intrest far more than a cause for an older charcter.  

Edited September 16, 2023 by vikingsfan92

[EricaofRenais]

I kind of hope Alcryst wins on the male side since I personally truly like him, though my votes will be going to Elffin and I pray to Naga he finally gets in the game next year because I am still salty about the last Binding Blade banner.  As to females I think Ivy is the one to beat since to me she was the best female character from Engage and it looks like from what I have seen many people agree with me.  I honestly don't really care that much who wins my main goal is to get Elffin in the game and has been for several years.