Thread by @MrNantendo

I know you have all been waiting (well probably not) but I've sat down, looked over the evidence for this leak and decided that it is... 100% fake. With the main issue being that there really isn't any evidence.
This will be a long thread so grab a tea and sit tight (1/??)

So the tldr of this leak was a snapchat leak to a friend from a French worker who makes stands and promotional banners accidentally leaked the complete Smash Ultimate banner which reveals 7 more characters: Ken, Shadow, Isaac, Geno, Banjo & Kazooie, Mach Rider & Chorus Kids.

There are many pros that people are claiming and I'll go through them all point by point and explain why each one isn't as conclusive as people think. Time to summon my inner @PushDustIn and disprove this 'leak'.

Let's start with the most obvious. This would be the full base roster for Smash Ultimate as this banner is presumably being done for November promotion.
So no DLC. These 6 (assuming Ken and Shadow are echoes) would bring the roster to 16 with 6 of these being echo, so 10 unique.

Last E3 Sakurai said not to expect too many new challengers but if this rumour is true then the number is only 1 less than Smash for Wii U's base roster. This is more than melee and Smash 64. So why would Sakurai say this?

Maybe he means without echoes making it 10. But if that is how Sakurai looks
at it then we need to discount clones and echoes from before. So Melee only had 8 and Smash Wii U had 14. Not that drastic to warrant a warning imo.

The other direct counter from Sakurai himself was his comments on reveals. How they went overboard with reveals at once and would slow down. If this leak is to be believed we still have 45% of the roster to be revealed with a month to go. Wouldn't that go against Sakurai's words?

If this is true the next direct would reveal the most newcomers which is ridiculous. I want as many characters in this game as everyone else (including the ones rumored here). But it just doesn't go with the established facts. Onto the next point though, looking at the leak.

So the main thing is the amount of effort this fake leaker must have gone for all the little details but that doesn't really prove anything. This isn't like the Ken leak where it's an in-game screenshot and everything would be remodeled. This is a photograph w/images.

The inclusion of new artwork for the newcomers means nothing. Anyone who has been following artists knows that many have done their own drawings here. I can think of one for Bomberman and another for Joker that I've seen simply in the last few days. So an artist could draw these.

Becasue of the angle and distance of the picture as well, it becomes hard to really tell the quality. It's blurry enough that they could all be the same quality or maybe the fan ones are actually lower. This is important for the next point, the moved characters.

Some characters have been moved around to fit in the new ones, notable examples being Jigglypuff and Roy. Except, this isn't hard to do. As Vaanrose pointed out on Smashboards, anyone with photoshop skills can remove characters entirely.

So it stands to reason characters can also be cropped out and made into their own layers.
Source: bit.ly/2ywuSAu

We don't know how long this was worked on but removing every character is only a few hours work and then when they are all their own layers they are easy to place in new locations. Obviously, when some images are slightly cut off they need editing up but that is also doable.

No one said its perfect, people have pointed out weird image stuff with some of the character renders but this is blamed on the image quality by believers. But this low image quality also means any sloppy-work is covered up and hard to tell. The same goes for the background.

If you can remove every piece of artwork and redraw the background that also explains how you get that empty battlefield that is also present. Many good artists can do this so why couldn't this fake leaker? He's clearly an artists as he/she drew the new renders.

Being a good artist also explains the Grinch. Ppl have pointed to the grinch artworks as proof as they are 'new' but... so? If the leaker could draw new renders for the characters why couldn't they also draft new grinch renders? Why would they do that? To get people to believe

The Grinch renders are iffy. There are two, one that is covered up that you can only see the outline of, with Max the dog, and another new one of the Grinch in a present. Except it's not all new. The part with grinch exists, it just the
present that's new.

as for Max the dog well he is in a different position but the pose does exist. And as I said earlier, they can crop out and move the exisiting renders so why not the same here with the existing Grinch render? There isn't a reason why they couldn't and that's why it was done.

That covers everything in the image itself so let's talk about why people do believe this, the intricat backstory. Or at least as far as leaks go. For starters its two snapchat images sent to a friend that said friend leaked on discord.
What a dick of a friend.

In Snap Chat it shows the senders name but presumably, the friend tried to cover it up and piss poor job of it. This seems suspicious though. It's obviously not fully covered up and if the friend was going to that effort then to leave any openings like this is just unnatural.

Now lets talk about this person. I won't name because I honestly think they have been unfairly wisked into this. The leaker knew fans would cross-check the name, find his LinkedIn and his work, and discover that his job is linked to Bandai Namco, the developer of Smash Ultimate.

So It adds some 'legitimacy' to this leak. That's exactly what the leaker wanted.

Some people point to this LinkedIn being real as proof but its not. Yeah this guy exists, even if his LinkedIn is pretty empty but that means nothing. If your a fake leaker and you are trying to make this look believable you work backwards. Find the company and find a scapegoat.

Apparently I reached the end of twitters thread chain so i may have to make another if i can't add to this. Umm bare with me, not too long to go!

I can add to this! Yay. So the leaker could pick the least worked on LinkedIn so there are fewer ways to contact him, and also make sure it's in a foreign language. That way most people won't bother to try and check, and it becomes harder to prove wrong.

Some people have said because its a french account it can't be fake but that makes no sense. Perhaps the one making this fake leak is French?

But the big flaw with this whole thing is that, Bamco aren't the publishers of Smash. They develop it but every event in any country, every piece of marketing and every piece of work is done by Nintendo, not Bamco. So why would this one, the final one as well, be done by Bamco.

Some have argued that why couldn't Nintendo have decided to use these people but why would they? Presumably, they have a company in France they use normally and not this one as they aren't listed as customers like Bamco.

It seems unreasonable to assume that for this one event they would change the people making the promotions and risk something like this. Then there is also @NintendoActu that reached out to the company to ask about the employee. Apparently, he used to work there but not anymore.

He works elsewhere. So why is this only coming out now? The picture must have been from some time ago. Seems like a mistake on the part of the fake leaker, as the LinkedIn wasn't updated for this info. And that's really it.

None of the evidence people have for this is very strong and people are grasping onto it like they did Tower of Smash. We are so used to the Kencineroar narrative that Vergeben and the Box seems to imply that a leak with 7 requested characters would make everyone flock to it.

So what do i think the story behind this leak is? Someone wanted to make an unusual leak. Much like the prop leaks from back in May. They look for a company who makes promotional material and couldn't find one for Nintendo so went for Bamco. Picked a scapegoat, made this story

The Grinch stuff is there because it's different. This is likely promotional stuff being made right now and most Smash fans won't be following the grinch so its inclusion will seem unusual and make it feel more authentic as something someone would just send a friend.

But don't let that fool you. This is a fake leak that tugs at the hearts of smash fans. And I want to be wrong but i see so many people dive on this 100% that when its revealed wrong everyone will be crushed, and it makes the real newcomers unfairly hated, much like Corrin was.

If i missed any pro-evidence to give my rebuttal to then let me know. Otherwise these are my thoughts. Sorry to be the party-pooper.