I don't see any reason to swap out Geno; he's the most likely Square Enix newcomer (which is definitely happening if you believe Imran and Vergeben).
The only reason Geno feels "likely" is because most of us here have no compunction of thinking conservatively.
Also I think it's time we cleared up some misconceptions about Imran since we love bringing him up when talking leaks. The big thing we always point back to is his tweet that implies Square and Bamco are getting reps, but none of us ever talk about some of the additional context such as his Era posts.
In the topic "Square dropped the ball on Smash characters"
https://www.resetera.com/threads/square-enix-dropped-the-ball-on-smash-bros-characters.60782/
Imran said:
In the topic "The strange case of Monster Hunter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", in response to a post that there are more characters left to reveal
https://www.resetera.com/threads/th...r-content-in-super-smash-bros-ultimate.60845/
Imran said:
The implication here is that whatever's in store in terms of rep has to be the motherload for him to be so tauntingly coy.
(As an aside it's worth pointing out that he did make that tweet the other day about Tom Nook and making a random Devil May Cry reference, and the above post was made in a Capcom-related thread. Seeing how much of a non-sequitur that tweet is, who knows, it might even be a hint at Dante.)
Now a lot of people might be thinking "hey, this must mean Geno's finally happening". Having said that, this post from all the way back in March after Smash's announcement, when it was clear that he and a few others had already known of Ridley, is the only time Imran has ever commented on these forums on Geno.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/su...confirmed-link-has-botw-design.28244/page-287
Imran said:
Just going to throw this out there
What if Sakurai doesn't want to add Geno
This doesn't necessarily have to be a hint at anything, it was early after Smash's announcement and it's unlikely that every leaker in the know would've been privy to the roster at this point. Plus this was a comment done years after most of us have already read an interview saying that Sakurai wanted Geno back in Brawl. That said it's pretty clear that the way Imran commented about the character, he actually doesn't have that much of a high opinion on the character himself.
Which leads me to believe that it's very doubtful that Imran would be so teasing about a character he seemingly doesn't care about. If there's a Square Enix rep in play, I don't think Geno is it.