My current best guess. Not too different from my previous guess, but we do have new information to work with.
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Green is obviously for confirmed characters.
Yellow is for characters which have not officially been confirmed but are obviously in. These include characters shown in story-mode illustrations (Cervantes, Astaroth, Lizardman) as well as characters which have been leaked through credible sources (Tira, Voldo). All of these characters are staples and have been in every game since their respective introductions.
Red denotes my own speculation, and includes both main roster and DLC. With the exception of 2B (more on that later), all the red characters may change places with each other, and in fact I'd say Raphael and Cassandra have a 50/50 chance of being swapped.
- Raphael and Amy are both tremendously popular characters, placing 13th and 19th respectively—or 4th place combined. Given Namco's apparent focus on nostalgia characters, Okubo's emphasis on the weapons aspect of the series, and the prominence of the rapier during this time period, I would be very surprised if we didn't get either of these characters (not to mention Raphael's critical role in the Siegfried/Nightmare storyline). I think Raphael is far more iconic and interesting (and emblematic of the era in Soul Calibur they're trying to evoke), but Amy seems to also have a large fanbase. Vergeben's recent comments point to him being perfect DLC bait, so we'll have to see. Either way we're pretty much guaranteed to have at least one rapier user either at launch or by the end of season 1 DLC.
- Seong-Mina didn't initially seem like a likely inclusion in my mind, due primarily to the limited roster space before E3. However, she does make sense from the perspective of an SC1/2 retelling, and the ERSB description of a spear user strongly implies she's in the game. With the added space I think her chances are pretty high now.
- Hwang and Yun represent a very popular fighting style in the series, placing eight in the popularity poll when their vote totals are combined. Hwang would make the most sense lore-wise, but Yun seems to be the more popular character. I'd say it's a toss-up between the two, and I doubt we'll get both until maybe a second season of DLC. I don't feel too strongly about either.
- Cassandra placed 12th in the popularity poll, which puts her above every single one of the characters mentioned above, including the yellow ones (except for Tira). She was also in Lost Swords , which puts her in a similar situation as Mina according to Vergeben's comments, and various sources with alleged insider knowledge seem confident in her inclusion. My main reason for thinking she wouldn't be in launch roster is the fact that she could be perceived as a clone and Namco probably doesn't want the roster to have the same reception as SCV's. Having said that, I'm not sure she would be iconic enough to sell a lot of DLC, so she might make it in the base roster over another red character.
- Rock and Setsuka are interesting in that they represent the two extremes of likely DLC characters. The former is not particularly popular, but he's the only remaining SC1 character and has tons of legacy appeal. The latter placed in the top 20 of the poll and has a unique fighting style which has proven popular among competitive players even after her departure in SCV.
- 2B was, along with Geralt, the obvious choice for a guest character. She's a popular character from a popular game, has been pushed by some rather influential voices in the FGC directly to the producers of the game (including Kayane and Maximilan), and would fit decently well with the aesthetics of the series. Okubo's comments at E3 made it pretty clear that we can expect at least one additional guest character as DLC, and 2B from Nier makes by far the most sense.
And lastly,
purple is a placeholder for what I think could be at least one more newcomer/antagonist/boss. This would likely be Groh's father, as Vergeben has been teasing since the game's initial reveal, but it could also be someone else. I still haven't ruled out a mimic, since that's a staple of the series, and we've already seen Inferno using someone else's weapon so it's not out of the realm of possibility for him to be it.
I still think the center slot will activate at some point, either as CaS or as an unlockable character. Even if CaS is opposite to the random-select button as some have argued, this theory still accounts for the presence of something in that space with the purple placeholder. It just seems extremely suspect that they'd add three more slots around the edges, two supicious white markings at the edges, and still do nothing with the space in the middle.
Thus, I think this is the most plausible scenario, as it has plenty of flexibility built-in but still takes into account all the different data we have.
EDIT: I guess I should also mention that Tira is the only character in the top 10 that hasn't been revealed yet, and this scenario accounts for the entire top 20.
