My money's on four cuts now that Lucario's confirmed return: Snake, Wolf, Ike, and Lucas.

Your OP is broken. Where's the roster?

There are tier of characters now? (not talking rank tiers)

Fixed the OP (+1 to my internet detective skills)

48 seems like a good possibility. My thought is 44 min, 52 max.

Popularity(recognizablility) tiers, yes. With that I mean characters which Nintendo had to dig really deep into the popular character bag to fetch them. Those are the characters that are more popular because of SSB than their actual game appearances.

Well imo almost all are important characters, but of course there are some that aren't necessarily important. I think it shouldn't all be about popularity. Ex: Mr G+W is nowhere near as popular as most others but his character actually means something and should definitely return. Of course some of the extra characters dont need to be in. Imo if there were lets say 3 tiers, it would be

Tier 1: Most important/Iconic Nintendo Chararacters

Tier 2: Important/Smaller Franchises (This should be limited to only 1, maybe 2 characters in a franchise)

Tier 3: Not so important, okay to be cut,etc:

Out of all SSBB characters (including cut characters in SSBM), most of them deserve to be in Tier 1, but of course many will be place in tier 2. Tier 3 imo (ones that can be cut/arent nowhere near as important) should be...

Pichu/Dr. Mario/Roy/Young Link (all made sense to be cut)

In SSBB Tier 3 characters would be imo... 

~Snake (obvious reasons)

~Ike (Might be my favorite FE character but even though he starred in 2 games, FE only important character is Marth. SSB can go on with the new FE representative in SSB4 case Chrom)

~Wolf (Love Wolf, but Star Fox isnt a big franchise anymore, 2 is technically enough)

~Pokemon Trainer 

those 4 definitely on the bottom imo

All the 7 koopalings are in Smash Bros.
I wouldnt even be surprised...

Get the **** outta here with that BS

There would be more of an outburst if true than Bayo2 wiiu exclusive!

If any koopa comes in it be Bowser Jr (which now i doubt due to Rosalina in the game and we already have 5 Mario representatives)

I just want fawful in Smash Bros. but i doubt that it ever happens. Hes my favorite character from the mario universe after rosalina!

1. Never going to happen, but i understand your pain. There are alot of characters i like but obviously wont make it in (due to being important in 1 game or 2)

2. Fawful is female

I dont think so. According to mariowiki fawful is a male. I couldnt find a site that lists fawful as a female.

http://www.mariowiki.com/fawful