1. Falco - I adore Wolf, but I think Falco is the right choice for a Melee clone. Wolf would feel pretty empty without many of the unique moves that define him in Brawl, like his claw slashes. I understand that he could just get those later, like Falco, but I think given the option I'd rather just hypothetically add him in Brawl with all of that immediately in tact.
2. Black Shadow - My nomination, I still think he's a good choice and I'm just a bit torn over cross series clones so I think he's the most fitting Falcon clone.
3. Ryota Hayami - Still, this is a dope idea that deserves at least some love. Making him Falcon with a Power Wave sort of attack is kind of genius. Props to Knee for this great idea, but for now I'll prioritize characters within the same series as another.
Side note, I love Mach Rider, but the idea of them as a Captain Falcon clone has lost a lot of appeal to me. Hypothetically it works just fine, but an actual biker character would sure be a lot cooler. There are a lot of neat things that could be done with them that just wouldn't be able to shine here, so I'm trying to look at characters where getting in as a derivative would really be the only thing they have going for them.
Given another slot I'd probably have tossed in a Fire Emblem clone. Pichu makes a lot of sense too, and we could use another light speedy character. I assume we're not done with these anyway, Melee added 6 clones and we usually just add 2 characters per Job if anything, so we'll probably have another crack at it.
Also question, if say... Black Shadow and Mach Rider both won out, would we just add them both? Or would we simply opt for the highest voted of the two Captain Falcon clones instead? Or Falco and Wolf? Because I don't think it'd be a great idea to let that kind of thing stack, I'm sure our votes might look a little different and the desire for these characters would be lessened if we already had a Fox / Falcon clone added this game.