Though competitive players are always looking for a competitive advantage, Marvel Rivals has already taken action to combat this. Rivals has continued its success with the second half of Season 1. The additions of The Human Torch and The Thing have added new playstyles to the roster, while the new Central Park map has helped freshen up the rotation. Season 1 may not be done yet, as some evidence points to a secret fifth hero.

After a rocky start, Marvel Rivals’ competitive scene has settled down nicely. There was some concern when NetEase announced rank resets at the half-point and end of each season. However, after community feedback, the developer reversed course on the half-point reset, which is another prime example of how well Marvel Rivals listens to its fans. Still, there may be some changes coming to the ranked mode down the line to further optimize balance and matchmaking.

Marvel Rivals Has Banned The Use Of Blitz

Information Leaks Have Been Closed

Rivals‘ latest move is the ban of the popular third-party plugin Blitz. As shared on the official Marvel Rivals website, NetEase has deemed Blitz an intrusive application that gives players information they are not supposed to have access to. The announcement continues by saying that anyone who has used Blitz before will not face punishment, but any use after the announcement will be treated as cheating.

Cheating is something that Rivals has started cracking down on big time, often stopping matches mid-game to ban culprits. Although using a program like Blitz doesn’t unbalance the playing field as dramatically as cheats like aimbots or wall hacks, the idea is that it can still give one team information that the other doesn’t easily have access to. The announcement also encourages players to skip out on third-party plugins altogether, and it certainly seems possible that others could be targeted later on if they provide similar advantages.

What Is Blitz

An Informative Tool

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Blitz is a third-party plugin that lets users see information about themselves and other players without leaving the game. It is popularly used for other games like League of Legends, Valorant, and Fortnite. Blitz can be more useful in these games than in some others. For example, League Blitz can give the player the most optimized build based on the champion they play. Meanwhile, Blitz can give Valorant players lineups and ability tips.

In a stance that’s very different from NetEase’s, Riot has officially recognized Blitz as acceptable and safe software for League of Legends and Valorant players to use.

For Rivals, Blitz largely gave players the same information they could get by checking the team stats. However, it could also show the most played characters of players on the other teams and more in-game stats for it. This led to focus-bans that weren’t “meta” but were meant to hamper the other team’s best players. While this is a fair strategy, it goes a bit far for a simple competitive mode in an online game.

How Marvel Rivals Could Give More Information

Finding The Right Balance

Instead of a plugin like Blitz or some other third-party website, Rivals could go the path of giving players more information. This could be as simple as preferred characters or as extensive as full-on statistics. Information like this can be crucial to the competitive side of the game, as pre-game decisions are just as important as the actual gameplay.

The flip side to this is taking things too far. Even at the highest ranks, sometimes people just want to play and not deal with focused bans. Based on the Blitz ban and the provided explanation, NetEase also seems to be taking a side against this level of meta-competition. Perhaps a good middle ground would be to leave this out of Competitive, but add some sort of system to the Tournament mode, which certainly seems like the more “esports” themed mode.

Despite almost being canceled before launch, Marvel Rivals continues to be a standout genre-changer in the gaming market. Overall, Blitz being banned is not a major deal, but it is a slight annoyance. While the reason for the ban is understandable, it is also fair to see why it could be a major overreaction. There will still be methods players can use to see the information of others, just not as fast as with Blitz. Regardless, this is everything you need to know about Marvel Rivals‘ ban on the popular third-party plugin Blitz.