Look to the skies, as Marvel Rivals is giving flying Duelists all the tools they need to dominate

(Image credit: NetEase Games)

If you’re a Marvel Rivals player of any regularity, you’ve probably noticed that the game has had a bit of a Vanguard problem in the first half of Season One. In Quick Match and lower level Ranked play, where personal satisfaction is often a bigger priority for many players than hewing closely to the prevalent game-winning strategies, it can feel rare to see more than one Vanguard per side in a match. Yet in higher level ranked play, where sticking to meta can be the key to maintaining one’s status, players can feel locked into just a few character choices out of the already small Vanguard roster.

Luckily, NetEase has pulled a few arrows out of its quiver for the game’s first major mid-season patch all aimed at changing up the Vanguard experience with more viable competitive character choices and more incentives to play the under-loved class in the first place.

The problem with Vanguards

Minor nerfs and changes for Doctor Strange and Magneto, considered to be nigh-ubiquitous Vanguard choices in higher ranks, de-emphasized the need for their inclusion in a team. Simultaneously, two of the game’s top brawling Vanguards, Captain America and Thor, got some serious buffs that make their playstyles both more fluid and more viable. And of course there’s the addition of The Thing, a new Vanguard with a clobberin’ melee style that gives tankier players more options for battlefield control.

Meanwhile, one of the biggest changes to the Marvel Rivals competitive Vanguard meta actually comes from changes to one of its current reigning Duelist heroes, Iron Man, which buffed his Unibeam attack to damage output levels that were previously only achievable when paired with the Hulk, thanks to their Gamma-sharing team-up power. Now, that team-up benefits both heroes less – meaning that players who may have once felt pressured to play Hulk are freed up to pick from among the other characters, and Iron Man mains are still left feasting on the increased power of his Unibeam.

But this points to the emergence of a new, potentially problematic meta that is rapidly swirling to the top of nearly every match – one in which flying heroes such as Iron Man, Storm, and the newly added Human Torch are even more dominant, with what feels like dwindling options to fully counter them. Players are already complaining about the increased strength of Iron Man’s Unibeam, which was previously possible to counter in the character select stage of high-level ranked matches where up to four characters can be banned from selection on either team.

Without Hulk as the necessary anchor for the team-up, more fluid team rosters are springing up around Tony Stark, usually with a second flyer as the team’s other Duelist. If you’re playing in lower ranks or in Quick Match, the problem with flyers may feel even more dire, as you’re more likely to encounter all three free-floating Marvel Rivals heroes – Iron Man, Storm, and Human Torch – in a single game. With Storm and Human Torch sharing their own powerful team-up ability, which ignites Storm’s already potent Ultimate Ability into a full-on flaming tornado, that kind of firepower can quickly feel oppressive.

This begs the question: is a dual (or even triple) flyer meta actually that problematic, or even that big a shift for the game?