The Legendary Beginning of Marvel Rivals: what the Update brought

Marvel Rivals Season One: A Comprehensive Overview of New Content and Balance Changes

The zero season has concluded, making way for the highly anticipated Season One of Marvel Rivals. This launch brings a wave of fresh content and significant balance adjustments. Let's delve into the key updates.

Table of Contents

• What's New in Season One?
• New Heroes
• New Maps and Mode
• Battle Pass
• Celestial Rank
• Balance Adjustments for Heroes:
  • Vanguard
  • Duelist
  • Strategist
  • Team-Up

What's New in Season One?

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This season's theme revolves around an undead invasion orchestrated by Dracula. The Fantastic Four have answered the call to arms, with Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman initially available, and other members joining later in the season.

New Heroes

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• Mister Fantastic: A mid-range duelist with abilities enabling swift movement between allies and enemies, area-of-effect damage, and temporary damage absorption.
• Invisible Woman: A strategist whose attacks heal allies. Her kit includes shield generation, enemy manipulation (push/pull), and, as the name suggests, invisibility.

New Maps and Mode

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• Empire of Eternal Night: Midtown: Two new maps set in a ravaged New York City, featuring locations like Grand Central Terminal.
• Doom Match: A new mode for 8-12 players, where the top 50% survive a knockout-based system to claim victory.

Battle Pass

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Season One's Battle Pass is double the size of the zero season's, reflecting the three-month season length. It boasts 10 skins (8 premium), though some, like Peni Parker's Blue Tarantula skin, offer minimal visual changes. The free track still provides Units and Lattice for completing tasks.

Celestial Rank

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A new "Celestial" rank, divided into three divisions, sits between "Grandmaster" and "Eternity." Its impact on the overall ranking system remains to be seen.

A season-end rating reset is implemented, dropping players seven ranks from their final zero-season placement.

Balance Adjustments for Heroes

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Season One introduces numerous balance tweaks across various hero classes.

Vanguard

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• Captain America: Received significant buffs, including reduced cooldown on his Shield and Rush abilities, and increased health. His Ultimate ability's cost has been reduced.
• Doctor Strange: Saw moderate adjustments to damage and shield recovery.
• Thor: Health increase and crowd-control immunity during his Ultimate.
• Hulk: Slight nerf to his Gamma Shield's health bonus.
• Venom: Buffs to armor scaling and Ultimate ability damage.

Duelist

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• Black Panther: Nerfed health gain from Spirit Rend.
• Black Widow: Several improvements to ability range, cooldown, and ultimate activation time.
• Hawkeye: Minor nerfs to explosive arrow spread and passive ability range/damage.
• Hela: Health reduction.
• Magik: Increased Umbral Incursion damage.
• Moon Knight: Increased Ultimate ability talon count and blast radius.
• Namor: Throw accuracy adjustments.
• Psylocke: Bug fix for Ultimate ability interaction with barriers.
• Punisher: Reduced spread for Deliverance and Adjudication.
• Scarlet Witch: Enhanced Chaos Control damage, but reduced damage-over-time percentage. Chthonian Burst damage increased.
• Storm: Significant buffs to normal attack projectile speed/damage, right-click damage, and Ultimate ability health bonus.
• Squirrel Girl: Adjustments to squirrel targeting and tsunami health.
• Winter Soldier: Increased health gain from abilities, main attack damage, and base health.

Strategist

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• Cloak & Dagger: Reduced Dagger Storm cooldown and increased Ultimate dashes.
• Jeff the Land Shark: Ultimate range and Joyful Splash healing adjustments.
• Luna Snow: Minor nerf to dance mode interruption.
• Mantis: Reduced Nature's Favor acceleration.
• Rocket Raccoon: Increased healing speed in recovery mode.

Team-Up

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Team-Up bonuses adjusted for several heroes, with nerfs to Hawkeye and Hela, and buffs to Namor, Rocket Raccoon, Magneto, and Storm.

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The Season One updates introduce substantial changes, impacting the game's meta. The long-term effects of these adjustments and the introduction of new heroes will unfold over time.