Every Marvel Rivals tier list is wrong & that proves it’s a great game

In the time since the release of Marvel Rivals, every hero tier list has been flipped on its head as high level players have discovered new strategies. Every tier list, including mine, yours and your favorite pro’s, is probably wrong. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

While there are some clear top tiers, the heroes that populated the lower tiers at release like Hulk and Wolverine have slowly risen to the top as elite players have figured out how to make them viable.

The game is at a point where it’s hard to tell who’s good because of really dedicated players turning the meta on its head with heroes thought to be terrible. As it turns out, the only limit holding back some of the game’s less popular heroes is the skill level of the player.

Every expert is wrong about Marvel Rivals

It should come as no surprise that a large portion of high-level Marvel Rivals players and streamers have an Overwatch background. People like Necros, Flats, Eskay, Emongg and more have quickly become the game’s biggest creators while simultaneously hitting the highest ranks.

All of these players have extensive knowledge on Overwatch and game design in general, and it has clearly paid off for them. With that said, every single one of them was wrong about some of the heroes in this game.

Wolverine was generally accepted as a low tier. Most creators put him at C or D on their tier list. TeamCaptain, meanwhile, has completely flipped the script by using the character to hit Rank 1 and becoming the best Wolverine player in the world – and he did it all while taking down some of the creators who rated his character so low.

Nevix, a former Overwatch pro, hit Rank 1 almost solely playing Hulk. Hulk was one of the lowest-rated Tanks, right alongside Captain America. Meanwhile, Cap players have discovered that you can cancel every single melee attack he has to nearly double his attack speed, potentially bringing him up in tiers, as well.

Black Panther is considered one of the worst DPS heroes, and players are doing some insane stuff with him that looks like a total nightmare to play against.

It helps that chazm is one of the best Ball players in OW, but it’s refreshing to see just how well the skills on that hero have translated to Rivals. This man is doing multiple pinpoint 180 turns in rapid succession, making himself almost impossible to hit.

There are cases like this for almost every character in the game. A Storm one-trick hitting top ranks, a Jeff player getting into the top 500 doing… exactly what you’d expect Jeff to do: grabbing everyone and tossing them off the map.

Almost every hero has at least someone doing insane things with them. It’s at a point where it’s hard to rate them because of how much character specialists are rapidly changing the game and our perception of who is and isn’t a strong pick.

Even our tier list has had several updates in the weeks since launch to shift characters around and try to keep up with the ever-evolving meta.

The reason I’ve mentioned a lot of Overwatch streamers is because the mentality people were in, myself included, is that some heroes lacked tools in comparison to others and are easy to counter. However, the idea of binary counters is almost non-existent in Marvel Rivals.

Getting past the pitfall of applying Overwatch expectations

In Overwatch, there are some matchups that feel genuinely unplayable. If two players of equal skill are fighting each other, there are many instances where you’ll have to swap purely based on what the other person is playing.

If you’re a Ball player in OW and someone on the enemy team swaps to Sombra, you will no longer be a Ball player. The solution is swap or die in the vast majority of cases. Someone like D.Va has a similar issue in that non-projectile damage sources completely shred her and go right through her defenses.

It could be argued that Overwatch having hard counters and rewarding swaps is a good thing. Some players really enjoy the experience of piecing a puzzle together and figuring out exactly what they need to dismantle an enemy team’s composition.

Marvel Rivals isn’t like that. Team-up system and its massive benefits aside, it’s entirely possible to one-trick a hero without losing out on much, and there’s one main reason for it: skill trumps all.

Upon release, it seemed as if flying heroes would counter melee ones. If we apply Overwatch logic to Marvel Rivals, you’d swap off of someone like Wolverine and pick Hela or another hitscanner to shoot flying heroes out of the air.

Swapping is arguably easier, but just being really good at melee heroes is also a viable option in Rivals. Characters like Wolverine and Hulk were designed specifically to be able to yoink enemies out of the air with their leaps. It’s not like this is some sort of exploit or hidden tech – this is something the developers intended.

Sure, this is possible in Overwatch 2 as well, but it’s rare. In OW, someone like Doomfist punching Mercy out of the air is a highlight, the sort of thing you’d only see at an extremely high rank. In Marvel Rivals, it’s what the devs expect you to do. It’s hard, but very possible.

Additionally, crowd control feels earned and has to be played around. Most CC abilities are either ultimates, have a short duration, or are broken by damage. There’s also no character that inflicts anti-heal, nothing that silences abilities for an extended duration; Marvel Rivals is built on a foundation that gives the player as much control over their fate as possible.

The fact that low tier heroes in Rivals have risen up so quickly is a testament to how well designed the heroes are. Sure, certain characters counter others, but no matchup is impossible. Just getting better at the hero you love to play is almost always a viable option over swapping.

As the developers add more mechanics to the game with new heroes coming to the roster over time, I hope we don’t lose this freedom and skill expression.