Marvel Rivals’ Doctor Strange Portal Ruse Has an Obvious Counter

Innumerable clips have now shown how Doctor Strange players in Marvel Rivals have conjured portals at the beginning of matches to trick opponents into unknowingly leaping out of bounds and KOing themselves. This will be edged out of most Marvel Rivals matches aside from the rare occurrence when a Doctor Strange player is attempting to be cheeky, and with more players learning about it daily—perhaps the hard way through experience themselves—they aren’t likely to fall for it much longer.

Marvel Rivals’ Doctor Stephen Strange is a nuanced Vanguard and his Pentagram of Farallah ability is easily one of the most creative and opportunistic of any character on the roster. It’s certainly impressive being able to instant transmission through a loop, and how Doctor Strange mains have managed to flank or fool opponents is hysterically inventive and humorous. Players aren’t going to be bamboozled by mystical portals forever in Marvel Rivals. But, as long as Doctor Strange’s subversive tactics are fresh, it may be invaluable to know that players can tell the difference between a teammate’s portals and an enemy’s portals from a mile away.

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How Marvel Rivals Distinguishes Doctor Strange’s Portals Between Friend and Foe

Put plainly, a teammate Doctor Strange’s portals have a gold outline while an opponent Doctor Strange’s portals have a red outline.

If this was common sense by now then surely fewer people would be falling for enemy schemes. However, it’s true that it can be difficult to resist hopping into any portal manifested before players if only to experience its satisfying real-time teleportation gimmick.

Likewise, the success rate of this troll can probably be attributed to the fact that players were sneakily placing their portal directly in front of an enemy Doctor Strange who was mid-animation producing their own portals, meaning that opponents would naturally assume a portal there would be their teammates’ and not the enemy’s. Nowadays, Doctor Strange’s portals are implemented more in blocking chokes with looping obstructions that prevent enemy progression on a map, which is brilliant in Convergence/Convoy matches on maps such as Klyntar’s Symbiotic Surface.

Positioning them immediately as a match begins has been fruitful because it either helps teammates reach a control point or choke quicker while also taking advantage of enemies’ lack of situational awareness right as Galacta allows them to rush out of their spawn room. On the other hand, a clutch portal at the end of a match can clinch a point and prevent a loss. If Wong is ever introduced to Marvel Rivals’ roster in the future, it would be exciting to see if he, too, could summon portals for a similar effect.

Marvel Rivals’ Hilarious Virality May Be the Death of Fun or Gimmicky Tech

Marvel Rivals oddly only considers Doctor Strange to be a two-star character in terms of difficulty. He certainly thrives with terrific healers around, and yet Doctor Strange is arguably one of the more methodical tanks to play due to how little he has available in his kit. Doctor Strange wields a lot of slick portal tech, even in Marvel Rivals’ infancy, but as players become more accustomed to enemy strategies and such strategies become ubiquitously known via viral memes there will inevitably be counters for all stealthy techniques a character may be harboring.

In this character’s case, simply taking a moment to observe what color a portal’s swirling border is can thwart an enemy Sorcerer Supreme’s deception. Of course, players can simply invoke Cosmic Selection on Marvel Rivals’ competitive Diamond rank and higher and ban whoever they believe is overpowered, anyhow.