In Marvel Rivals, Competitive Play began mere days after the launch of Season 0 – Dooms’ Rise. Unlike other games, where players may need to play several placement matches to gain their initial rank, Marvel Rivals starts everyone at Bronze, with players then being able to work their way through the ranks by achieving multiple wins in a row.
As players can earn certain rewards such as free skins by hitting certain ranks, there are many people trying to grind their way up through each division. However, as Marvel Rivals is a team game that often relies on communication and strategy, climbing up through the various ranks alone rather than with a team may prove to be a difficult task. For this reason, learning how to play one or two characters who have the potential to fill gaps and carry their way through the first few ranks can enable you to adapt when certain areas of your team aren’t doing too well, kickstarting your competitive climb.
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Best Solo Queue Picks For Climbing Competitive Ranks in Marvel Rivals
In Marvel Rivals, the best solo queue hero picks that have the potential to carry the game are not necessarily always the most meta picks, or characters that you frequently main. Instead, the best carry picks tend to be heroes who can fulfill their role (and sometimes assist in the role of others) as a standalone character, as you may run into occasions in which one area of your team is weaker than the rest/the opponent. In this scenario, the rest of the team will need to adapt to assist this player to the best of their ability; or sometimes, take things into their own hands.
The best characters for these jobs have been identified below:
Doctor Strange
- Doctor Strange has the ability to control the flow and pace of the team fight from his role on the frontline as a Vanguard. He has a shield that can block an impressive amount of damage, including many Ultimates, which can make the difference between yourself and your team surviving the fight completely. In addition to this, Doctor Strange can deal very solid burst damage to opponents, his Ultimate is very powerful with a successful hit, and he has endless potential to make plays through clever combos or initiate pushes without forcing a chokepoint thanks to his portal.
Venom
- If your team is struggling to take space or force a chokepoint, Venom can be a handy workaround due to his backline diver potential. In order to play Venom with success, you will need to have a strong target priority and a solid understanding of the get-in-get-out playstyle. With the strong execution of Venom’s swing and slam, you can harass enemy backline squishes and take out pesky snipers or crucial healers, creating the potential for your team to take the fight. Furthermore, Venom is also a brilliant backline disruptor and does a great job at simply hassling, annoying, and distracting the likes of Strategists and baiting out important cooldowns. Lastly, Venom can also grant himself some extra survivability with his shields, which can give him the opportunity to escape and reposition near a health pack in the case that your team is struggling to provide consistent healing.
Magneto
- A good Magneto can be a real problem to deal with, as he has a very reliable ability kit. Magneto is brilliant at taking and holding space, utilizing poke damage and his shield to block incoming threats. However, Magneto’s Ultimate is one of the key strengths for securing victory, absorbing incoming projectiles to deal damage and fire back a redirecting hit for up to 800 HP on AOE impact. With perfect timing, this can be used to absorb, and therefore negate, a number of Ultimate Abilities — many of which are dominant in lower ranks. Examples of the many characters whose abilities can be absorbed and redirected include Iron Man, Star-Lord, Hela, and Punisher, just to name a few.
The Punisher
- The Punisher has one of the most simplistic yet versatile kits in the game, including two types of hitscan guns to deal damage at different ranges, a smoke bomb, a stationary turret that deals huge damage and can tear down shields and Groot walls, and a zipline that enables him to move around the map more quickly and reach advantageous positions. The Punisher is brilliant when it comes to applying consistent pressure to the enemy, as well as finishing low HP targets to secure picks in a team fight, and his Ultimate can chew through even the likes of Vanguards, making it easier to take or maintain space and turn crucial team fights.
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Hela
- There’s a reason Hela is so frequently picked as a hero ban in higher rank. Her kit enables players of almost any skill level to gain value, but in the right hands, she can be outright dominant throughout an entire match. As a hitscan hero, any player with strong aim skills will thrive playing Hela, as she can 2 hit-ko almost any squishy in the game. In addition to this, Hela has an explosive alt-fire that can be combined with her primary shots to make a combo, used to chip away at HP on Vanguards or to hit multiple enemies in a small AOE. Every player Hela kills will also spawn a small explosion that detonates in a small AOE around their corpse, adding the opportunity to confirm extra kills and apply immense pressure on your opponents. Lastly, her ultimate, when used at the right time, can pretty much guarantee 2-3 picks each time as long as you land at least a couple of shots.
Iron FIst
- Iron Fist can be a bit hit or miss depending on the rest of your team composition and what the enemy is playing, but if everyone on your team is struggling and you need to apply pressure to specific squishy targets—healers in particular—then Iron Fist is the best choice. While other melee characters have to rely on playing around health packs or managing to get back to their healers—who are usually often being pressured or picked by the enemy in uphill battle matches—Iron Fist has a bit more independence. His meditation restores his HP to full, whilst also overhealing him to anywhere from 250 to 300 HP, which allows him to get in, secure a pick, escape, meditate, and go back in, without needing to rely on anyone or anything else for heals. He’s also brilliant at confirming kills and even has a short block/deflect which can be used to heavily boost his survivability with efficient timing.
Cloak & Dagger
- Cloak & Dagger have an extremely versatile kit, with two different characters and sets of abilities to toggle between. Dagger has projectiles that lock on to heal allies or damage enemies, an AOE ability that provides healing over time, and a window-shaped healing projectile that boosts healing to all allies it passes through. With proper cycling of these abilities, Dagger can output some massive healing numbers, and in the case where your team is struggling to confirm kills, or being destroyed by certain cooldowns or Ultimates, Cloak can come in clutch. He has a lock-on infinite ammo beam that does chip damage to enemies, a darkness window that blinds and deals damage to all enemies it passes through, and the ability to ‘fade’ himself and his teammates, becoming immune to damage for a brief time, thereby negating many threats. Essentially, Cloak & Dagger can easily heal multiple allies at once for huge overall output, pivot to a more aggressive playstyle in the case that your team needs that extra edge on damage to finish a fight, and shut down numerous incoming enemy threats.
Luna Snow
- Luna Snow is one of the most consistent supports in terms of overall value for her team. As a hitscan hero, she is the perfect healer for those with solid aim skills or who prefer point-and-click gameplay over projectiles. She has increased movement speed through her skate passive, which can also be used to improve her vertical, and her ice attack enables her to not only heal multiple allies but also damage multiple enemies at once—so using it down chokepoints or tight crowds can be a way to easily farm ult. charge. In addition to this, she also has two extremely valuable tools for shutting down the enemy, her freeze and her Ultimate. Her freeze can be used to stun opponents out of specific actions or abilities, making it great for interruptions and baiting out certain plays. Her Ultimate, however, is a complete game-changer, providing enough healing for her team to outright live through the likes of Ultimates from Star-Lord, Psylocke, and Iron Fist, whilst also making her immune to most CC.
Mantis
- Mantis is right up there next to Luna Snow in terms of utility and value, and a good Mantis can often shut down some of the peskiest opponents—such as flankers and backline divers—with the use of her stun bomb/sleep. Mantis can be used to play defensively and assist her team through damage boosts and healing. After sleeping an enemy, you have a brief moment where you can implement a headshot 2-tap combo to kill most squishes, which creates massive value for the team. Furthermore, her Ultimate can be used to help her and her team outlast the most massive amounts of damage from the likes of Hulk, Psylocke, and Punisher, as long as your team is grouped together.
Loki
- Loki is another character that can be a little bit hit-or-miss, but his potential to cover for a weaker area of your team is exceptional thanks to his Ultimate. This lets him take the form of any hero on the field and immediately gain their Ultimate, so when done right, this can completely turn a team fight and negate some of the most devastating plays. Loki can use clever positioning of his clones and invisibility to build ult. charge as quickly as possible, saving the threat of his Ultimate for a game-changing moment If it’s the final fight and you lose your Vanguard early, cloning the enemy Vanguard may come in handy. The same could be said for cloning the enemy Strategist, especially if you clone someone like Luna Snow, whose Ultimate can single-handedly carry heals in a big fight. Or, if you need to apply heavy damage and pressure, cloning a Duelist such as Hela, Star-Lord, or Psylocke can clutch a fight completely. In extreme circumstances, you can also use this alongside your teammate’s Ultimates by cloning them to create an overpoweringly high-pressure push, forcing the enemy back with the likes of Double Punisher or Star-Lord Ults.
Third-Person Shooter
Action
Multiplayer
- Released
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December 6, 2024
- Developer(s)
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NetEase Games
- Publisher(s)
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NetEase Games
- OpenCritic Rating
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Strong