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If you have reached at least Level 15 and Gold III rank in Competitive mode, congratulations! You now have access to character bans! If every player in a match are also at least Gold III or higher, you can begin banning characters at the start of each game. This guide will go over this season's best characters to ban and why it's effective.
Quick Ban Overview
At the round start, you and your team can all select one character you would like to see banned for that match. Each vote contributes to a percent chance of getting picked. The more votes a character gets, the higher the chance they get banned. If four players vote to ban Iron Man, but you vote to ban Thor, you still have a 20% chance of Thor getting banned despite a majority voting Iron Man.
Each team will vote to ban three characters each. If both teams ban the same character, you essentially lose out on additional bans. This means each match will have a minimum of 3 total characters banned and a maximum of 6 characters. Now onto the best characters to ban!
Venom
After the update with CC immunity, Venom has been extra potent. He isn't a mandatory ban, but he does keep your backline a bit safer by removing a potential diver. Not only that, it takes away a team-up with Hela, making it more valuable.
Elsa Bloodstone
Elsa Bloodstone has become a staple ban in nearly every game. That is if your team isn't planning on using her to your own advantage. Her moderate nerfs in the 7.5 patch aren't nearly enough to knock this DPS off her top spot. If it isn't clear to you already, you want to ban her since she's hard to kill thanks to bonus hp and dashes, can kill quickly, and has an incredibly strong ult (to put things simply).
Gambit
In a similar position, Gambit has been in a pick-or-ban state since his release. And despite nerfs in season 7.0, his core strengths went untouched, making him just as viable as before. His biggest asset is his incredible ult, giving your team healing and a damage boost to rush down the opposing team. Lower rankings may not find this ban as necessary anymore, but any competitive ranks will.
Black Cat
Rival's newest DPS, Black Cat, is a great ban right now in the meta. Even though she's new, she has a lot of unique utility that can break your existing comps completely. Bypassing typical routes with a portal she makes shifts everything. To avoid your games being a toss-up on who has the better Black Cat, just ban her at least until the meta shows how strong she really is.
Star-Lord
The buffs to Star-Lord in season 8.0 make him a menace to deal with. If you aren't getting constantly dived, you are getting hit with his newly buffed ultimate (thanks to the extra ammo). A vast majority of players won't know how to deal with him, even if you do, so a ban makes sense simply for your sanity.
Phoenix
For some reason, the devs thought a good character needed to be buffed, so Phoenix has quickly become one of the best characters in the game as of the 8.0 patch. This ban is an obvious choice, as you won't constantly want to play the game of "which team's Phoenix is better". Hela is a good alternate if you want to use Phoenix still, but Hela is no longer the ban target.
Invisible Woman
Even after the season 8.0 update, Invisible Woman has continued to be the best healer in the game. Her healing output is incredible, she has solid utility like force push/pull, her orb to knock down fliers and damage clustered opponents, and her healing can do damage at the same time. Between that, getting to vanish into thin air to heal, and having a solid ult, it's clear why she's the best healer right now. Banning her can remove that utility from the other team if your team has other healers they can excel with instead.
