Welcome back to my Marvel Rivals Competitive Meta Analysis series! If you missed the latest report last week, get caught up here. There’s a lot of meta trends to discuss, so let’s dive in.

In this series, I’ll examine and analyze week-over-week shifts in the Rivals Competitive meta across the entire roster, all ranks, and all platforms. I’ll discuss trends and identify opportunities for heroes that may be positioned to outperform relative to the rest of the roster. 

Before we jump in, feel free to review how everything works directly below.

Expand here for an explanation on how our weighted scoring system works.

How are heroes scored and weighted?

My analysis uses a simple weighted scoring system to evaluate hero performance. Data is centralized and snapshotted from multiple third-party tools. Win rate, pick rate, and ban rate are locked in for each hero at the start of the week, then again after seven days have passed. I then examine the shifts in performance and pass everything through a weighted scoring system.

There were no changes to the weighted scoring system this week.

Hero Rankings Weighted Scoring = (8.5x win rate) + (1x pick rate) - (0.5x ban rate)

The idea is simple. Win rate should be the most significant factor in ranking heroes. Pick rate is evaluated and factored in. How often players are picking certain heroes can be indicative of power or at least preference.

Why is ban rate penalized in the weighted scoring model? Aren’t heroes that are being banned more frequently more likely to be OP?

Ban rate can be a decent proxy for power level—or at least annoyance to play against. Unfortunately, it also works against you when selecting which characters to play and specialize in competitive. There is an opportunity cost to picking, practicing, and playing a character that is likely to get banned. In general, the more you play on a hero, the more you can expect to improve and for those improvements to be represented in your overall win rate with a hero. If you are unable to play your main over a third of competitive games you play, you are potentially hamstringing your performance and practice time with improving and mastering those heroes. 

Another thing to note is that ban rate effectively reduces the pick rate of heroes. While a banned hero would not always have been picked for play in a game, the higher the ban rate, the more likely it is that a player who wants to cannot play that character in a match. Therefore, I’ve factored in a penalty for ban rate in my weighted scoring model. The lower the ban rate, the lower the penalty. Ban rate penalty currently represents 5% of a character’s weighted score.

Movers & Shakers

No adjustments were made to the Movers & Shakers weighted scoring formula this week.

This weighted scoring system looks at the change or delta (Δ) between the current week's data and the previous week's snapshot. This gives us a good trend of how heroes are progressing and allows us to identify the biggest winners and losers of the week. In this category, heroes who are winning more, being picked more, and being banned less will receive more of a lift. Heroes who are performing worse week over week will be ranked lower in this list. 

The scoring system weights for this category must be different from base rankings. Hero win rates remain relatively stable week to week without a balance patch, but pick rates vary drastically as the meta evolves. Using the same weighted system for rankings would result in scores being almost entirely driven by changes to pick rate alone, which paints a severely skewed and flawed glimpse of actual performance.

Movers & Shakers Weighted Scoring = (20x Δwin rate) + (2x Δpick rate) - (3x Δban rate)

Once Mover & Shaker values are created, I run a z-score analysis to determine how many standard deviations (σ) each data point is from the mean of the set to look for statistical outliers and put everything on a comparable scale for analysis. This helps with machine learning and data smoothing/reliability over time.

The limitations of weighted scoring systems

With the amount of data to gather, compile, calculate, and analyze, it would require substantial effort to segment everything into different Elo brackets for ranked play. To overcome this limitation, I’ll provide callouts in my analysis for certain heroes who are performing well in various competitive rankings. For example, Hela is arguably the best DPS character in the game in Celestial+ lobbies, but is much less frightening in the hands of a Silver player. Less than 8% of the player base is competing in Celestial+ lobbies anyway, so an overall view of the competitive landscape and all its rankings is by default normalized across the entire distribution of the player base.

Improving the model over time

With community and pro feedback, I’ll improve the weighted scoring system over time. It’s likely this is not the optimal form, but it does give a good baseline to compare data over time and early shifts in the Marvel Rivals Season Two Meta. Any additional changes to the weighted scoring system will be called out in future articles in the series.

Note on Team-ups: Due to the nature of some third-party data capture tools, some Team-Ups that involve more than two characters are split into individual pairs while others are captured by the full set. This creates some issues with data accuracy, which I’ll work to smooth out in future articles in the series through my own tooling and possible improvements in third-party tools.

Patch Discussion & Meta Commentary

There was a recent balance patch that saw several changes to certain heroes across all roles. With our publishing + data collection window, there is only one day of balance changes reflected in my weekly data. And while we’ve seen some movements in heroes with balance changes, I expect the real effects of the balance changes and the disruption won’t be felt until next week’s meta analysis update.

Before this balance patch, the meta has been somewhat stable week-over-week, but this new patch is certain to disrupt the status quo and lead to some big movements in week 4 of Hellfire Gala.

Marvel Rivals Hero Rankings (Weighted Scoring) Top 5 - 5/2/25

Rocket Raccoon

Rocket Raccoon has been making a huge impact in the competitive meta since his rework at the start of season two and has held the top slot in our rankings for two weeks in a row. He’s the real deal. Rocket’s overall win rate sits at 54.08% for the week, with his pick rate falling to 43.54% and ban rate dropping to 1.63%. Rocket is notable for a low skill floor and has quickly distinguished himself as the premium strategist pick for the season.

Rocket’s strength comes from the utility of his B.R.B. beacon and effectively turning fights into 7v6s, or erasing an early mistake from your team and giving you a shot to turn around the team fight. He has great healing output and plenty of utility to help his team. Rocket is performing well against most of the roster, but should prioritize banning Iron Fist and/or Captain America based on individual matchup data and week-over-week shifts.

Rocket’s week-over-week movement was minimal and remains strong. His overall win rate decreased by less than 1% from last week, his pick rate decreased by 5%, and his ban rate decreased by 27%. With minimal movement week to week, it’s clear that Rocket is still a great addition to almost any team composition. Interestingly, both his team ups: Ammo Overload with Punisher and Planet X Pals with Groot produce slightly lower win rates than his blended win rate across all ranks, not entirely surprising given the drastic gap in win rates between Rocket and these other hero picks.

Storm

Storm is a hero that has been flying under the radar for some time and has been vastly under-represented in pick rate compared to her consistently high win rate and impact in ranked play. 

Since her season one buffs, Storm has enjoyed a high win rate with a pick rate that has clearly lagged her performance and impact. This week, Storm has achieved a 54.72% win rate, a super low 4.65% pick rate, and a ban rate of only 0.34%. With a good vantage point and aerial cover, Storm can switch between peeling and providing overwatch protection to the backline and pressing forward and pressuring the opposing team from range. Storm is underutilized based on her performance and is a hero to consider for inclusion in your personal hero pool.

From the start of the season, Storm has risen through the ranks with our weighted scoring algorithm each week, and now holds the #2 slot just behind Rocket. I wonder how long it will take for the community to catch on to how much of an impact Storm has in winning games and how that will shift with the most recent balance patch. Surprisingly, Iron Fist is Storm’s worst individual matchup and should be a prioritized ban.

Week-over-week, Storm’s win rate increased by 1%, her pick rate decreased by 2%, and she enjoyed a 32% drop in ban rate. More players are seeing the latent potential of Storm, but I’m surprised that her pick rate still remains so low. One thing to note is that despite the power of Storm in combination with Human Torch, one glaring weakness of the composition is less bodies to contest the objective. Flying characters perform much better from afar and must allow the rest of their team to take and defend the objective in most cases. Yet the data still shows that Storm, Iron man, and Human Torch are still winning more games than they are losing.

Mister Fantastic

Mister Fantastic was a notable hero I flagged the past two weeks, and is performing consistently well within our weighted scoring algorithm. His weekly win rate was 53.40%, he was picked in 14.56% of games, and his ban rate increased to 1.43%. With the prominence of dive-based compositions, Mister Fantastic is a reasonable foil to the opposition and can complement a number of play styles as a scrappy frontline brawler. Mister Fantastic’s Flexible Elongation ability allows him to quickly peel and shield allies on the backline, or jump forward to damage an escaping diver or quickly join the frontline of battle with the Vanguards. As such a versatile and powerful option, it’s no wonder that he is excelling early in the season across nearly all ranks.

With the rise of Iron Fist, Mister Fantastic’s second worst matchup behind Magik, players who want to play MR. F will want to prioritize banning Iron Fist. Iron Fist is being played in many more games than Magik and creates a real problem for Mister Fantastic, even more so than fliers like Storm and Iron Man. With Iron Fist out of the way, Mister Fantastic enjoys reasonable matchups against almost the entire roster, perhaps with the exception of Captain America when examining matchup data.

Week-over-week, Mister Fantastic’s win rate decreased by another 1%, his pick rate decreased by 2%, and his ban rate increased by another 17%. He is still a great and consistent pick and seems to be excelling in the duelist role to augment a variety of comps. With the Invisible Woman team up, his overall win rate increases modestly to 55.85%, with the team performing better this week compared to last week.

Emma Frost

Emma Frost maintains her place in the top five list in fourth place this week. She has held a top-five slot in our rankings each week of the season and is an extremely well-performing tank across nearly all ranks of competitive play.

Her win rate is stable and has climbed modestly to 50.36%, her pick rate has decreased to 40.45%, and her ban rate has increased to 6.48%. As a solid frontline option, Emma excels in dealing high damage in the frontline and dealing with a variety of threats. Data indicates that she performs better with a second tank on the team. Interestingly, Emma has been struggling against Iron Fist and Magik, posting some of the largest differentials in win rate compared to her overall blended win rate. Emma is struggling more against these two characters who play to her preferred range, than she is against Iron Man and Human Torch who she has very few ways of interacting during a match. Emma also struggles against Storm, but with such a low pick rate, Emma players should

Week-over-week, Emma’s win rate has remained static, her pick rate has decreased by 13%, and her ban rate has increased by 2%. As I noted the past two weeks, I expect her pick rate to continue to fall slightly as the luster wears off and players are not as eager to play the new hero. But reading between the lines and examining the data, it’s clear Emma Frost has staying power in the meta and has tons of carry potential in the right hands. I’m personally running Emma as my main this season, along with Captain America, and have been enjoying the climb.

Iron Man

Iron Man has been soaring through our weighted ranking list throughout the season, enjoying a high win-rate across the board and an excellent team-up that proves to be an incredible tool for winning competitive games. This week, Iron Man’s overall win rate was 52.87%, climbing to an astounding 59.31% with the Bruce Banner team-up. Iron Man’s pick rate was 14.33%, and his ban rate was only 0.81%.

Iron Man is in a good spot, though great Iron Man players must know how to play vertical cover and also have Strategist players on your team who know you exist and are willing to look up. Right now, Storm, Magik, and [Item]Captain America[/item] are Iron Man’s worst matchups. Still, with how Iron Fistis performing against most of the roster, your bans as Iron Man should likely go to plug the worst matchups the rest of your team has, given that Iron Man has reasonable and mostly comfortable matchups against the entire roster.

Week-over-week, Iron Man’s win rate remained static, his pick rate increased 13%, and his overall ban rate increased by 40%. Iron Man remains a solid pick to climb with in the Duelist role and is a hero to continue to watch. If you can duo-queue with a good Hulk player and can slip past bans, you’re in for an efficient climb.

The Hero Ranking (Weighted Scoring) Watchlist

Right now, Groot, Spider-Man, Hulk, and Iron Fist, and Human Torch are all being banned in more than 10% of their matches. Heroes on this watch list got a significant lift given that ban rates are penalized much less in the updated weighted scoring formula. We will continue to watch these heroes and ensure the weighted scoring algorithm improves over time to accurately reflect power level.

Iron Fist’s ban rate has been climbing more than any other hero since the start of the season.

Marvel Rivals Hero Movers & Shakers Top 5 Winners - 5/2/25

The Movers and Shakers category highlights the biggest winners and losers of the week, and often, the changes and weekly shifts are very subtle, especially as the meta starts to stabilize. But every marginal advantage you can stack in your favor can make a huge difference in your climb, amplified and compounded over the number of games you play. Likewise, every marginal disadvantage you continue to play will adversely affect your results. Here’s a simple graph that illustrates the concept:

Winter Soldier

Winter Soldier was over-tuned in Season One and received a number of nerfs. Early in week one, his win rate decreased drastically, but has slowly risen over the second week of the season and remained static in week 3. Compared to last week, Winter Soldier’s win rate remained static, his pick rate increased by 5%, and his overall ban rate dropped by 55%. Our weighted scoring system flagged him as one of the biggest winners of the week after the first three weeks of the season. And while there’s no arguing that he has been dethroned as a top-tier DPS option, it will be interesting to see how he will evolve over the remainder of Hellfire Gala, especially with a recent buff to his Tainted Voltage ability and gaining a second charge.

As I mentioned at the start of the article, we need more time to collect data and analyze how recent balance adjustments to Winter Soldier manifest in his metrics. Expect to see positive movement in his results in next week’s analysis. Z-score analysis flagged Winter Soldier as a statistical anomaly for the week against the normalized data set for the entire roster.

After complaining about the new team-up for two weeks straight, it got some love in the most recent patch. It’s still clunky and unintuitive, and I’d really like to see some improvements made to functionality when interacting with Captain America. I’d expect this team-up to perform even better with the addition of the bonus health to targets when landing. This, paired with Winter Soldier’s buff, could help better position the hero going forward.

Wolverine

Wolverine was the second biggest winner of the week in terms of weekly metric shifts. This week, Wolverine experienced a 2% increase in his week-over-week win rate, an 8% higher pick rate, and a 31% decrease in ban rate. While he’s clearly not the Vanguard-slaying menace he once was, Wolverine still appears to be a reasonable niche pick in some matchups and is performing reasonably well in the right hands.

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange has been hit by a number of nerfs to his survivability and damage, and is in a lower spot than ever, but still remains a reasonable Vanguard pick. His portal’s utility is still excellent and can allow for a Hail Mary play to contest the objective after a lost team fight that would otherwise end the game. Doctor Strange got a buff in that he gains his ultimate ~9% faster than before. And while this won’t be enough to make him a top-tier Vanguard pick, it may help close the gap slightly. I’d flag Doctor Strange as a character likely to be revisited in the mid-season balance patch.

Doctor Strange’s week-over-week win rate was constant, his pick rate decreased by 1%, and his ban rate decreased by 41%. With relatively stable performance and a large decrease in ban rate, Doctor Strange was still one of the biggest week-over-week winners on our list.

Storm

If it feels like I’m writing a lot about Storm, it’s because I am. Storm is climbing into the troposphere and making hugely impactful but subtle waves on the meta. Storm is and continues to be a diamond in the rough and an excellent character to exploit in your climb if you enjoy playing the Duelist role. And even if you don’t, maybe you can nudge some of your friends in her direction. This week, Storm’s overall win rate increased another 1%, her pick rate decreased 2%, and her ban rate fell another 32%. She’s one of this week’s biggest weekly winners. 

I can’t emphasize it enough. Learn and play Storm right now = win more competitive games.

Namor

Namor was our fifth biggest winner for the week and is doing quite well as a generalist Duelist pick or reasonable answer to dive. Namor’s win rate remained static this week, but he enjoyed a 4% increase in pick rate and a 28% decrease in ban rate. Namor is no longer on our watchlist and is banned in less than 10% of games with the rise of Iron Fist.

With an overall win rate of 48.12%, there are certainly better Duelist options. But Namor’s win rate climbs drastically to 58.41% with the Bruce Banner Gamma Charge team-up. This is an exorbitant rise of 21.3% compared to his blended win rate. That’s unbelievably massive. Team up with a decent Hulk as a Namor player, and you’ll expect to win almost 6/10 of the games you play, a recipe for successful climbing. Namor is also reasonably easy to play well and has a low skill floor. Players who are not excellent at Duelist can expect to perform reasonably well with this character with only a few games of practice under their belt.

Marvel Rivals Hero Movers & Shakers Top 5 Losers - 5/2/25

Human Torch

Human Torch is strong and has been performing quite well with the new buffs for three weeks in a row. His win rate is sitting at 50.47% and remained static over the past week. His pick rate is down 11% this week in games, and his ban rate week-over-week increased another 39% after last week’s whopping 178% increase and 109% increase in week one, flagging Human Torch as the biggest week-over-week loser due to less playability. 

Z-score analysis flagged his weekly changes as a statistical anomaly for the THIRD week in a row. Just because he is the biggest loser of the week doesn’t make him a weak character—not by a long shot. Notably, his team-ups with Storm and Invisible Woman are overperforming and represent a large opportunity in the current meta.

Captain America

Captain Americais in a strong place after two seasons of back-to-back buffs. The recent nerf of 50 health should have relatively minimal impact on his overall performance. As a Captain America main myself, the recent nerf can barely be felt if you tighten up your play and aggression the slightest amount. Cap is still Cap.

Z-Score analysis did flag Captain America as a statistical anomaly for the week, and we’ll continue to watch his performance.

With extra damage this season and the prominence of dive, Captain America is a strong Vanguard pick. Cap’s win rate for the week was 52.74%, with a 13.65% pick rate and 2.70% ban rate. This week, Cap’s win rate remained static, his pick rate increased by 8%, and his ban rate increased by another 52%. In the number five slot of weekly losers, Cap was only brought down by a large rise in ban rate week-over-week for the second week in a row.

Iron Fist

Iron Fist is performing extremely well, but was punished by a drastic increase in ban rate (up 25% for the week after a 113% increase last week and an 85% week-over-week increase in the first week of the season). Iron Fist is still winning 50.73% of games and remains a powerful addition to a well-rounded dive composition. Iron-fist’s win rate dropped by another 1% week-over-week, and his pick rate decreased by 4%. His ban rate is now up to a staggering 21.80% which is a huge increase from season one and the start of season two.

Iron Man

Iron Man was brought down this week by a 40% increase in ban rate. Still, players are banning Hulk much more often than Iron Man, and his increase in lethality is tied closely to the option of running both a Gamma-infused Iron Man and Namor on the same team. Iron Man’s week-over-week performance also resulted in a static week-over-week win rate and a 13% boost to pick rate.

Mister Fantastic

Mister Fantastic’s metrics have been declining since week one. His overall win rate dropped another 1% for the week, representing a 5% decrease from the start of the season. He was picked 13% more this week, and his ban rate increased by another 40%. Despite incredibly strong top-line stats, he suffered more this week. Mister Fantastic is still performing very well, but his metrics have been falling for the past three weeks from the start of the season.

Marvel Rivals Top 5 Team-Ups (Weighted Scoring) - 5/2/25

Performing weighted scoring on Team Ups puts these Team-Ups as the top 5 this week!

Guardian Revival

Despite a heavy-handed nerf to Adam Warlock at the start of the season, Guardian Revival remains the top-performing team-up in competitive play based on our weighted scoring system with a staggering 65.73% win rate. This team-up gives Mantis and Star-Lord an on-demand rez on cooldown that can shift team fights in your favor. This week, the team-up’s win rate increased a staggering 3% (on top of a 4% increase last week), its pick rate remained static, and its ban rate fell 1%. 

As I mentioned last week, this is a diamond in the rough and is something to prioritize in character selection with your team if you want to win more games. Even better if you can practice and play consistently with a squad who can pull this off. But players are bound to take notice and the opportunity gap may close if this team-up’s pick rate increases drastically. In other words, buy it while it’s cheap!

With recent buffs to Mantis and Adam Warlock, I’d expect this team-up to perform even better next week. 

Ragnarok Rebirth

Ragnarok Rebirth is again ranked #2 on our team-up list for the week. With a 61.58% win rate, it’s a clear performer even after adjustments to each of the heroes in the team-up. This week, Raganarok rebirth’s win rate decreased by 1%, its pick rate decreased by 42%, and its ban rate dropped by 18%, reflected in a drop in Hela’s ban rate across the board. This continues to be a strong option, and even without Voltaic Union, Thor can be complemented with either Captain America or Emma Frost to form a well-rounded and consistently-performing team. This team-up can also be run with just Hela and Loki, and perform extremely well. Loki is one of the best supports in the game, and a good Hela player can boost an already strong character to incredible heights.

Symbiote Bond

Spider-Man is very strong, and clearly this team-up is pushing up his win-rate to new highs at 62.12%. Week-over-week, this team-up experienced a 1% increase in win rate, an 8% increase in pick rate, and a 4% decrease in ban rate. With a base 42.08% win rate, the delta between Venom and Venom + Spider-Man is enormous. Buffs to Peni Parker have made this team-up even more compelling. Spider-Man’s ban rate is increasing, and this team-up adds a lot of extra survivability to an already divisive character.

Dimensional Shortcut

Black Panther is in an interesting spot right now. He is very strong in low elo but falls off heavily toward higher ranks. His team-up with Magik, however, is still performing remarkably well across the board. As dive continues to be successful, this will be a strategy to watch. This week, Dimensional Shortcut enjoyed a 60.60% win rate, 2.76% pick rate, and only a 5.41% ban rate. Week-over-week, the team-up is winning 3% more games, was picked 7% less, and banned 19% less.

Storming Ignition

Storm is performing well. Pair that with an incredible team-up with Human Torch and you’re cooking with fire. This team-up is posting a 59.53% win rate, a 2.10% pick rate, and a 19.24% ban rate.

Storming Ignition was a big mover for the week. Week-over-week, this team-up’s win rate decreased by 2%, its pick rate decreased by 10%, and its ban rate increased a 36%.  

Wrap Up

That’s it for week three! We’ll continue to evaluate the meta and how it is evolving next week, keeping an eye out for top performers and rising synergies with the recent balance patch. There is so much insight to be found, and I’m hopeful the data from this week gives you some ideas of how you can capture an edge in your own competitive Marvel Rivals play!

What did you think about the third week of meta-analysis? Have any suggestions for the reporting going forward? Any metrics you’d like to see? Let us know in the comments below!