Marvel Rivals is a third-person team hero shooter where six players face six and each one picks a specific Marvel character: Spider-Man, Hulk, Loki or Emma Frost. You don’t choose a class, you choose a hero. We’ll go through the three roles, Team-Up abilities, how many heroes the game has and who to pick for your first matches.
How the game works
A match is a fight between two six-player teams over objectives on the map: capturing a point, escorting a payload or both. The shooting is third-person, so many heroes have mobility a first-person game couldn’t handle: Spider-Man swings on webs, Storm flies.
Every hero has a basic attack, two or three abilities on cooldown and an ultimate. In standard modes a team can’t have two of the same hero, but after you die you can pick a different one in spawn, so your character pick isn’t a decision for the whole match. If the enemy Iron Man is tearing you apart, you come back after respawning with someone who can take down flying targets.
The three roles and what each does in a match
NetEase splits heroes into three roles. A role doesn’t tell you how strong a character is, but what the rest of the team expects from you and where you should stand in a fight.
Vanguard: holds the front line
Vanguards have the most health and the tools to soak up enemy fire instead of their teammates. Doctor Strange puts up a shield and opens portals, Magneto protects himself and a chosen teammate, Groot grows walls, Hulk and Venom jump into the middle of the enemy team. The Vanguard decides where the fight happens: when they fall back, the whole team falls back.
Duelist: deals the damage
Duelist is the largest role, and it has exactly one job: getting kills. Punisher handles everything with two guns and a turret, Hela punishes with precise long-range aim, Spider-Man and Black Panther dive the backline healers, Wolverine sinks his claws into the biggest Vanguard. Five Duelists on a team, though, means nobody has the health or the healing.
Strategist: heals and buffs
The Strategist keeps the team alive. Mantis heals and hands out a damage boost, Rocket Raccoon fires healing orbs and deploys a beacon that revives teammates, Jeff the Land Shark uses his ultimate to swallow half the enemy team and swim off the map with them. It’s the role where your own contribution shows up least on the scoreboard, and also the one you can’t win a match without.
Team-Up abilities: pairs that unlock something together
This is the main reason Marvel Rivals doesn’t play like a copy of its competitors. A Team-Up ability is a bonus tied to a specific pair or trio of heroes. It’s based on the comics and unlocks when both heroes are picked on your team.
It works on two levels, which NetEase calls Base Effect and Enhanced Effect. You pick a Team-Up as a loadout, and its base effect is always active, usually swapping one of your abilities for a stronger variant. The enhanced version only kicks in when the partner hero is on your team. You change the loadout in spawn.
- Hulk and Wolverine unlock Fastball Special: once both confirm it, Hulk grabs Wolverine and hurls him across the battlefield into the enemy.
- Rocket Raccoon and Groot: Rocket climbs onto Groot’s back and shoots from there. Groot walks, Rocket heals and fires.
- Rocket Raccoon and Punisher: Rocket drops a device on the ground that gives teammates in range infinite ammo.
- Captain America and Thor: Cap’s shield gets charged with lightning and every hit also explodes around the target.
There are several dozen Team-Ups and most heroes have more than one, so when picking a character you don’t just look at what they can do alone, but also at what your team already has on screen. NetEase changes them every season, so treat any list as a snapshot of a specific date.
How many heroes the game has and how new ones arrive
The game launched on 5 December 2024 with 33 heroes. As of Season 10, which has been running since 11 September 2026, the official website lists 54: 27 Duelists, 14 Vanguards and 12 Strategists. Deadpool is a special case, as NetEase lists him in all three roles at once.
For a long time the pace was two new heroes per season. Season 10 broke that for the first time and brought only one, the Duelist Gorr the God Butcher. All heroes are free and a new one is playable for everyone right at release; money only buys cosmetics, which we break down in our article on the price of Marvel Rivals.
Who to play when you’re starting out
Don’t look for the strongest hero in the current patch. Patches arrive roughly once a week and the numbers keep changing. Look for a hero where you can immediately see what your ability did:
- The Punisher (Duelist). Two normal guns, no complicated mobility. You learn to aim and hold a position, not to control the character.
- Doctor Strange or Magneto (Vanguard). You see the shield on screen and immediately know whether your team is standing behind it.
- Mantis or Rocket Raccoon (Strategist). Healing shows up in the numbers, and Rocket also has a small hitbox and a revive beacon.
Spider-Man, Black Panther, Magik or Storm, on the other hand, make sense only later. They don’t punish mistakes more than other heroes, but they punish them instantly: a Spider-Man who swings badly lands alone in the middle of six enemies.
What a sensible team composition looks like
Marvel Rivals has no mandatory role queue, so all six players can end up picking Duelists. The layout that works almost every time is two Vanguards, two Duelists and two Strategists. Depending on the map, you can drop a Vanguard for a third Duelist, but don’t go below two Strategists: without healing you can’t hold any position.
The rule is the same as everywhere: check what your teammates picked and fill the gap. It pays to know at least one hero from each role, and because you can switch characters after every death, you can fill a gap even mid-match. Whether to play on mouse or controller is covered in our overview of Marvel Rivals platforms.
FAQ
As of Season 10, i.e. 11 September 2026, the official website lists 54 heroes: 27 Duelists, 14 Vanguards and 12 Strategists. At launch in December 2024 there were 33.
Yes, all of them. You don’t unlock heroes by playing or buy them with money: a new hero is available to everyone as soon as it’s released. Only cosmetic items cost money.
A bonus tied to a specific pair or trio of heroes. You pick a Team-Up as a loadout and always have its base effect; you only get the enhanced version when the partner hero is on your team. A typical example is Fastball Special, where Hulk hurls Wolverine into the enemy.
The Punisher if you mainly want to shoot, Doctor Strange or Magneto if you enjoy holding the front line, and Mantis or Rocket Raccoon if you don’t mind healing.
Yes. After you die, you pick a different hero in spawn, and you can swap your Team-Up loadout the same way. You just can’t have the same character twice on a team, except in special modes where it’s allowed.
Information verified as of 11 September 2026. The number of heroes and the Team-Ups change every season. What you pay for in the game is covered in our article on the price of Marvel Rivals; where Czech and Slovak players team up is covered in our piece on the CZ/SK community. The rest of our guides are in the Marvel Rivals section.