We've committed countless hours to Marvel Rivals and its previous beta period so far to help you choose the best characters to use in Competitive and reach that Grandmaster rank.

Like any tier list, we've got an S rank reserved for the absolute best options, too. Do you agree with our expert ranking? And how will you react to the next Marvel Rivals patch notes that will likely be full of buffs and nerfs?

Read on, and discover our Marvel Rivals tier list for the season at hand.

Marvel Rivals tier list: Every hero ranked

Broken down from S-Tier to D-Tier, here is our full Marvel Rivals tier list:

S-Tier:

• Mantis (Strategist)
• Doctor Strange (Vanguard)
• Storm (Duelist)

A-Tier:

• Luna Snow (Strategist)
• Rocket Raccoon (Strategist)
• Hela (Duelist)
• Magik (Duelist)
• Hulk (Vanguard)
• Peni Parker (Vanguard)

B-Tier:

• Cloak & Dagger (Strategist)
• Invisible (Strategist)
• Thor (Vanguard)
• Groot (Vanguard)
• Psylocke (Duelist)
• Moon Knight (Duelist)
• Iron Man (Duelist)
• Wolverine (Duelist)
• Winter Soldier (Duelist)
• Iron Fist (Duelist)
• Mister Fantastic (Duelist)

C-Tier:

• Adam Warlock (Strategist)
• Loki (Strategist)
• Magneto (Vanguard)
• Venom (Vanguard)
• Captain America (Vanguard)
• Punisher (Duelist)
• Black Panther (Duelist)
• Star-Lord (Duelist)
• Scarlet Witch (Duelist)
• Squirrel Girl (Duelist)
• Namor (Duelist)
• Spider-Man (Duelist)

D-Tier

• Hawkeye (Duelist)
• Jeff the Land Shark (Strategist)
• Black Widow (Duelist)

Keep in mind this is still a very subjective tier list, and will likely change as we move further into Season 1 and beyond, especially as NetEase releases major patches that include buffs or nerfs.

As a reminder, picking heroes from S-Tier and A-Tier won't guarantee you success in Marvel Rivals. You need to have a balanced team composition, which, in hero-shooters like this, usually means having two characters from each of the three classes - healer, tank, and DPS (or Strategist, Vanguard, and Duelist in Marvel Rivals speak).

This isn't always necessary, but we'd strongly recommend having at least one of each class, and ideally at least two healers. We've had plenty of victories with a 1-3-2 team composition (three DPS characters), so long as the Vanguard is capable of tanking a lot of hits.

Read on for a complete breakdown of every hero in Marvel Rivals, and why we've placed them into the various tiers based on the current Marvel Rivals meta.

Mantis

Welcome back, Zenyatta! Mantis remains our top Strategist in Marvel Rivals's Season 1 mainly due to the damage buffs she grants herself and her teammates.

These can quickly turn around any fight, especially if you’re able to land critical hits – as this instantly restores your Life Orbs, allowing you to keep buffing and healing allies non-stop.

Mantis's sleep ability, Spore Slumber, is also an excellent counter to any overly aggressive enemies trying to take you out in the back, adding further to her range of skills.

Her healing powers are also useful, but we’d always recommend running a Luna Snow, Rocket Raccoon or Cloak & Dagger alongside Mantis to provide more instant healing compared to her alone.

The slight nerf to her speed in Season 1 does bring her down slightly, but not enough to displace her from our S-Tier ranking.

Doctor Strange

While many players may opt for a more aggressive Vanguard like Venom, we've opted to put Doctor Strange higher in this tier list, mainly due to the protection he offers.

Doctor Strange’s Shield of Seraphim is the best method of protecting your teammates in Marvel Rivals. It can absorb a ton of damage, has a massive hitbox, and regenerates quickly, too.

A well-timed portal can also be the difference between a win and a loss, allowing your team to quickly return to the point, or flank behind the opponents to catch them off-guard.

His damage output isn’t the best, but that’s what we have Duelists for, right?

Storm

As you'll see from some of the updates in this tier list, Marvel Rivals isn't playing around when it comes to buffs and nerfs. Storm has jumped up from D-Tier to S-Tier in Season 1, with the patch increasing her projectile's speed and damage, while giving her more protection during her Ultimate.

While she can fly, we wouldn't recommend using her like an Iron Man, as aerial characters can still be picked off easily by Duelists with good aim. Instead, Ororo is best used flying closer to the ground and nearby the Strategists and Vanguards, as her new projectile speed makes her more efficient at farming those kills from a longer range.

Luna Snow

Luna Snow is still one of the best healers in Marvel Rivals, and one of the top Strategist picks.

Her Ice Arts ability grants a solid amount of healing to your teammate, and if you attach an Idol Aura to an ally, this will also heal them when healing others – perfect for that pesky Spider-Man who runs off and always needs healing.

Her Fate of Both Worlds Ultimate lets you switch between a 40 per cent damage boost and a 250HP/s healing mode, which negates a lot of other heroes’ Ultimates, even with the slight nerf.

The combination of a Mantis and Luna Snow is putting you well on the way to victory, in our opinion.

Rocket Raccoon

Another D-Tier character who shot up the ranks in Season 1 due to buffs, Rocket Raccoon is now a strong healer in the Marvel Rivals meta.

Rocket's repair mode healing was boosted from 60 health per second to 70, giving him that extra push needed to make him a viable pick.

Combined with his Battle Rebirth Beacon revival kit, he has fast become a top choice for those in the higher ranks.

We're reluctant to place him in S-Tier just yet, as it could be that players aren't yet used to coming up against him as often, so one to keep an eye on going forward.

Hela

Hela is still one of the best Duelists available in Marvel Rivals, even after the nerfs to her health.

Her normal attack can two-shot enemies quite easily thanks to a very generous hitscan for the Nightsword Thorns, and on top of that, she also has one of the most varied kits around.

The Goddess of Death can quickly escape using the Astrol Flock ability that transforms her into a crow, and the Soul Drainer stun is surprisingly useful, too.

What separates her from other OP Duelists is her Ultimate ability, Goddess of Death. Here, she soars into the sky and rains down damage on to enemies below.

Aside from Doctor Strange’s shield or a Strategist Ultimate, there isn’t much that counters this at the moment. It lasts for quite a while and gives you an extra 800HP while in use, meaning that it’s pretty difficult to take her out, even when massively exposed.

Magik

As we've moved further into the Marvel Rivals life cycle, Magik has become much more prominent in the top ranks as a dive character.

She is incredibly effective at jumping into enemy backlines, swinging her sword at those pesky Strategists, and escaping unscathed.

Coupled with a slight boost to her Ultimate ability in the Season 1 patch, and she's becoming a go-to choice for any meta teams in Marvel Rivals.

Peni Parker

Peni Parker can have a lot of impact, especially when you make the most out of her Cyber-Webs and Spider-Nests, which do take a bit of focus to set up.

If set up correctly, her mines can instantly take out any squishy heroes who walk nearby, especially Strategists.

Alongside this, Peni is able to hold her own quite effectively if your Strategists fall. Her self-healing ability and immobilising webs cause a nuisance to attackers with or without your teammates.

She's more useful when defending, as the need to be near your webs does limit her impact when on the offence, or in games with payloads.

Hulk

When we first started this list in Season 0, we had Hulk much lower due to his fairly weak offence. However, as the meta has developed and we've played with some very good Hulk mains, he has shot up the list into A-Tier.

His huge amount of health, combined with his Gamma Shield and jump ability, means he does what we thought Venom would excel at earlier in the season (distraction), but better. Even the transformation into Bruce Banner adds an extra padding of time and health, giving your team space to take down enemies while they try to finish you off.

He's still not what we expected this flagship Marvel character to be in Marvel Rivals, but as we move into Season 1, he is becoming a much more viable pick.

Cloak & Dagger

Once underrated, Cloak & Dagger are now a go-to choice for many Strategists in Marvel Rivals.

Dagger is an excellent healer with three different methods of healing available, and her Dagger Storm healing sphere is perfect for any particularly hectic team fights.

Meanwhile, Cloak’s Dark Teleportation is a great means of escape if you've pushed up too far or are left vulnerable against an enemy Duelist.

The real strength, though, comes in the ability to switch between the two. We’ve turned around countless fights by quickly shifting into Cloak to finish off a few weaker Strategists of Duelists, before reverting to Dagger to heal up the team before the next fight.

Invisible Woman

As she's still so new to Marvel Rivals, it remains tough to place Invisible Woman properly on this tier list while we wait for players to adapt to her inclusion in the meta.

So far, though, her healing looks to be reliable if your team stays close together, with Sue Storm's shield being the most effective tool for healing her teammates.

Her Psionic Vortex is also great for disrupting enemy teams, but we have found that her overall healing output is slightly lacking outside of the shield, making her less appealing as a Strategist than others above her.

Thor

Another brawler who mainly works best at close range, Thor benefited from an overall HP buff in the latest Marvel Rivals patch, making him more viable.

The Thorforce Passive is an interesting system still requires a lot of maintaining and landing your Mjolnir Bashes to keep up, but this is now more forgiving due to his extra health.

Groot

Groot is a classic tank that can just sit and absorb a lot of hits. What separates him from some of the lower-tier Vanguards who remain pretty bulky are his walls.

While they are great at just blocking damage or creating chokepoints, they can also deal damage or heal, so long as you and your team are damaging enemies nearby.

Due to this, we’d recommend being a bit more aggressive with Groot and using these walls for more offensive reasons, as opposed to simply soaking up hits.

His Ultimate is also great for combining with other players' Ultimate abilities, with Iron Man, Moon Knight and The Punisher being a few of the top combos.

And finally, be wary of where you’re placing walls. Make sure you aren’t blocking off any lines of sight for your teammates, in particular any healers!

Psylocke

Another Duelist who is pretty difficult to take down due to her mobility, Psylocke can easily disrupt the enemy backlines and deal a lot of damage before escaping using her dashes and invisibility.

Her Dance of the Butterly Ultimate also deals massive damage to enemies in a large area, really quickly. Your only chance of survival here is hoping that your fellow teammates sponge up enough of the damage to spare you.

Moon Knight

Moon Knight's Ankhs are proving much more deadly than we expected them to be this far into the Marvel Rivals meta.

These allow his primary and secondary attacks to bounce between them and enemies, chaining together more deadly attacks.

Even when players are aware of them, Marc Spector is able to deal so much damage and stealthily move away to set up the next Ankh that it doesn't matter if they're destroyed.

Iron Man

As a Marvel flagship, we were surprised that Iron Man didn't see any buffs in the Season 1 patch.

Iron Man has some strong attacks and a powerful Ultimate, made better by his flanking manoeuvres. If you want to take out an Iron Man, you do need to focus on him, leaving you vulnerable to other enemy attacks while you're aiming at the sky.

However, as a flying character just waiting to be sniped by Hawkeye, Iron Man is still fairly vulnerable to attacks from the Duelists in the existing Marvel Rivals meta.

Wolverine

Wolverine’s Savage Claw primary can be quite effective against Vanguards as it scales up with an enemy's HP, making him very useful when coming up against a good tank player.

He's a good choice in a match-up against teams running three Vanguards, but that really isn't the meta at the moment (possibly due to the threat of Wolverine) and so he isn't particularly viable right now.

His overall damage does not feel like enough for a Duelist, and as another melee character, he’s struggling against anyone with range.

The Regenerative Healing Factor has a lot of potential, but with a 90s cooldown, it’s nowhere near reliable enough to rely on aside from the occasional KO.

Winter Soldier

The key to playing as the Winter Soldier is to make use of the Ceaseless Charge passive, which reloads your primary weapon every time you use a Bionic Arm ability (which is all of your abilities).

Otherwise, you may find yourself in a tricky situation where you keep needing to reload. Bucky is best at a close-to-medium range, and since he has no real mobility options, you need to have this locked down to have a chance of success.

Still, his Ultimate is one of the best in the game, especially when you can chain enemies.

Iron Fist

Strategists, look away now! Iron Fist is a true enemy to the backlines, being able to dive in, deal a tremendous amount of damage, and escape quickly due to his mobility.

His fists have a very generous amount of aim-assist and can easily 1v1 most other squishy Duelists and Vanguards if used correctly.

However, as the meta has developed, Iron Fist has fallen away as a top-tier character especially in Competitive. Once he's used up his attacks, he can be quite vulnerable to a counter-attack, similar to Spider-Man.

Mister Fantastic

As with Invisible Woman, it's still very early to be placing Mister Fantastic confidently, meaning we're putting him solidly in B-Tier.

He is most effective when used more like a Vanguard, as he is able to tank a lot of damage using his various shielding abilities.

Adam Warlock

Marvel Rivals’ answer to Mercy, Adam Warlock has some good healing options to keep multiple teammates at full strength simultaneously using his Soul Bond.

His ability to revive allies via Karmic Revival is a great tool to have after losing a team fight, so long as you can stay alive to use it.

While his attacking output is strong if you have quite a good aim, his healing abilities have an unforgivingly long cooldown, leading to some moments when he feels pretty redundant on the battlefield.

Loki

Fittingly for the God of Mischief, Loki’s trickery translates through into his abilities and kit, which can be quite difficult to get the hang of when first picking him up.

You’ll get the most out of Loki by using his Doppelganger Illusion, which creates a duplicate of himself wherever you choose.

Not only does this give you mobility options and frustrate opponents, but they can also deploy the Regeneration Domain, giving you multiple healing points across the map for your teammates, so long as they’re aware of them.

Magneto

Magneto’s strength is two-fold, in that he can use his Metallic Curtain and Bulwark bubbles to protect the team from the front, while his projectiles are pretty powerful from range.

However, we’ve found his shield isn’t as strong or useful as that of Doctor Strange, and he is among the slowest of characters, putting him slightly lower on this list.

Venom

Now this is a dive tank! The Venom Swing gives Venom amazing mobility to swing in and cause a lot of chaos.

When using Venom, we've found the best strategy is to just be a distraction, as he’s really difficult to take down alone. Eddie Brock doesn’t do the most damage with his tendrils, so we’d recommend focusing on being that distraction over trying to take out too many enemies.

With 650HP, you can absorb a lot of hits, especially combined with the Symbiotic Resilience that gives you more Bonus Health the lower your health is.

We've moved Venom lower into the C-Tier, as for the more competitive teams that can play together, he can be fairly easily targeted by a couple of players as a counter-attack.

Captain America

Captain America is an odd Hero in Marvel Rivals, as it sometimes feels like he can't do much.

As a melee character, he has the most impact at short range. He can do so by using his Leading Dash, Super-Soldier Slam, or Liberty Rush, but if you’re opting for this playstyle, we’ve found more success with Venom than Steve Rogers.

When he does get close, a good Captain America can quickly dispatch a couple of enemies, but often he will draw way too much attention and be taken care of by the rest of the team.

The Punisher

The Punisher is who your more Call of Duty-inclined friend will pick when you force them to play Marvel Rivals – this game’s version of Soldier 76.

Frank Castle's kit is relatively easy to grasp, and we’ve found that switching to the shotgun at close range is a great way to surprise enemies and melt them from existence.

The Punisher’s turret was also one of our favourite abilities to use in the Marvel Rivals beta, but as players have become better, they’re able to target the Punisher and his turret much better, meaning it perhaps isn’t as deadly as it once was.

Black Panther

Another Duelist focused on using that mobility to take down enemies at a close range, Black Panther’s strengths come from his Spirit Rend and Spinning Kick dashes which make him particularly difficult to target while dealing damage.

However, when we have to compare him to other super-mobile Duelists, in Spider-Man and Iron Fist, he isn’t able to cause as much damage – especially if you mess up with his dash attacks and are left vulnerable.

Star-Lord

Star-Lord certainly feels like Tracer did when Overwatch first launched in 2016.

The dual-wield guns fail to pack enough of a punch to do enough damage for a top-tier Duelist, and while Peter Quill's mobility options are pretty good, they fall short when compared to other dive options in the category.

We do like his Ultimate, however, which gives you auto-lock aim for a period while flying in the air. While it feels like it should be easy to counter, it’s surprisingly effective compared to some other Duelist Ultimates.

Scarlet Witch

We loved playing Scarlet Witch in the beta, primarily because nobody knew what to do against her Ultimate.

However, as time has passed, players aren’t as scared of this anymore, and she is fairly easy to take out before unleashing her Ultimate, limiting its effectiveness.

Regardless, she is still a very strong Duelist at the lower levels. Her auto-aiming primary makes her a solid choice for anyone struggling to hit their shots consistently. You’ll be able to win in any 1v1s against Duelists or Strategists, although in wider team battles and at the highest ranks, her effectiveness starts to fade.

A good Scarlet Witch also knows that her secondary weapon is one of the most useful tools in her kit, particularly against Vanguards.

She is now more useful against Duelists and Strategists, but we would like to see Wanda's Mystic Projection buffed slightly by making it last longer, as right now it does not give her enough time to escape situations.

Squirrel Girl

As one of our favourite Marvel characters, we were pleasantly surprised to see Squirrel Girl added to the Marvel Rivals roster, although we did expect her to be a Strategist.

Sadly, her Junkrat-esque Burst Acorn projectile is only effective if you’re playing from quite deep, which only works well if your team is set up for that, or on the defence. Outside of that, Doreen Green's abilities don't offer her much compared to other Duelists.

Her Ultimate saw quite the big overhaul in Season 1, but her lack of an offensive punch means that Squirrel Girl and Tippy Toe have to sit in C-Tier for now.

Namor

On his own, Namor isn’t the strongest Duelist out there, but if you make sure his Monstro Spawn (his octopus friends) work hard as turrets, he can be effective in defending.

They still don’t have the most health but can contribute towards chipping away enemy health quite nicely.

His most underrated ability is the Blessing of the Deep, which gives him a protective barrier as he jumps into the air – great for diverting attention, but not really as useful for someone trying to play as a pure Duelist.

Spider-Man

He might be higher on this list if it wasn’t for the amount of frustrating Spider-Man teammates we’ve played with.

Spider-Man goes head-to-head with Iron Fist as the best option to flank and dive into the opponent’s backlines using his web-swinging and double jumps, but as a five-star difficulty hero, this Marvel fan favourite needs to be mastered by more players before he can move any higher in the tier list.

Hawkeye

Once a thing of terror to any Duelist or Strategist, the latest Rivals patch has significantly nerfed Hawkeye all the way down to D-Tier.

His damage output has been decimated in Season 1 in response to his early dominance of the meta as NetEase sought to make his medium and long-range capabilities worse.

As with Black Widow, his fellow D-Tier sniper, you still need to have good aim to do well as Clint, placing him firmly in the bottom options for Duelists now.

Jeff the Land Shark

We did consider placing Jeff in S-Tier for his Ultimate alone, which has been the source of many great clips on social media since Marvel Rivals launched.

However, as an actual Strategist, we’ve found less success with Jeff so far.

His main Splash Healing has a much greater range than you’d expect, but requires constant babysitting to work properly. The Healing Bubbles also rely too much on your teammates going out of their way to collect them for it to be a reliable strategy.

What's worse, his Ultimate has also seen a reduction in its range, making his one piece of viable kit even worse.

Black Widow

In Season 0, it was easy to say Black Widow is a worse version of Hawkeye. But now, they are both pretty unviable.

Widow’s sniper rifle, while certainly powerful, cannot one-shot any hero – even with a headshot.

Her counters against other short-range Duelists, in the Fleet Foot dash and Edge Dancer kick, really struggle to make any real impact.

Read more on Marvel Rivals:

• Marvel Rivals codes: All free skins
• Marvel Rivals trophy guide: Full list of achievements
• Marvel Rivals player count: How many have picked it up?
• Will Marvel Rivals come to Switch: Director comments on handheld options

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