Marvel Rivals hero banning is the change Overwatch needs, but it has two major flaws
NetEase GamesMarvel Rivals hero ban system is an outright improvement on Overwatch 2, with the competitive experience at a high level being vastly superior to Blizzard’s hero shooter. However, two major flaws hold the system back.
With Marvel Rivals having 33 heroes available at launch, it has the freedom to implement bans without ruining the balance of the game. Even if your favorite hero gets taken off the table, there are other options.
Overwatch 2 should really take some notes here, hero bans can entirely eliminate oppressive metas like the kind Widowmaker encourages. However, they should also take note of the things Marvel Rivals has done wrong.
Hero bans are a great feature in Marvel Rivals, but also a flawed system that needs a few small adjustments to really shine.
Hero bans are great in Marvel Rivals, but they could be better
The ability to ban heroes that are an absolute nightmare to play against like Hela and Hawkeye is incredible for maintaining your sanity on the ranked grind. Four bans feels like just the right amount for this game’s current roster, with every player still having options even if all four bans are targeted at one role.
High-ranked players have praised the system, with it being almost universally well-received amongst Rivals’ best. But that’s also the first flaw: Bans only start at Diamond ranks.
If you played comp in Marvel Rivals and were left wondering why you couldn’t ban heroes like your favorite streamer, this is why. And, quite frankly, it feels like a strange decision to rank gate hero bans. Quick Play exists for a reason.
Bans should absolutely be implemented in competitive at all ranks. Or, at the very least, the restriction should be lowered to Gold. By that rank, the vast majority of players will have other heroes they know how to play if their favorite gets banned.
NetEase GamesHaving to work toward bans takes a lot of grinding, and players who hit that rank go in unprepared for the fact that their favorite hero or team-up combination may get taken off the board. This is, fortunately, an easy fix, and could be remedied by a simple patch and little effort from the devs.
The second flaw is that the ban phase provides no anonymity. This makes it so that streamers or one-tricks can be targeted in the ban phase where they’d normally be fine otherwise.
This may be a bit more of a contentious point than the first one, but it’ll only get worse as the game gets more balanced. For now, there’s a pretty clear set of handshake bans unless you’ve got someone in your game who’s really, really good at one hero.
As time goes on and top level players get more familiar with each other, it’ll become clear who to target in every match. For players who excel at piloting one particular hero in a way no one else can, their playstyle gets essentially erased.
Some people may argue that being able to ban someone out is a good thing, but seeing high level players like Eskay forced off a hero they love makes the experience much worse for them. She pretty much never gets to play Psylocke. Same goes for a one-trick like TeamCaptain who’s doing insane things with Wolverine but never gets to pick the hero.
And, while this may sound like it runs counter to the first point, there’s a big difference between only knowing how to play one hero because you’re new and preferring to one-trick a low-tier because you’re the best in the world at them. Most high-level players are civil and willing to play other things if they have to.
Target banning is great for pro play, tournament play, scrims, environments like that, but it just doesn’t belong in solo queue. Bans should be about taking strategies off the table that counter what you want to do as a team, not to target one person in particular and make them have a much worse time than everyone else in the lobby. Fortunately, this is also easily fixed by making lobby names anonymous.
While Marvel Rivals hero bans do have some issues, it’s more a matter of refining the system than overhauling it. Speaking personally, my matches took a huge step up in quality when the ban phase became an icebreaker with my teammates in Rivals, and Competitive immediately started to feel like the way this game is meant to be played.
Overwatch 2 should be taking notes, because a system like this would make the experience so much better if they can learn from NetEase and create an even better version for themselves. I enjoy both games, but not having hero bans in Overwatch is a clear step back when comparing Blizzard’s hero shooter to Marvel Rivals.