Ranked Play in Marvel Rivals Explained
The Marvel Rivals closed beta test went live last night. It'll be running until 3 am on August 5th. Overwatch was a game designed from the ground up to be competitive. With Marvel Rivals taking heavy inspiration from Overwatch (specifically Overwatch 1), it makes sense that the developers would want the competitive mode to be tested as early as possible so it can be polished upon release.
Related Article: How to Join the Marvel Rivals Closed Beta Test
Ranked Overview
The general structuring of Marvel Rivals competitive mode is very standard. There are 8 ranks with the first 6 having 3 divisions each and the top 2 being a battle for raw elo rather than simply ranking up. The Marvel Rivals ranks are:
- Bronze
- Silver
- Gold
- Platinum
- Diamond
- Grandmaster
- Eternity
- One Above All
Division 1 is the lowest and division 3 is the highest. All players start at Bronze 1 0 out of 100 and have to climb up to the elo they belong in. There are rewards at the end of each season and these rewards are based upon the highest elo a player reached and not the elo they finish the season at.
There is ranked decay for the top two ranks only if the player doesn't play for a while. There is also a feature called "Chrono Shield" which is demotion protection. If the player reaches 0 out of 100 in division 1 of a rank, they won't be demoted all the way down to the previous rank (Diamond back to Platinum not Diamond 2 back to Diamond 1) until the Chrono Shield has been completely depleted.
Game Modes
Anyone who has played Overwatch will be familiar with the game modes in Marvel Rivals and how the game modes function. In Marvel Rivals, the competitive game modes are:
- Convergence
- Domination
- Convoy
Convergence
Convergence is a king of the hill styled mode. Both teams are attacking the same point in the center of the area and have to control the point until they reach 100%. There are 3 rounds and it's first to 2.
Domination
Domination is a mode with multiple points to capture and hold and is somewhat similar to the mode in Call of Duty which shares the same name.
Convoy
Convoy is the standard payload game mode. There is an attacking team and a defending team. Sometimes the payload is available to push immediately and other times it's locked behind a capture point that must be captured by the attackers first before the payload spawns.
Ranked Ruleset
The differences between quickplay and ranked play are basically the same as in Overwatch. In quickplay, every player is randomly decided attack or defense if the mode has it, then the game is played as is with only one round.
In ranked, if the game mode has an attack and defense side (Convoy), there are two halves. Each checkpoint the attacking team reaches grants a point. The team with the most points or that pushes the payload the farthest if the points are tied, wins the game. Just like in Overwatch, this makes ranked games around twice as long as quickplay games but far more fair and balanced for a competitive experience.
There is one unique feature of Marvel Rivals competitive that most players won't experience. When all players in a lobby are at least Diamond 3, each team gets to ban one hero before the match starts. This is a really interesting feature that can have a massive impact on how similar each game feels.
In Overwatch for example, the meta was the meta. It didn't matter what rank the players were; everyone was trying to abuse the same overpowered characters. In a genre where compositions matter immensely, being able to ban one hero can completely destroy an entire composition and flip the meta on its head.
It's certainly a peculiar choice to have this limited to what will probably be around the top 15% of the player base only and not give everyone access to it, but it is more than likely a nice feature that will make ranked (at least high elo ranked) more dynamic and interesting to play/watch.
