Once it was officially revealed that Daredevil would be joining Marvel Rivals in Season 4.5, it was a no-brainer that he would be another Duelist among foundations. However, that wouldn’t thwart players from praying in a pew next to Matthew Murdock himself that he’d somehow arrive as a Vanguard, and there’s a reasonable explanation why: Duelists are rampant in Marvel Rivals. Angela is a neat Vanguard addition, for instance, but it seems as if NetEase plans to adopt a new character rotation with a Duelist nestled between every Vanguard or Strategist debut. In any case, Daredevil is hopefully the last Duelist we see for a while, yet that appears highly unlikely.
A Duelist Daredevil Makes Sense, But Highlights a Common Roster Concern
Nobody familiar with Daredevil would innately assume that he’d be a Vanguard in Marvel Rivals. Marvel Rivals’ Daredevil indeed looks almost nothing like the blind lawyer of Hell’s Kitchen typically does, though there’s no mistaking that the acrobatic, billy club-wielding vigilante is tailor-made to be a Duelist/DPS character.
Daredevil’s superhuman abilities aren’t oriented toward him being a tank or bruiser like, say, Hulk or Thing, and he’s a fairly ordinary human aside from bearing expert martial arts skills and exceptional enhancements to his four remaining senses. But, besides Daredevil’s popularity and how novel he is as a Marvel Rivals character, it’s mildly disappointing that the live-service hero shooter’s newest roster addition will be another Duelist when the game already boasts so many.
Marvel Rivals’ Angela is Hopefully the First of Many New Tanks
Marvel Rivals is due for more Vanguards and Strategists, but Daredevil would’ve been the wrong character to tweak to make that happen. Whereas Marvel Rivals’ Angela is a perfect choice for a Vanguard based on her design, it would’ve been a complete stretch to rationalize Daredevil belonging to the same class, even if Jean Grey’s Phoenix and Mister Fantastic’s defining gameplay roles are questionable, too.
Marvel Rivals Strategists/Supports
- Adam Warlock
- Cloak & Dagger
- Invisible Woman
- Jeff the Land Shark
- Loki
- Luna Snow
- Mantis
- Rocket Raccoon
- Ultron
Marvel Rivals Vanguards/Tanks
- Angela
- Captain America
- Doctor Strange
- Emma Frost
- Groot
- Hulk
- Magneto
- Peni Parker
- Thing
- Thor
- Venom
At 9 Strategists, 11 Vanguards, and a whopping 22 Duelists (23 with Daredevil next week) thus far, it’s clear that there’s a disparity in terms of role distribution. Strategists and Vanguards are admittedly deliberately niche in their role on the battlefield, especially when there are more than enough already to make for interesting team compositions, but Marvel Rivals’ Duelists more than doubling the number of Vanguards has become tiring to witness, as they rarely contribute to seasonal metas unless they have an OP Team-Up.
Daredevil and Punisher share a Team-Up in Marvel Rivals Season 4.5, dubbed Bestial Hunt, that allows Punisher’s Scourge Grenade smokescreen ability to temporarily blind an enemy.
A silver lining is that Marvel Rivals is now releasing a new character every month, and at that rate, it will seemingly be impossible for Strategists and Vanguards to be overlooked or dismissed in Season 5 and beyond, even if NetEase continues to churn out Duelists consistently. To be fair, there are more Marvel characters who’d easily slot into the role of a Duelist—intended as versatile, damage-dealing heroes—rather than a Strategist or Vanguard, and pacing supports and tanks out evenly among them might be NetEase’s most ideal course of action if it intends to launch debut roster characters so frequently, anyhow.
Still, Marvel Rivals’ team comps are arguably made intriguing via debut Strategists and Vanguards, not Duelists, on account of there being so few in comparison. Unfortunately, many of the characters that I’d personally like to see in Marvel Rivals would also undoubtedly be classified as Duelists, such as Cyclops, Gambit, and Ghost Rider, and the rarity of appropriate Strategist and Vanguard characters will ultimately boil down to who can theoretically be curated to logically heal others on back lines, or be a big enough powerhouse in order to barrel through enemies and tank a ton of damage on front lines.