Marvel Rivals Season 3.5’s New Team-Ups Could Be S-Tier Comps in the Making

Launching on August 8, Marvel Rivals’ Season 3.5 is right around the corner. It hasn’t been a tremendously long wait for Season 3’s midway point, either, as Season 3 only released earlier this month and players are continuing to work through its BattlePass, “Powers of the Phoenix,” with an overhauled, gradual means of earning Chrono Tokens. It’s incredibly exciting that Marvel Rivals’ Blade will soon be joining Jean Grey’s Phoenix, and he was only recently revealed at SDCC before NetEase dived into him a little deeper in yesterday’s Dev Vision Vol. 08 from creative director Guangguang.

Unlike previous Dev Vision video diaries for Marvel Rivals debriefing upcoming seasonal content, Vol. 08 is noticeably missing lead combat designer Zhiyong and is half as long as they normally tend to be. Still, what’s touched on beyond Blade teases how influential its brand-new Team-Ups may be. Indeed, the fullest extent of their viability or functionality hasn’t been shared yet, but what’s proposed of Adam Warlock and Luna Snow’s Duality Dance Team-Up and Loki, Groot, and Mantis’ Vibrant Vitality Team-Up seems horrendously overpowered.

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Marvel Rivals’ Best New Team-Ups Have Supports at the Forefront

Interestingly, Luna Snow and Mantis—two of Marvel Rivals’ support/strategist characters—seem to be receiving a lot of attention, and the Team-Ups they belonged to beforehand, Guardian Revival and Atlas Bond, respectively, are being scrapped. However, the Team-Ups each of them is receiving could be equally, if not more enticing, though concrete, fine-toothed details about them haven’t been divulged.

Duality Dance (Adam Warlock – Luna Snow)

• Luna Snow unlocks the new Light & Shadow Karma ability from her Team-Up with Adam Warlock.
  • According to Miller Ross on Twitter and inferred by the short glimpse of the Team-Up from Dev Vision Vol. 08, “Luna Snow can now borrow Adam Warlock’s cosmic power to attach herself to nearby enemies, turning damage against them into healing for her.”

Vibrant Vitality (Mantis – Groot/Loki)

• As the Team-Up Anchor, Mantis gains a 10% increase in healing effects.
• Groot gains the new Wild Wall ability from his Team-Up with Mantis.
• Loki gains the new Deific Blessing ability from his Team-Up with Mantis.
  • According to Miller Ross on Twitter and inferred by the short glimpse of the Team-Up from Dev Vision Vol. 08, this Team-Up allows “Loki’s lamps to boost nearby allies’ stats, and Groot’s walls to heal nearby allies.”

Marvel Rivals Season 3.5 Adds Blade and Spreads the Love for Strategists

At face value, Luna Snow’s Team-Up ability seems like it’d be a terrific dive-counter option, so long as Adam Warlock is around as the required anchor. Likewise, Loki’s lamps boosting nearby allies’ stats could be a boon with Mantis around, and it seems clear that NetEase wishes to incentivize a greater diversity of support characters in each queue, much less team compositions that favor multiple supports.

How ideal these compositions are in Competitive mode, such as whether or not Mantis’ or Adam’s new abilities are worthy of habitual bans, will be fascinating to see. In the meantime, Blade could ironically be the perfect counter to these support characters’ new powers if he’s able to “reduce their healing.” Only time will tell how all of these changes take shape and how strong each affected character will be in Marvel Rivals Season 3.5. Thankfully, anyone who is eager to find out for themselves is merely a day away from witnessing Season 3.5’s content creator previews.

Marvel Rivals

9/10

Released

December 6, 2024

ESRB

T For Teen // Violence

Developer(s)

NetEase Games

Publisher(s)

NetEase Games

Engine

Unreal Engine 5