Here’s who you should ban in Marvel Rival Season 2 and thanks to the new team-up abilities, the list is long

The new team-up abilities for Marvel Rivals Season 2 mean there are a bunch of fresh terrors roaming around the competitive scene. So now you don’t just have to look out for Spider-Man or Iron Fist—there are new overpowered characters on the block.

If you manage to place in Diamond or above, then you’ll gain access to hero bans when you play competitively. This can be a real asset, especially if you hate playing against one character in particular or if there’s one hero that is just too powerful in the current meta.

But you don’t just get to ban one hero in Marvel Rivals—your team has the chance to ban up to two heroes, and if the other team bans two different heroes, that means four heroes will be unplayable for that match. You also effectively vote on which hero to ban—the more players that pick the same hero, the higher the chance there is for them to get banned. So, unfortunately, even if five out of six players choose the same hero, there’s still a tiny percentage chance they won’t be the hero to get banned, and the hero that the one player picked will get chosen. It’s all a bit complicated, but it’s not something you need to spend a lot of time worrying about.

In Season 0, the so-called “server admin” (a hero so powerful they controlled the outcome of a game) was Hela, which meant she was the first candidate to get banned. But other strong heroes included Hulk, Hawkeye, and Bucky. This trend sort of carried over into Season 1 with the addition of Wolverine, as he was such a pain for Vanguards to play against.

Other characters that are just annoying to play against, like flankers such as Spider-Man or Iron Fist or Strategists with a ridiculous healing output like Luna Snow or Cloak and Dagger, are also good picks depending on what you despise the most.

But with Season 2, the best way to determine who you should ban (other than having a deep disdain for certain characters) is by their team-up ability. Some characters like Luna Snow and Jeff the Land Shark, who share the Chilling Charisma ability, don’t have very good team-up abilities—it isn’t bad, but it’s not game-changing. On the other hand, team-ups like Arcane Order, Gamma Charge, and Mental Projection are too powerful to leave unchecked.

But you only need to ban one hero to dismantle these team-ups. Without Scarlet Witch enabling Arcane Order, Doctor Strange is pretty useless right now. Emma Frost is just generally quite strong now, so banning her is a good idea, and it’ll also weaken Psylocke and Magneto. And lastly, banning Hulk stops Doctor Strange and Namor from getting a gamma buff (which gives Namor the most annoying squids known to man) and will also dramatically reduce the amount of punches to the face you’ll take while in a game, which is nice.

Despite there being some overpowered heroes this season, bans are mostly determined by personal experience and who’s the most dangerous character in your rank. With this in mind, my top priorities for bans would be Hulk, Iron Fist, Emma Frost, and Cloak and Dagger. After that, I just try to take into account team-up abilities or heroes that I hate playing against. Bans probably won’t solve all your issues, but they’ll go a long way to helping make competitive matches slightly more bearable.