Marvel Rivals Season 9: Way Too Early Predictions

I read the Season 9 balance post three times last instead of actually playing the game. My ranked progress thanks me for nothing.

Here’s the thing: NetEase didn’t drop a balance patch. They dropped a different game. Regenerative Shields, a full Team-Up rework, slower ults for everyone, and Deadpool is a tank now. So before Season 9: The Mystery of Thebes goes live on July 10, let’s make some way too early predictions we can all laugh at in a month.

What Actually Changed (The 60-Second Version)

If you haven’t read the full patch notes yet, here’s what matters:

Regenerative Shields are the headline. A chunk of many heroes’ health pools got converted into a new shield type. Take no damage for 5 seconds and the whole shield pool regenerates over the next 5. Captain America went from 600 base health to 300 health plus 300 shields. Thor got the same treatment. So did Hulk, Venom, Rogue, Angela, and a pile of flankers like Black Panther, Magik, Psylocke, and Star-Lord.

Ults charge way slower. Damage-to-energy conversion dropped from 70% to 55% for Vanguards and Duelists. Strategists got hit on both healing and damage conversion. Rough math: your ult shows up about a fifth later than it used to.

Team-Up Anchors are gone. Every flat “you get bonus health or 5% damage for existing” anchor bonus got deleted. In their place, there’s a new loadout system with base effects you always have and stronger effects when your partner is on the team.

Vanguard Deadpool got real buffs. Wade plays all three roles, and this patch clearly picked a favorite. His tank version got a health bump to 500, better damage reduction on Deadpool In Your Area for him and his allies, and harder-hitting Desert Eagles. His Duelist and Strategist versions? They just lost their anchor bonuses. Meanwhile the actual hero rework this season is Black Widow: full-auto hipfire, a new dive attack, and an ult with six piercing sniper shots. And Destructoid confirmed the two new heroes: Jubilee (a Strategist, and yes, the vampire Horseman of Apocalypse version) at launch, then The Hood at midseason.

Okay. Predictions. Let’s get some of these hilariously wrong.

Prediction 1: Flanker Hour Is Upon Us

This one feels like free money. Regenerative Shields reward one specific playstyle: touch the fight, take some damage, disappear behind a wall, come back at full strength without your healer lifting a finger.

Who does that describe? Black Panther. Magik. Psylocke. Star-Lord. Daredevil. Every single one of them just got shields.

Your Cloak & Dagger no longer has to pump resources into the Black Panther who’s off doing parkour behind the enemy team. He heals himself now. That’s a bigger deal than any raw damage buff, and it’s why I think flank-heavy comps define the first month of Season 9. Beebom’s coverage predicted ban rates shifting hard toward these heroes, and I think they’re right.

If you’re a support main like me, prepare to feel very alone back there.

Prediction 2: Fights Get Longer and Somehow Sweatier

Slower ult charge across the board means fewer of those “both teams press five ults in four seconds” fiestas that decided fights in Season 8. I’m genuinely happy about that. Those moments were exciting exactly once.

But here’s the flip side nobody’s talking about: when ults are rarer, raw mechanics matter more. Longer neutral fights mean more time for the Hawkeye with cracked aim to take over a lobby (and his arrows literally fly faster now). The average gamer’s great equalizer was always the ult. Now we get fewer of them.

My prediction: fight quality goes up, and the skill gap gets a little more honest. Bring snacks.

Prediction 3: Groot and Devil Dinosaur Quietly Run the Tank Meta

Everyone’s staring at the shiny Regenerative Shields, but look at who didn’t get converted. Groot jumped from 700 to 850 flat health, no strings attached. Devil Dinosaur hit 850 with better crit resistance and an even more annoying anti-ult passive.

Shields are great for tanks who play cover. Groot and Devil Dino don’t play cover. They ARE cover. In a season where burst damage is the counter to regenerating health pools (more on that below), the tanks with giant honest health bars and constant healer attention might just outlast everyone.

Doctor Strange is my dark horse here too. 650 health, an 850-point Shield of the Seraphim, and 1,000 with Invisible Woman on the team. That’s a wall.

Prediction 4: Vanguard Deadpool Goes From Meme Pick to Actual Pick

Vanguard Wade has been the “my tank instalocked WHAT” pick since his three-role kit dropped. The devs even joked in the notes that they paid him to start aiming. This patch takes him seriously: 500 base health, Desert Eagle damage up, and Deadpool In Your Area now giving allies 25% damage reduction and Wade himself 35%.

That last number is the sneaky one. A tank who personally shrugs off a third of incoming damage, in a season where healers are stretched thin (see Prediction 7), is a real frontline instead of a bit.

Week one will still be rough. Every team gets a Deadpool “tank” who’s really a DPS player who didn’t want to swap, feeding his brains out and typing “I’m diffing my counterpart” in match chat. But once the tourists leave, I think the buffed version settles into “good in the right hands, throw pick otherwise” tier. Which describes half my ranked matches anyway.

Prediction 5: Hela Is Back and Your Lobby Will Hate It

Buried under the shield talk: Hela got her Nightsword Thorn damage bumped from 70 to 80, better falloff range, and her Crow form can now fly freely in any direction.

Free-flying escape on a hitscan-style poke queen with more damage at range? In a meta with fewer ults to punish her? I’m calling it now: Hela is a top-three ban within three weeks. She lost her 15% anchor damage boost and I don’t think it matters even a little.

Prediction 6: Cyclops Mains Are in the Mud

Pour one out for Scott Summers. Optic Blast down from 25 to 21 per hit, Ricochet Force nerfed, and his mobility cooldowns went from 12 to 15 seconds. That’s not a tap on the wrist. That’s the full nerf combo platter.

NetEase said he was melting people too fast, and fair enough, he was. But losing damage AND escape tools in the same patch, right as flankers get self-healing shields? I predict Cyclops drops out of the meta entirely until a midseason patch throws him a rope. Iron Man’s in a weird spot too, with baseline nerfs that only pay off if you’re running his Team-Ups.

Prediction 7: Supports Feel Worse Before They Feel Better

On paper, Strategists got love. Cloak & Dagger heal more, Invisible Woman heals more, Luna Snow’s Idol Aura hit 40%, Ultron’s drones got juiced.

In practice? Your ult charges slower from healing, your anchor bonuses are gone, and half the enemy team now self-heals behind cover so your damage matters less. Rocket’s ult got an energy cost hike plus distance falloff on top of that. The healing numbers went up, but the job got harder.

The one exception: Jubilee. New Strategist with life-steal and burst healing, launching day one of a season built around her. She’ll either be broken or feel terrible, since new hero launches in Marvel Rivals have exactly two settings. I’m betting broken, then hotfixed by August.

Prediction 8: Burst Damage Becomes the Whole Conversation

This is the second-order effect I’d bet real money on. Regenerative Shields punish slow poke damage, since chip damage just resets behind a wall. What they can’t do is regenerate a hero who’s already dead.

So the answer to shield heroes is deleting them in one window: Hawkeye’s faster arrows, Hela’s buffed poke, Moon Knight’s sharper darts, combo flankers. The community’s already circling this in prediction videos, and I think it’s the right read. If damage that kills in one commitment is the only damage that sticks, expect the one-shot-adjacent heroes to climb every tier list by August.

What Should You Actually Do on July 10?

Real talk, here’s my plan as a guy with a job and roughly 90 minutes a night:

Play tank first. The shield rework changed Vanguards the most, and learning the new survival rhythm (poke, cover, reset, re-engage) early is the cheapest rank-up you’ll get all season.

Don’t insta-lock Jubilee in ranked. Play her in quick match for a few days like a person with self-respect.

Learn the Team-Up loadout screen before your first match. Base effects are always on now. Picking the wrong loadout is the new “forgot to change my settings.”

Give it two weeks before you rage about balance. Everyone’s day-one take on Regenerative Shields will be wrong, including everything you just read.

The Bottom Line

Season 9 is the biggest swing NetEase has taken since launch, and I mean that as a compliment. Slower ults, self-sufficient flankers, tanks that reward positioning over face-tanking: this is a patch that trusts players to think.

Will half these predictions age like milk? Absolutely. That’s the fun part. Screenshot this article and come roast me in a month.

What’s your way too early Season 9 take? Drop it in the comments or come argue with us in the Two Average Gamers Discord. Bonus points if you’re a Cyclops main hanging on out of pure spite.

Sources: Official Marvel Rivals Version 20260710 Balance Post, Destructoid’s Season 9 coverage, GosuGamers’ full balance breakdown, Cosmic Book News, and Beebom’s buffs and nerfs explainer.