‘Honeymoon phase’ over? Top Marvel Rivals streamer is sick of ‘horrible coinflip’ experience

Marvel Rivals’ season one is starting to wear on some gamers—especially those who enjoy the competitive side of it, like many content creators and streamers.

One such content creator has been especially vocal of late. Eskay, a well-known Overwatch player who has been near the top of both directories while streaming ranked mode, has taken exception to a controversial part of NetEase Games’ philosophy of not having a role queue.

“My honeymoon phase is ending with Marvel Rivals,” Eskay said on X (formerly Twitter) on March 6. “It feels like no matter how good I am at the really cool heroes and be- Psylocke, [Black Panther], Magik, Spider-Man, Storm, I can get shut down super easily by the other team going triple support or triple tank and pressing buttons.”

The triple support or triple tank compositions have been prevalent for a while in competitive mode, and they turn the game into a struggle of who can get their Strategist ultimates faster to win a fight. It’s especially tough with three Strategists, since they’re able to out-heal any damage being dealt.

Unfortunately for Eskay and others looking for some kind of role queue system, NetEase games doesn’t seem too keen on the idea of a role queue.

“Right now, we’re not considering a role queue,” Guangyun “Guangguang” Chen, Marvel Rivals creative director, told Dot Esports shortly after the game launched in December 2024. “The team’s goal is to offer a wider variety of team composition through team-up skills and their own designs, to let people play their Marvel superheroes rather than limiting players to choosing a role.”

This can always change, obviously. Overwatch had a similar issue at the start of the game, and it was eventually bogged down by metas with three supports and three tanks, similarly to what Marvel Rivals is going through right now. Overwatch eventually added a role queue to fix the issue and balance the teams with two of each role. But according to Eskay, role queue is just one of competitive play’s issues.

“Marvel Rivals ranked is genuinely horrible coinflip every single game,” the streamer posted on March 4. “It’s way too easy to climb. Imposters in every rank with sub 50-percent winrate and climbing really high because they played a lot. You lose if you get one or more of these players. Rank reset won’t fix it.”

Season two of Marvel Rivals will likely feature the game’s next big balance patch, as the developer has shown it likes to save hero balancing changes for big updates. Will NetEase address these issues then, or will season two continue to have Eskay and others reeling? We should know more next month ahead of season two’s launch around April 10.