We truly live in the greatest time for competitive video games. Every day, it feels like we’re getting a new MOBA, shooter, and fighting game to dip our feet into. For gamers who love competition, getting accustomed to multiple competitive games is very common. Marvel Rivals is the recent new shooter to come out, and it’s taking everyone by storm, including fans of fighting games. Having said all of that, fighting game fans would be excited to learn that Marvel Rivals can teach you a lot of concepts that would be useful in even their genre. Let’s review a few of them together!
Controlling the Corner
In every fighting game you play, your goal is to push the opponent to the corner or wall. When your opponent is cornered, their options to retreat are limited, becoming easier targets to hit. Your opponent also might become tilted, potentially making them take dangerous risks. This is a huge part of how you win in fighting games, so a lot of your strategy has to be created around achieving this goal.
In Marvel Rivals, this same concept still applies. Both teams have a particular spawning point on their side of the map, where they return after dying. One of the most monumental mistakes I see Rivals players making is that once their team kills everyone on the other team or the other team backs up, they don’t push up and claim space. The more space your team claims, the harder it is for the opponent’s team to fight back to reach the objective.
Essentially, you don’t want to give the other team any breathing room. Keep them pinned near their spawn and watch as they desperately try to break through your defenses. This is called “Spawn Camping”. Just make sure that you communicate with your teammates to push whenever you all kill or have more players than the other team.
Watching Pro Replays to Improve
Watching replays of players who are better than you has always been recommended in fighting games. You wanna see what combos they are doing, what attacks they are using in certain situations, and emulate them. When you emulate a high-level player, you will eventually become a high-level player. You want to put yourself in the shoes of the pro player so that you can subsequently think like one. “What are they doing that I’m not doing?” is one of the questions you should ask.
However, not only must you understand the “What” behind actions, but you must also understand the “Why.” You saw that the player threw out a projectile in that situation, but why? You can’t correctly emulate a player if you don’t understand why they do things because their decision-making is what tells the story.
In Marvel Rivals, watching pro replays to improve is just as effective. The game’s leaderboard gives you the option to see replays from every player in the top ranks. Additionally, the replay feature allows you to slow the video down, speed it up, change points of view, and much more. When watching a replay for yourself, try your best to learn something from it. Even if it’s hard to figure out why a player does something, try your best to come up with a reason. You can even ask a friend who is more experienced than you to watch replays alongside you.
Distance Advantage
If you’re a Street Fighter fan, I’m sure you’ve seen the classic Dhalsim vs Zangief matchup numerous times. While always a treat to watch, that matchup is the best way to present how some characters in fighting games are only effective at certain distances. For those who don’t know, Dhalsim is a character with long-ranged attacks that can strike from afar. Alternatively, Zangief is a grappler with powerful command grabs that put fear in opponents up close.
However, he has to be close to his opponent in order to land them, whereas Dhalsim just needs to be far away. It’s also worth mentioning that Zangief doesn’t have the movement speed to potentially sneak in on Dhalsim quickly. Having said all of this, Zangief has to work hard to get to his optimal distance, while Dhalsim can just bully him from afar.
This concept is known as Distance Advantage, and it’s even present in Marvel Rivals. Take a character like Iron Man, who can fly high in the air and has long-range attacks. On the other hand, a character like Hulk has extremely slow movement speed, is huge, and doesn’t have many long-range attacks. When thinking about it, Iron Man will have a much easier time fighting Hulk because he can fight him at a distance where Hulk isn’t effective. This is just one way of looking at how some characters can beat others, so you can imagine that learning multiple characters will benefit you greatly.
The Biggest Thing Marvel Rivals Can Teach You About Fighting Games – Adaptation
As you can see, Marvel Rivals and fighting games have a lot more in common than you might think. The three concepts listed above are key to helping you improve in both games. But there’s one concept in particular that connects both Rivals and fighting games critically: Adaptation. Quickly learning from your mistakes and changing your approach if something isn’t working is essential in just about every competitive game you play. Losing to the same thing over and over again is unacceptable.
Imagine if you were a Ryu player in Street Fighter, and you kept getting jumped in on for throwing Hadokens. Are you going to keep throwing out fireballs constantly? No, because you would keep dying! Instead, you should make the adjustment to start looking at the air and anti-airing the opponent.
In the case of Marvel Rivals, it’s interesting because this is a team game. Not only do you have to keep track of your mistakes, but you also have to pay attention to your team. Is your team missing out on damage? Consider switching to a Duelist character. Are you guys not surviving in fights long enough? Maybe you guys might need more healers or tanks. Whatever it is, switching heroes mid-match to counter enemy strategies or better support your team’s needs is vital.
Other Final Weapon Fighting Game Guides
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