Marvel Rivals Season 7 "The Hunt Is On" end-of-season recap: who won the meta

Season 7 "The Hunt Is On" wraps on May 15, and eight weeks of tracked community matches give us a clear read on the hero list. This post walks through who actually topped the tiers at each role going into the end of season, which heroes moved in unexpected directions, and what to watch for Season 8.

Season timeline

Season 7 launched on 2026-03-20 and closes 2026-05-15. Roughly eight weeks of ranked, with the usual early-season churn followed by mid-season settle. By week four the community sample was large enough that shrunk win rates stopped swinging day to day and the tier list locked into the shape we have now.

Balance adjustments during the season followed the usual NetEase pattern: small targeted tweaks rather than large systemic changes, with the mid-season pass focusing on backline Strategists and Duelist mobility. Daily tracking showed the expected movement in most cases: heroes who were buffed climbed the shrunk list, heroes who were nerfed dropped.

Vanguards: Peni Parker runs away with it

The #1 Vanguard of Season 7 is Peni Parker at 55.1% shrunk win rate across roughly 63,000 tracked matches. She has held the top spot since the mid-season settle. Her zone-control kit punishes every flank the meta Duelists want to make, and the sample size behind that 55.1% is large enough that the placement is about as confident as it gets.

The rest of the top 5:

Bruce Banner: 52.5% across ~45,000 matches. Heavy-frontline anchor that scales with team coordination.
Captain America: 52.4% across ~35,000. Mobility-plus-disruption kit that plays better on a split lineup than in a stacked brawl.
Doctor Strange: 51.1% across ~126,000. The highest sample count in the role, meaning low variance in the placement: he is exactly as good as the number says.
Angela: 51.1% across ~34,000. Statistically tied with Doctor Strange on a quarter of the sample: the quiet fifth pick of the top 5.

Peni''s edge over the rest of the role is wide. The next closest Vanguard sits more than two and a half percentage points behind her on the shrunk list, which is an unusual gap for a role and suggests her kit is over-tuned for the current map pool.

Duelists: Magik on top

The #1 Duelist is Magik at 54.6% shrunk win rate over roughly 65,000 tracked matches. She is the only Duelist clear of the 54% mark, but her lead over the next pick is meaningfully tighter than Peni''s at Vanguard: about a percentage point, not three.

Top 5 Duelists:

Magik: 54.6% across ~65,000 matches.
Daredevil: 53.5% across ~34,000.
Black Panther: 52.5% across ~34,000. The late-season Duelist story.
Storm: 52.0% across ~16,000. Smaller sample than the rest of the top 5, but well past the noise floor.
Iron Man: 51.8% across ~45,000.

The top of the Duelist list is a split between mobility and flying ranged: Magik, Daredevil, and Black Panther all hinge on getting into and out of fights quickly, while Storm and Iron Man control fights from above. Ground-bound poke specialists are conspicuously absent from the top 5.

Strategists: Ultron breaks through

The Strategist slot has one runaway and a tight pack behind it. The top is Ultron at 54.3% shrunk across ~32,000 tracked matches, with Rocket Raccoon at 52.1% across ~64,000 in second.

Top 5 Strategists:

Ultron: 54.3% across ~32,000.
Rocket Raccoon: 52.1% across ~64,000.
White Fox: 51.4% across ~197,000: the highest sample count of any Strategist and one of the biggest in the game.
Mantis: 50.6% across ~27,000.
Invisible Woman: 50.6% across ~194,000 matches. Massive sample, placement is extremely confident.

Notice how fast the numbers compress below Ultron and Rocket: the next three Strategists sit within a percentage point of each other. That is a sign of a balanced sub-pack where the right pick often depends on team comp and map rather than one hero being obviously best.

Heroes that moved

Two hero-level stories are worth calling out, both with the sparsity caveat in mind: Counterwatch''s tracked DAU has grown roughly 5× over the past year, so cross-season pickrate deltas read as directional, not precise. Shrunk win rates within Season 7 are confident; cross-season pickrate comparisons are less so.

Black Panther''s climb to #3 Duelist is notable. Late-season data shows him converting more reliably at Grandmaster and above than he did in early weeks. Some of that is probably teams learning his dive windows; some of it is probably the mid-season patch landing well for his archetype.

White Fox and Invisible Woman carrying the Strategist sample is the other story. Both heroes sit on close to 200,000 tracked matches each, far ahead of every other Strategist, but neither lands in the top two by win rate. That is the signature of "safe" picks: extremely high pick rate, just above baseline, reliable in a lot of comps. If you are looking for the highest-ceiling Strategist this season, the data points at Ultron or Rocket Raccoon; if you are looking for the most-pickable, it is White Fox or Invisible Woman.

What to watch for Season 8

Season 8 begins 2026-05-15. A couple of things worth watching in the first four weeks:

Does Peni Parker retain her Vanguard lead? Her edge is wide enough that it is unlikely to flip immediately, but a targeted nerf would move the list faster than any other single balance change.
Do the mobility and flying-ranged Duelists stay on top, or does ground-bound poke reset? If NetEase buffs ground-anchored damage dealers or tightens up the sightlines that Storm and Iron Man exploit, the top of the role could compress.
Does Ultron stay #1 Strategist? He is a relatively new Strategist and his sample is still growing. The placement is likely real, but watch for shrinkage to shift it in either direction as more matches roll in. Watch Rocket Raccoon too: a half percentage point of movement and the top two could flip.

We will publish the Season 8 early meta snapshot four weeks into the new season. In the meantime, the live data keeps updating daily on the full MR tier list, and the Counterwatch app''s in-game overlay runs the numbers live during your matches for real-time counter and synergy calls.

For the long-form on how we compute shrunk win rates and handle cross-season pickrate comparisons, see the methodology page. For the role-by-role best-pick-to-main rankings, the best one tricks page weighs consistency and sample size alongside raw win rate.