Sentinels, Virtus Pro Dominate First Marvel Rivals Fight Night

Sentinels are officially on top of the Marvel Rivals world. Or at least the team feels that way after a strong showing in their first competitive event after being signed, winning the first ever Rivals Fight Night title for North America. 

To be fair, it was a very short race to the top of the mountain for Sentinels this time. Only three teams were invited to compete in the first Rivals Fight Night event on both the European and North American side, though those teams are widely considered some of the best in the world as Marvel Rivals continues to grow as a competitive esport. 

For Sentinels, it was very nearly a clean sweep in the grand finals against a talented Intergalactic squad that ran the exact same lineup for a majority of the event. Outside of a few swaps here or there to work around bans or Team-Ups, it was largely a mirror match between Doctor Strange, The Thing, Luna Snow, and Loki with a rotating cast of Winter Soldier, Hela, and Namor.

Intergalactic showed flashes throughout the series and even managed to take game two on Symbiotic Surface 2-1 on the back of Doomed’s incredible Winter Soldier play. However, Sentinels just looked like the more polished squad, executing their gameplan perfectly with splashes of creative hero usage to provide an edge when needed.

For example, game five saw Karova hopping onto Adam Warlock instead of Luna Snow as SEN swapped to a triple Strategist lineup built around the hero’s revival Team-Up. Rymazing stepped off of his Star-Lord and gave it to SuperGomez as they walked in the convoy on Yggsgard and then held Intergalactic on the first point after switching sides. 

This adds yet another title to the cupboard for a squad that is already one of the most decorated in the early days of Marvel Rivals, and it bodes well for their positioning heading into the Marvel Rivals Invitational: North America, which is set to run from March 14 to 23. We will likely see more orgs announcing their teams before that event begins, but Sentinels is the name to beat as of now in NA. 

As for Europe, Virtus.pro looks like an absolute powerhouse after being one of the first major orgs to enter Marvel Rivals in February. Just as an example, one of the team’s Duelists, SparkR, has three different accounts ranked in the top 10 on the game’s global rankings.

Luminosity fell in the opening round to Team Peps, but VP stopped the French squad cold. Outside of a five-round game two on Spider-Islands, VP seemed to have little issue closing out Peps, as one pick off at any point seemed to snowball into complete domination with no chance of recovery.

VP managed to do it on a variety of heroes as well, showing that their players aren’t susceptible to the current meta target bans or slight disruptions on the fringest. SparkR’s Winter Soldier crushed the competition while Nevix’s Groot locked things down alongside Finnsi.

While NA is just gearing up for their Marvel Rivals Invitational, Europe is already a few rounds deep, with VP currently sitting in the upper bracket finals of the $100,000 tournament.