Following the continuous rise in popularity of the Marvel franchise, Kabam Games, Inc. recently released another mobile game based on the iconic heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe with MARVEL Realm of Champions. Kabam Games has been known to provide quality games be it based on popular franchises or entirely original games. Transformers: Forged to Fight, Shop Titans, and Mini Guns – Omega Wars are just some of Kabam’s popular games.
In contrast with Kabam Games’ hugely popular Marvel Contest of Champions, MARVEL Realm of Champions plays more like a MOBA game where you team up with other players and challenge another team in the battle arena. There are cooperative game modes as well that pit a team of players against enemy mobs. Although there are currently only 7 characters to choose from, MARVEL Realm of Champions ensures an infinitely varied battle arena experience as each character can be customized with different weapons and gears.
While Marvel Contest of Champions lets players take control of their favorite heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe, MARVEL Realm of Champions is set in an alternate timeline where different yet familiar incarnations of favorite heroes come to life. Each character sports a different yet cognizable look and potentially has a different alter ego. Each piece of gear you equip on the hero can also change his or her appearance while weapons can alter his or her set of skills as well.
You will be greeted with a brief story introduction once you dive into the world of MARVEL Realm of Champions and what follows is a quick tutorial where everything you can learn all the basic features and controls. The user interface and controls are very easy to grasp. Compared to loosely similar games within the genre, it is a lot more straightforward and simple, making it a fitting game for even total beginners in MOBA games.
MARVEL Realm of Champions, however, is a type of game that is easy to master, yet very difficult to master. If you find yourself struggling to bag some wins or simply searching for tips and strategies to jumpstart your progress, then we have you covered as our MARVEL Realm of Champions beginner’s guide has everything you need to start dominating the battle arena.
1. Focus On Ranking Up First
As we mentioned earlier, MARVEL Realm of Champions is a type of game that is fairly easy to pick up and play, but mastering it is a continuous challenge. There may only be 7 characters available now, but the game trailers alone should suffice top tell you that more are coming. Even with just the 7 characters, the customizations available for each one, not to mention each player’s strategy, as well as the entire team synergy can make for a near-infinite set of scenarios that you should be ready for.
Although you can read as many guides to earn more knowledge as to what to expect from the game or pick up tips and ideas on how to improve your performance in the battle arena, nothing beats experiencing battles first hand and learning each step of the way.
While continuously hopping into one match after another will surely make a better combatant out of any player, it leads to the fulfillment of an important aspect of MARVEL Realm of Champions that we feel should be a top priority early on. This is the rank up feature of the game which works similarly to account levels.
As you engage in competitive battle modes like the Arena Conquest and Deathmatch, you earn battle points and a resource called ISO-9. Regardless of whether your team wins or loses, there will always be battle points and ISO-9s to earn so engaging in matches is a must if you want to rank up fast. The ISO-9s you earn does not automatically level up your champion even if you have more than enough resources to do so.
On the champion’s page, you will need to manually level him or her up and consume the required resources. Each new level your champion reaches gives him or her a boost in stats. Reaching the maximum level of 10 qualifies you to rank up your champion provided that you have sufficient gold and catalysts to do so.
Related: MARVEL Realm of Champions Heroes Guide: An In-Depth Look at Each Champion in the Game
Do take note that levels and ranks do not cut across all the champions you have unlocked. Each new champion who will join your roster will start at rank 1 and level 1, which means you have to manage resources well for one, a few, or all of them.
While a lot of the other weapon and gear rewards you earn are subject to RNG, reaching higher ranks raise the chances of having you earn better equipment for your champions. More importantly, your battle rating, which is affected by the battle points your champion has earned, qualifies you to participate in all other game modes within MARVEL Realm of Champions.
2. Unlock More Champions Before Focusing On One
MARVEL Realm of Champions is not designed in such a way that you can choose from among a starting roster of heroes to use on your first matches. Instead, each player starts off with Iron Legionnaire and work their way towards unlocking all the other champions. Do not get the wrong idea, though, as Iron Legionnaire is as formidable as the rest of the unlockable characters. What you would rather want out of being able to use other characters is, of course, variety and given that Iron Legionnaire may be the most suitable champion to match your preferences and play style.
Of the 6 remaining champions to unlock, 2 can be quickly earned for free. The first one is the Hulk, which you can claim after engaging in just 5 matches. Sorcerer Supreme can also be unlocked almost just as easily given that you only need to accomplish 7 daily objectives to unlock her. Web Warrior, Storm, and Black Panther can be purchased from the shop using units, which is a premium currency. Although difficult to earn, there are numerous free ways to earn free units as well.
Last, but definitely not the least, Super Soldier can be obtained for free by completing 10 stronghold objectives. It is a lot tougher than recruiting the other free heroes but the only alternative for now is to purchase Super Soldier from the shop using real money.
Unlocking the Hulk and Sorcerer Supreme, in addition to having Iron Legionnaire, should more or less give you a solid enough experience of basic champion roles in combat. There are only 3 classes or roles in MARVEL Realm of Champions: the damage-dealer, the tank, and the support unit. Iron Legionnaire, Hulk, and Sorcerer Supreme each belong to one of these classes, respectively.
The damage-dealers or DPS heroes like Iron Legionnaire, Web Warrior, and Black Panther are primarily tasked to eliminate enemy champions, their M.O.D.O.P.s, and mobs in the case of co-op battles. DPS units may either be melee or ranged fighters and can have single target attacks as well as AoE skills. As simple as the task may seem, being the damage-dealer in the team involves a lot of strategizing and planning. Ensuring that each skill activated is used in max efficiency especially when the right timing can be the difference between eliminating a target or not can be crucial in numerous scenarios.
Tanks are the polar opposites of damage-dealers in terms of stats and role and for now, Super Soldier and the Hulk are the only tanks in MARVEL Realm of Champions. Tanks exhibit the highest defense values on top of having abilities that further bolster their defensive prowess. While tanks are not built to deal as much damage as their offensive counterparts, they have crowd control skills like stun, slow, and knockback that keep enemies in line for defensive or assistance purposes.
Related: MARVEL Realm of Champions Synergy Guide: Our Recommended Team Compositons and Gear Synergies
The support units, currently comprised of only of the Sorcerer Supreme and Storm can either provide support through granting heals and buffs to allies or inflicting negative status effects to enemy units. Support units naturally lag behind damage-dealers as far as DPS is concerned, and also do not possess strong defensive capabilities, but instead bolster either one for them or their allies.
3. Consider The First Matches As Practice Sessions
It will take a few matches using Iron Legionnaire to unlock additional champions for you to use. As you may still have a very limited selection of weapons and gears for other champions, it may take a while before you can build up each champion to be competitive as well. Remember that the battle points earned for participating in matches are earned for the champion you use, so switching across different heroes early on leaves you with having to engage in more matches to level each one up.
Just the same, however, it becomes necessary for you to test each champion you have not just to get to know them better in terms of how to use them but also how best to deal with them as allies or enemies in the battle arena.
As you will soon have an opportunity to use one champion for each class in MARVEL Realm of Champions, it is best to use each one as much as you can to help you decide on which champion will be your main one. As such, and although you can aim to secure wins in every match you engage in, your goal for the initial matches should be on learning the ropes and gaining experience to devise your general play strategy.
This should be the period within which you make do with the gears you have without expending resources to upgrade any of them until after you have decided on a main champion. Keep in mind that the learning part should not be limited to how you actually use each champion in the field, but also how you see other players utilize the same champions.
As a beginner, it is very important to spend time keenly observing others in the battle arena. At some point, it becomes easy to determine which players are beginners and which ones are more experienced. Based on each player’s actions as well, you will continuously learn what to do and what not to do given the same scenarios in future sessions.
Note that each champion can be built in different ways given 2 sets of skills from their weapon and prioritization of stat boost and synergy enhancements form the numerous gears you will collect for each of them. In tandem with your decision on which champion to consider as your main one, you should also decide on how to build your champion in accordance with the role you want to take and your play style.
4. Understand Each Game Mode’s Mechanics
To be honest, partaking in the main game mode in MARVEL Realm of Champions as you hone your skills and strategies and takes steps into familiarizing yourself with each champion you unlock and go against gives plenty of hours for you to revel in the game.
Beyond that, however, MARVEL Realm of Champions provides a variety of other game modes that not only add more fun and excitement to the whole experience but also call forth different strategies for each champion as well as each team.
MARVEL Realm of Champions currently holds 4 unique game modes. Although it may take a bit of time and playing to unlock all 4 game modes, you are sure to see it all pass before you notice especially if you are enjoying each match you go through.
There are currently 2 PvP modes and 2 PvE modes, all of which requires you to work with a team. While it may not be necessary to play all 4 game modes before you pick your main champion, be ready to make changes to tactics and perhaps even gears based on the different mechanics of each game mode.
Arena Conquest is the first available game mode and stands at the core of MARVEL Realm of Champions and is your main source of battle points. This game mode is a 3 versus 3 PvP combat where individual skills and strategies, as well as team synergy, is very important.
Given the fairly limited selection of champions in the game for now, players within the same team can all choose the same champion. While a triple instance of any champions might sound fun, though, it is recommended to go for more varied rosters that employ more synergistic compositions.
The goal in Arena Conquest is to take out the enemy team’s MODOP while protecting your own in the process. Each team’s respective MODOP is built the same in terms of offense and defense and is invulnerable. A MODOP only becomes temporarily vulnerable to attacks once the capture point at the center of the battle arena has been dominated entirely by one team. This could mean that all champions from the opposing team has been eliminated or kept outside of the of the capture point’s range.
Being killed in the match starts off a 15-second cool down period before you can respawn. If the capture point has been secured by any team, though, the cool down period goes down to 3 seconds unless it is lower than that. You would naturally want to stay alive as much as possible, but there will be instances when it is more important to hold or stick to the capture point to prolong the enemy team from securing it or taking it off your hands completely.
There is only a limited amount of time within which the enemy team’s MODOP becomes vulnerable. Once it does, it will unleash a pulse wave that knocks all enemy units away. There is no point in trying to attack a MODOP prior to conquering the capture point given that is will be immune to all damages and can hit you back as well.
The other PvP mode in MARVEL Realm of Champions is the Deathmatch, which is a 2-way battle across teams with 2 champions each. There are neither capture points nor MODOPs in this game mode and the team with the most points at the end of the match wins it. Points are earned by eliminating enemies. While a kill spree is often favorable, what counts more in Deathmatch is the points you acquire from the champion you kill on top of the points earned for the kill.
Whenever you successfully eliminate a champion, you will steal his or her earned points. Having more points naturally leads you to become a more favored target for champions of opposing teams so surviving with a good amount of points until the match ends is the way to go.
There will also be items scattered across the battle arena that replenish health and provide buffs to champions who pass through them. Note that there will be no advantage in a champion’s stats and gears in Deathmatch, placing every contestant on equal standing. Just the same, strategizing on the duo’s class and role is important as synergy and team strategy plays a vital role in this game mode as well. Securing a battle rating of 120 for a champion unlocks the Deathmatch game mode.
The Stronghold is the first co-op game mode you will unlock in MARVEL Realm of Champions and pits you and your teammates against waves of enemies. The objective in this game mode is to protect your ISO core from the 2 waves of Adaptoids that come with varying attacks that cause different status effects as well as a dark champion on the third wave. The dark champion will be a random champion directly similar to champions in the game and can very much perform all of that champion’s skills.
Naturally, your first dive into a Stronghold will be easy, given that you will have a base threat level on your first go. Winning a match increases your threat level, subsequently making succeeding runs more difficult. Failing to clear all waves of enemies will result in a reduction of your threat level.
The Onslaught serves as a beefed up version of the Stronghold but leaves you nothing to defend except yourselves. This game mode will become available once your champion amasses 80 battle ratings but will only be around for a set period of time. Instead of 3 waves like in the Stronghold, you will need to clear 15 waves of enemies in the Onslaught and at the same time do so within the time limit.
Players start with 2 minutes on the clock at the start of the battle and will earn an extra minute for clearing every third wave. The first two waves comprise of Adaptoids that drop potions when killed. The third wave is composed of a dark champion or champions that resemble playable champions as well. There are rewards to be earned after clearing all 15 waves of enemies based on how much time is left. Achievements, however provide additional rewards for milestones reached within the Onslaught.
5. Be Selective When Upgrading Gears
You will have plenty of gears to earn as you battle through the different game modes in MARVEL Realm of Champions as well as accomplishing missions and event objectives. Gears and weapons in MARVEL Realm of Champions are specific to each champion and the random element of obtaining some gears will result in earning some gears for champions you may still have yet to unlock.
In this sense, you might begin to consider using champions based on the inventory of weapons and armor you have but it should not be the case as you can upgrade gears and eventually have your main champion have the best gears possible.
Before expending resources to invest in gear upgrades as well as decide which gears to keep and which ones to scrap for gold later on, it is important to know how you should value each piece you get. Each champion can basically be equipped with 2 types of weapons, each with its own set of abilities. Equipment, which are also specific to each champion, may sport different appearances but each set does not necessarily impact the stats and boosts provided by each gear.
What impacts a gear’s strength is its rarity and its battle rating tier, with the latter being directly linked to the champion’s own tier. A weapon or gear’s rarity can be clearly seen with the number of stars it has: 1 star means common, 2 stars mean uncommon, 3 stars means rare, and 4 stars mean epic. There may be higher rarities in subsequent updates but for now, these are the only rarities available.
Although 1 star gears can have varied appearances, the chances of having even more varied cosmetics follow the rarity system. This means that some sets can only be acquired on higher rarity gears. More importantly, higher rarity gears provide more stats and unlock synergy abilities as well. Naturally, you will almost always be better off with at least rare and epic weapons and gears equipped on your champions.
Common gears provide a health boost on top of an extra random stat increase. Uncommon gears will have 2 random stats and a health boost while weapons boost power instead of health. Rare and epic gear will provide 3 random stats although in some cases, the same stats will appear twice, in which case they are merged for an even bigger boost. Synergy effects will only be available on uncommon, rare, and epic gears as well, but never on a weapon.
Considering every aspect or trait of each gear, synergies are potentially the most challenging to obtain in accordance with your preferences. As these special enhancements come at random from rare and epic gears, and require multiple gear pieces to activate, securing even the right gear pieces to activate the best combination of synergies on its own can be a challenge already.
Add the fact that the synergy elements you want may not exactly fall on the highest rarity and tier of gears you have and you will certainly be keeping a good number of gears on the waiting list.
A gear’s battle rating tier is dependent on the battle rating of the champion who has acquired it. A tier can range from newcomer, recruit, warrior, or defender. More tier ratings will most likely be added as well in future updates. A gear’s tier impacts the potency of the random stats that comes with the gear. This means that higher tier equipment will have much higher stat boosts.
Additionally, higher tier gear pieces can also be upgraded further. A newcomer tier piece of gear can only be leveled up to 2 and each higher tier adds an extra 2 levels of upgrade with defender tier equipment having a maximum level of 8.
Each upgrade on a piece of equipment will naturally cause an improvement in its stats and overall power level. Upgrading on the lower levels will only cost gold and basic components but as you reach higher level upgrades in the case of the higher tier gears, costs will begin to include Celestial Remnants, which are very difficult to obtain outside of special events.
This is an added reason why you need to be very selective when upgrading gears for your champions. For starters, only focus on a specific champions’ equipment and do not upgrade anything until after you have decided which one is your main champion.
6. Accomplish Missions To Earn More Rewards
MARVEL Realm of Champions provides you with resources and items you need to perform upgrades on champions and gears directly through your participation in any game mode. While the immediate rewards you receive are naturally of value, simply grinding away for resources without taking note of or aiming towards the accomplishment of missions will not suffice. MARVEL Realm of Champions provides numerous missions for you to achieve and each objective you clear earns you rewards that can be difficult or impossible to obtain anywhere else.
For the most part, missions laid out for you to accomplish all relate to the usual activities you engage in as you progress through MARVEL Realm of Champions. While some can be a lot more challenging to accomplish than others, still pushing towards the completion of most, if not all, objectives is important if you want to advance faster and start dominating the battle arena.
There are timed missions categorized under daily and weekly goals. These are the easiest ones to accomplish and should serve as your primary routine tasks moving forward. Both battle rating and milestones reflect your overall progression in the game. Some will naturally take time to accomplish than others but each one certainly holds valuable rewards.
Goals outlined under the event and real rewards tabs are only available for a limited period of time. These objectives typically provide you more valuable rewards. The “Unlock Super Soldier” event, for example is the only free way to obtain the champion and what you need to accomplish to claim him is to complete 10 Onslaught objectives, which is challenging but doable.
The Realm Rewards, on the other hand can earn you 2-3 star gears for your first 2 champions along with units, which are a premium currency, and some upgrade materials. Note that some of the objectives you need to clear does not require you to win, and others do not even involve taking part in matches.
There are still plenty of information that players need to know and consider for them to take a step closer into becoming an expert in MARVEL Realm of Champions. For now, though, this is where we will end our beginner’s guide.
Stay tuned as we intend to dive deeper into MARVEL Realm of Champions to provide you more guides later on. If you happen to have played the game for quite a while and stumbled upon a helpful tip, trick or strategy you feel is worth sharing, or if you need assistance with other aspects of the game, do not hesitate to let us know about it in the comment area!