When Clone Rumble first dropped into Marvel Rivals back in the day, players were absolutely stoked. The idea of an entire team picking the same hero—imagine twelve Spider-Men zipping around or a legion of Hulks smashing everything to bits—sounded like pure, unadulterated chaos. But fast forward to where we are now in 2026, and it's crystal clear that the mode was more of a flash in the pan than a lasting fiesta. Sure, it had its moments, but the honeymoon phase ended quicker than a Jeff the Land Shark ult.

The biggest buzzkill? The matches were an absolute slog. Clone Rumble only served up Domination, which meant a minimum of two rounds—and three if both squads managed to tie. The problem was the first round usually told you everything you needed to know. If one team had their act together and the other was a total gong show, that opening round was a demoralizing beatdown. Then everyone had to sit through a second stompfest just to get it over with. It felt like being stuck in a respawn simulator. NetEase could’ve easily taken a leaf out of their own book—remember Jeff’s Winter Splash Festival? That was a one-and-done deal, and it was way snappier. Snipping Clone Rumble down to a single round would have done wonders for keeping the energy up.

Then there was the hero selection system, or rather, the lack thereof. Players dreamed of coordinated teams of all Lokis or all Stranges causing reality-bending mayhem. But reality hit hard. A bunch of the complex healers got the banhammer right out of the gate to prevent matches from lasting until the heat death of the universe. Fair enough. The real kicker, though, was how the hero picks worked. When a team’s selections rolled in, which hero actually got played was purely random. There was zero weighting for multiple players wanting the same character. So you could have four folks begging for Doctor Strange and still end up watching two players on your side stuck with Black Widow while the enemy team lucked into five Thors. It turned potential epic mirror matches into lopsided trainwrecks.

One map. That’s all Clone Rumble gave us. The entire event was locked to the Wakanda-themed Birnin T’Challa area. No Yggsgard, no Hydra Base. And if you were praying for some Convoy or Convergence action to spice things up, you were fresh out of luck. The map pool was more barren than a Sakaaran wasteland. Players who already spent hours grinding quick play and ranked on that very same map found themselves in a serious case of déjà vu. Variety is the spice of life, and Clone Rumble was about as varied as a bag of plain potato chips.

And don’t get me started on the reward structure. The big shiny prize was a Mrs. Barnes Black Widow skin, which legit looked amazing. But the problem was that the event reward track, Galacta’s Cosmic Adventure, felt completely disconnected from the Clone Rumble mode itself. There were no clones running around the board game, and Galacta had absolutely zero extra presence when you were actually battling. It was like two separate events awkwardly stapled together. What ended up happening? Players grinded solely for that skin, got it, and then bounced faster than a raccoon with a jetpack. The mode itself wasn’t fun enough to keep them around once the carrot was gone.

Looking at the big picture, NetEase needs to tighten up their game for future Marvel Rivals events—and honestly, we’re still waiting to see if they’ve taken these lessons to heart in 2026. First, shorten those individual matches so they feel snappier. Nobody wants to be locked in a losing battle for fifteen minutes. Second, make the temporary mode genuinely fun to play, not just a chore for a cosmetic. That means balanced rules, fair pick systems, and a map pool that doesn’t put players to sleep. Third, and this is huge, let players grind event currency and rewards directly by playing the event. Don’t force them to twiddle their thumbs waiting for weekly mission resets. Let the gameplay be the path to progress, not a side dish.

At the end of the day, Clone Rumble had the bones of something great. Chaos modes in hero shooters are a blast when done right, but NetEase fumbled the execution. A one-round format, better hero selection weighting, a mix of map types, and a reward system tied closely to the mode would have turned a novelty into a staple. As we cruise through 2026, the Marvel Rivals community is keeping its collective fingers crossed that the next big event doesn’t repeat the sins of Clone Rumble. Because if there’s one thing we all know, it’s that a multi-billion-dollar IP deserves events that don’t feel like busywork. Here’s hoping the devs took notes.