Magneto, the iconic Master of Magnetism, is a force to be reckoned with in Marvel Rivals, a super hero team-based PvP shooter. Whether you see him as a hero or villain, one thing is certain: his abilities make him a powerhouse on the battlefield. This Magneto guide delves into Magneto’s role, abilities, strategies, and lore, offering the ultimate blueprint for dominating your matches with this magnetic Vanguard.
Magneto is a Vanguard, specializing in leading the charge, controlling space, and disrupting enemy formations. His toolkit revolves around powerful area-of-effect (AoE) attacks and utility that can zone opponents while shielding his allies. Magneto excels in close and mid-range combat, making him a versatile pick for both offensive pushes and defensive holds.
With high health, moderate mobility, and significant AoE damage, Magneto is perfect for players who want to dominate the battlefield and dictate the flow of combat.
Magneto’s abilities allow him to manipulate the battlefield with devastating precision. Understanding and mastering these is essential to leveraging his full potential.
Magneto launches jagged shards of metal at enemies, dealing consistent moderate projectile damage. This ability shines when targeting clustered enemies, maximizing your impact.
This ability pushes nearby enemies away while dealing damage. It’s ideal for creating space, interrupting enemy ultimates, or knocking foes into environmental hazards.
Magneto summons a whirlwind of metallic debris around himself, dealing damage over time to enemies caught within its range. Activate this ability when diving into enemy clusters to deal massive sustained damage.
Magneto generates a shield that absorbs incoming projectiles and reflects them. Timing this ability effectively can block critical damage from enemy ultimates or high-damage abilities. Damage taken will transform into reflected projectiles.
Magneto’s ultimate creates a massive explosion of metal, dealing heavy damage and displacing enemies within a wide radius. Use it strategically to turn the tide in critical moments, such as securing objectives or breaking enemy formations. Upon impact, the range of the resulting explosion increases based on the amount of damage absorbed beforehand.
Scarlet Witch can infuse chaos energy into Magneto to enchant his abilities, boosting his crowd control and AoE damage. Their Metallic Fusion team-up ability enhances their destructive power, turning the battlefield into utter chaos.
Doctor Strange’s portals and shields allow Magneto to reposition and maintain pressure. His ability to conjure a metal shield around a chosen ally enhances survivability.
Venom complements Magneto with his survivability and ability to disrupt backlines. Their combined presence in close-range engagements ensures dominance.
Magneto thrives on controlling the battlefield. Use abilities like Steel Storm and Magnetic Cataclysm to create chokepoints and split enemy formations. These abilities can turn tight corridors or objective areas into death traps for your enemies.
Save Magnetic Field for blocking high-damage bursts or ultimates. A well-timed shield can nullify the enemy’s most powerful attacks and give your team a significant advantage.
Proper ultimate placement can single-handedly turn fights in your favor. Look for moments when enemies are grouped around objectives or tightly packed in confined spaces to maximize its impact.
Against ranged teams, rely on your shield to neutralize snipers. Against melee-heavy compositions, use your AoE damage to keep foes at bay while protecting your backline.
Stay aware of map layouts to optimize your positioning. Knowing where to expect enemy pushes or flanking routes can give you the edge in battle.
Focus on controlling objectives by leveraging your abilities to zone out enemies. Magneto excels at creating space, making it easier for your team to secure key areas.
Communicate with your team to synchronize abilities like Magnetic Cataclysm with allied crowd control or damage bursts. A coordinated team can capitalize on the chaos Magneto creates.
Avoid wasting Magnetic Field too early. Save it for high-impact moments, like countering enemy ultimates or protecting key allies.
Magneto’s moderate mobility means overextending without backup can leave him vulnerable. Always ensure you have support before diving into enemy lines.
Failure to position properly can expose you to enemy snipers or flanking threats. Always be mindful of your surroundings.
Don’t rush Magnetic Cataclysm. Patience pays off when waiting for enemies to cluster together for maximum impact.
Magneto, born Erik Lehnsherr, is one of Marvel’s most complex and compelling characters. A Holocaust survivor, his tragic past shaped his philosophy of mutant supremacy, believing that mutants must fight for survival in a world that fears and hates them.
Magneto’s powers manifested during his youth, fueled by anger and a need for survival. As the leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants, he sought to create a safe haven for mutants. His relationship with Charles Xavier (Professor X) oscillates between friendship and rivalry, with Magneto’s actions rooted in his desire to protect mutantkind at all costs.
As he gazed off into the distance towards the line where the ocean met the sky, Magneto's cape fluttered gently in the calm breeze that was drifting across the coast of the sentient island nation of Krakoa. His was a life far longer than most people ever had the chance to live, and this was one of the few moments of true peace that he could recall. But he knew from experience it would not last for long. It never did.
"Something on your mind, old man?" a familiar voice asked from above, breaking the silence. As Magneto glanced up, there, hovering on the wind like a majestic goddess, was Ororo Munroe — the Mutant weather manipulator known as Storm.
"Funny, isn't it," mused Magneto, "that we fought all those years for a better future for Mutantkind… and now we have finally found it, further in the future than any of us ever imagined."
Not so long ago, the sovereign nation of Krakoa had been swept up in a chronal storm — a time-twisting anomaly that would have ripped the island to bits if not for Ororo's deft manipulation of its tumultuous currents. Instead of becoming lost in the timestream forever, Krakoa arrived safely on the other side of the tempest in the year 2099. The future that Mutantkind had always dreamed of was finally theirs to claim. And Magneto was never one to let such an auspicious opportunity pass him by.
"It matters not what century we are in," Storm said. "What matters is that our people have a home here on Krakoa, thanks to you, Erik…"
Magneto cringed as his old friend called him by his human name. True, he had gone by many of them over the decades — Max Eisenhardt, Erik Lehnsherr, Magnus — but they were monikers he had merely tolerated in order to better fit into a world where Homo Sapiens still believed themselves in control. Here, in this new era, he could choose a name that spoke to who he truly was. Magneto — the Mutant Master of Magnetism.
"I may be leading the cause to find our fellow Mutants and bring them to this safe harbor, my dear," said Magneto, "but the success of this crusade cannot be attributed to one Mutant alone."
"You're damn right it can't, bub," a grizzled voice snarled from the edge of the jungle that bordered Krakoa's shore.
Magneto and Storm both turned to see a familiar figure walking out of a newly-blossomed Krakoan gate. The short, hairy figure looked as though he had just been to hell and back. And knowing Wolverine, that could very literally be the case. Alongside Wolverine stood a young Mutant, just old enough for her powers to begin manifesting.
"Found the kid who got sucked through that dimensional rift," Wolverine continued. "She's lucky I went in there after her. Limbo is no place for a new Mutant."
"I couldn't disagree more," another voice said, this one with a hint of a Russian accent. "This New Mutant has managed just fine there."
"Illyana? Can it truly be?!" Storm rushed over to the young woman who had just stepped through the gateway, instantly wrapping her in an embrace. For years, Illyana Rasputin, the Mutant teleporter known as Magik, had been like a daughter to Storm. Before she was claimed by the darkness of Limbo… Before…
"Nice to see you too, Windrider," said Magik with an uncomfortable smirk. "It's been… longer than I care to remember…"
Magneto stepped towards the new arrival, not embracing her, but examining her closely instead. There was something strange about her. It was clear that she had walked a far different path than the Illyana Rasputin of his world. This child had been hardened by the horrors of war, something to which Magneto himself could closely relate.
"You are not the child we once knew," Magneto said. "But you are welcome here on Krakoa. All Mutants are, regardless from where or when they hail."
"How about people who grew up thinking they were Mutants, only to have their entire world turned upside down when they learned the truth years later…?"
Magneto audibly gasped as the question was asked by another woman who had just arrived through the Krakoan gateway. His gaze instantly shifted over to her as she walked forward. Her every step stirred ripples across his memory, for he had been there when she had taken her very first ones so many years ago.
"Wanda…"
"Hello, father," the Scarlet Witch said as she approached Magneto with a calm confidence that few had ever shown in his presence. She reached up and began to slowly remove Magneto's helmet, an action that would almost certainly be met with instant retaliation should anyone else attempt it. But Magneto stood as silent as solid steel, simply basking in the magic of his long lost daughter's company. His stoic expression softened as Wanda leaned in and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek.
"How… How can you be here?" Magneto managed to say. He could bend Adamantium into any shape with his Mutant power, but these simple words were somehow nearly impossible to form.
"It took a bit of work," Wanda mused. "I'm not technically a Mutant like you, after all, which means Krakoa wouldn't normally let me through its gates. But a touch of chaos magic did the trick."
"What I meant to say is…"
"Oh…" Wanda's playful tone vanished faster than a stage magician's pet rabbit. "Your Wanda… She's gone, isn't she? I'm sorry… This must be difficult…"
"Quite the opposite," Magneto said, regaining his composure. "To see your face again, to hear your voice, to know that — somewhere in this vast Multiverse a version of you has thrived — is perhaps the least difficult thing I could ever conceive. It is all that any father ever wants."
"I wouldn't say I've been thriving, exactly," Wanda admitted. "I've been holding my own universe together by its threads for far too long. I truly believed that I was its only hope to survive."
"Like father, like daughter," chuckled Wolverine.
"But I've started to see the bigger picture," Wanda continued. "We're all fighting our own wars. The only chance we have of winning them and keeping all of our universes intact is if we start fighting together."
"Speakin' of fightin', I'm late for a date with Natasha," Wolverine said. "We've got ourselves a tin-plated dictator that needs overthrowin'."
Magneto almost chastised Wolverine for entrenching himself in the petty squabbles between the humans of this era, but he paused for a moment and considered his daughter's words. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps his own war to preserve Mutantkind was just one battle of many, all of them equally important.
"Since Krakoa arrived in this future, my allegiance has been to Mutantkind alone," said Magneto. "I felt it best to isolate our people in order to protect them. But your words inspire me, my dear. It is clear that no Mutant is an island."
"Except Krakoa, da?" Magik chimed in playfully.
"In order to commit to such an alliance, however, it must be a mutually beneficial one," Magneto continued. "There are still Mutants out there, lost across space and time, who require our assistance in order to lead them home."
"That sounds like the perfect task for a Sorceress Supreme," Wanda said. "But I'll require your help. As fond as I am of your classic look, I think we're in need of use a helmet that's a bit more functional."
"Of course," Magneto said, raising his hand into the air. Within moments, tiny scraps of metal buried beneath the sand of Krakoa's beaches converged and reshaped themselves into a complex yet familiar device once worn by Charles Xavier himself — Cerebro.
"If I recall, old school Cerebro was capable of tracking down Mutants anywhere in the world," said Wanda. "But a few arcane enhancements should expand the helmet's search area to include adjacent dimensions as well. Like you said, all Mutants are welcome here, regardless from where or when they hail."
"Well?" said Magik, her eyes burning with anticipation. "Try it on already, old man!"
The moment Magneto put on the helmet, he saw flashes of powerful Mutants scattered across the Multiverse. A telepathic ninja trapped in a strange world of unholy amusements. A king of the seas preparing to strike at the unsuspecting surface world. A powerful cosmic presence determined to burn the darkness out of the night sky. And thousands more, each yearning to defy fate and to find their place in an ever-shifting cavalcade of timelines and realities.
"There is much work to be done," Magneto said. "Far more than I expected. When do we begin?"
"No time better than the present…" said Magik. "Or the future, I guess. Wherever we are."
"You have given Mutants a gift this day, Wanda," Magneto said proudly. "Your efforts will not be forgotten."
"I'm going to hold you to that," Wanda replied. "And when the time comes, the army that you're about to gather may very well be the one that tips the balance in our favor."
"Then let this be a call to all Mutants across time and space," Magneto continued. "The gates of Krakoa are open to them. In the words of a dear old friend…"
Magneto is a powerhouse in Marvel Rivals, combining high damage, utility, and survivability to dominate the battlefield. By mastering his abilities, understanding his synergies, and avoiding common mistakes, you can unleash the full potential of the Master of Magnetism. Whether you’re a seasoned player or a newcomer, playing Magneto in Marvel Rivals offers thrilling opportunities to lead your team to victory.
