The Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls beta has been and gone, and while I'm not usually a fighting game person, oh boy did this new superhero tag fighter have the sauce. It was only marred by the fact that PlayStation Network was down for almost the entire opening day, and its PC performance was terrible at best for many—I was one of the lucky few who didn't have any issues.

The highlight of the beta was, as you'd expect, getting to grips with the roster—16 of the 20 available in the full build. I saw a hell of a lot of Blade and Iron Man in my matches, and it turns out I'm not alone.

Fighting game content creator AlietteFaye gathered data from their high-tier Viranium-rank matches to crunch the numbers and figure out who the most popular heroes are. Overall, Blade and Magik were tied for the top position, followed up by Iron Man, Magneto, and Black Panther. Danger, bless her, was right at the bottom.

Looking specifically at players' Leader habits (that's the character in your starting, top slot), Magik wins, followed by Black Panther, Blade, Doom, and Spider-Man. Assist character slots, on the other hand, were led by Iron Man, Magneto, Blade, and Magik.

While it's hard to say whether this'll be the meta on launch day, especially after all the calls for Blade in particular to be nerfed, it's clear who the pros are siding with. Personally, I know I found Blade to be a hell of a lot of fun.

However, there are two characters I'm surprised weren't more common. My social media has been overtaken by players trying to figure out Green Goblin's best combos, and he seems very strong—and outrageously slept on—so far. On the other hand, Captain America is the starting character. Of course, this data was gathered from high-rank matches, so ease of use isn't necessarily a concern but I'd be interested in finding out how popular he was lower down the ladder.

Last week, producer Takeshi Yamanaka revealed that Phoenix Cyclops will be the first of four DLC characters coming to Marvel Tōkon in its first year. There'll be fresh competition soon enough, but it's hard to beat the rule of cool demonstrated by Blade and Magik, let's be honest.

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Rory has made the fatal error of playing way too many live service games at once, and somehow still finding time for everything in between. Sure, he’s an expert at Destiny 2, Call of Duty, and more, but at what cost? He’s even sunk 1,000 hours into The Elder Scrolls Online over the years. At least he put all those hours spent grinding challenges to good use over the years as a freelancer and guides editor. In his spare time, he’s also an avid video creator, often breaking down the environmental design of his favourite games. If you can’t track him down, he’s probably lost in a cave with a bunch of dwarves shouting “rock and stone” to no end.