Black Cat in Marvel Rivals: abilities, team-ups, and how to play her

Black Cat is the resident cat burglar of Marvel Rivals, a high-mobility Duelist who steals her enemies’ luck and turns it into burst damage. She climbs walls, double jumps, vanishes mid-fight, and punishes anyone who strays too far from their team. In her first two months she became one of the most banned heroes in the game, then took the single biggest nerf of the Season 8.5 patch. She is still one of the more rewarding heroes to learn right now, so here is everything worth knowing before you lock her in.

Role	Duelist
Health	275
Difficulty	4 out of 5 stars
Real name	Felicia Hardy
Released	April 17, 2026 (Season 7.5)
English voice	Erica Lindbeck

Who is Black Cat?

Felicia Hardy joined the roster on April 17, 2026 as the 49th hero, arriving in Season 7.5: The Hunt Is On. She is a Duelist with 275 health and a 4-star difficulty rating, which is the game’s way of warning you that she is not a lock-in-and-win pick. Her whole identity is built around Fortune, a resource she farms by hitting people and then spends on her strongest abilities and a rotating shop of relics.

The fantasy is a slippery flanker who dives the backline, deletes a squishy, and slips back out before anyone can punish her. When it works she feels unfair. When you mismanage Fortune, she hits like a wet noodle.

Black Cat abilities

Every ability at a glance, with the numbers that matter:

Ability	Input	What it does
Feline Fury	LMB	Melee claw swipe. 35 damage, 3.5m reach. Builds 50 Fortune per hit.
Fortune’s Favor	RMB	Spend Fortune to turn your next input into Claw Whip or Phantom Pursuit.
Claw Whip	LMB (with Fortune’s Favor)	Wide claw arc, 65 damage, grants up to 50 bonus health. Costs 150 Fortune.
Phantom Pursuit	E (with Fortune’s Favor)	Dash to a target, flurry for 70 damage, flash back. Untargetable during it. Costs 300 Fortune.
Turn of Fortune	E	Grappling hook, 30 damage, 30m range, 5s cooldown. On hit: heals 50 and steals 300 Fortune.
Cat’s Cradle	SHIFT	Lunging slash, 40 damage, 15m dash, two charges, 8s cooldown. Builds 150 Fortune on hit.
Thieving Grace	SPACE	Double jump. Resets whenever you use a movement ability.
Stealthy Catwalk	Passive	Hold jump to climb vertical surfaces.
Malkin Misfortune	Passive	Applies Jinx on hit. Jinxed enemies sometimes lose the bonus damage on crits against her.
Calling Card	Q (Ultimate)	Marks every enemy in sight, then pounce and Claw Strike them one by one. Kills refresh it.
Lucky Loan	Team-Up	Anchor hero for Captain America and White Fox.

The Fortune system, explained

Fortune is the reason Black Cat has a high skill ceiling. She holds up to 1,000 at a time, and almost everything she does either builds it or burns it.

You gain 50 Fortune from any basic hit, 150 from a Cat’s Cradle, 300 from landing Turn of Fortune, and 200 from an ultimate Claw Strike. You lose half your stockpile when you die, with a minimum loss of 200, so feeding early throws away your entire economy.

On the spending side, Claw Whip costs 150 and Phantom Pursuit costs 300, both fired through Fortune’s Favor on right-click. That single number is the most common mistake new players make: they try to Phantom Pursuit a fleeing target with only 200 Fortune banked and nothing happens. Keep a mental tab on your meter the same way a fighting-game player watches their super bar.

Gilded Deal relics

Press F to open the Gilded Deal, a wheel of six relics you buy with Fortune mid-match. Picking the right one at the right moment is what turns a decent Black Cat into a scary one:

• Tablet of Destinies (100): gambles for a random Fortune payout, up to 500. Cheap way to fund a combo.
• Helm of Hades (200): brief invisibility with a big speed boost. The classic escape or reposition button.
• Chernobog’s Crystal: cleanses crowd control off yourself, which is huge against stuns and roots.
• Ring of Zona: opens a portal through a wall for you and your team, great for surprise angles.
• Mento-Fish: drops a hypnosis field that grounds and slows enemies and shuts off their movement abilities.
• Faltine Flame Orb: marks nearby enemies. NetEase gutted this one in Season 8.5, so it is far less popular now.

One caution: NetEase keeps retuning relic prices. The Season 8.5 patch pushed several of them from 200 up to 300 Fortune, so treat exact costs as patch-dependent and check the in-game numbers before you commit to a build.

How to use her ultimate

Calling Card is a highlight-reel ultimate. It marks every enemy in your line of sight, then lets you pounce up to 40m onto a marked target with 50% damage reduction, followed by a Claw Strike that hits for 30 then 70. Land a kill and the duration refreshes and your pounce comes back, so a clean cast can chain across an entire team.

The combo most Black Cat players lean on is pounce, Claw Strike, Claw Whip, then Phantom Pursuit to finish anyone who survived. Open from a high, off-angle spot the enemy is not watching, and fire it when three or four of them are grouped. Target Strategists first, then other Duelists, and leave the tanky Vanguards for last. Watch the mark colour too: red means the target dies to your slash, white means they need a little softening up first.

How to play Black Cat

Play her like an assassin lurking for the right moment. Use Stealthy Catwalk and Thieving Grace to take high ground and rooftops the enemy support is not checking, then drop in when their attention is on your team.

Open engagements with Turn of Fortune. The grapple steals 300 Fortune and heals you for 50, so a single hit both funds your combo and tops you off. From there, weave Feline Fury to keep the meter climbing, use Claw Whip for the bonus health when you are trading, and save Phantom Pursuit as your execute since you are untargetable during it. Cat’s Cradle has two charges, so try to keep one in reserve purely as an escape rather than blowing both on aggression.

Advanced Black Cat tips

• Bank Fortune before you commit. Walking into a fight with 450 or more lets you chain Claw Whip straight into Phantom Pursuit instead of stalling mid-combo waiting for the meter to fill.
• Treat Phantom Pursuit as a dodge, not just an execute. You are untargetable for the whole dash, so you can time it through a big ultimate or a stun and come out the other side clean.
• Abuse the double-jump reset. Thieving Grace refreshes every time you use Cat’s Cradle, Turn of Fortune, or Phantom Pursuit, so you can stay airborne and reposition far longer than it first looks.
• Keep one Cat’s Cradle charge in your back pocket. It is your best panic button, and blowing both charges on aggression is how squishy flankers get caught out.
• Hold Chernobog’s Crystal for known crowd control. If the enemy has a reliable stun or root, buying it early and saving it beats getting chained to death mid-dive.

Best team-ups and team comp

At launch, her Lucky Loan team-up made her the anchor for Captain America and White Fox, buffing their kits when they cash in her luck. Season 9 rebuilt the entire team-up system, so pairings and bonuses have shifted across the roster. Check the current team-up menu in game, and confirm her active partners on the official hero page before you build a comp around her.

Beyond team-ups, she wants a pocket. Strategists like Luna Snow or Mantis keep her topped up and boost her burst, and a reliable Vanguard who can peel or hold space lets her pick her dive windows instead of forcing them.

How to counter Black Cat

She is fragile and dive-reliant, so anything that punishes flankers works against her:

• Trap and summon heroes like Peni Parker and Namor make her preferred backline dangerous to touch.
• Lockdown heroes such as Elsa Bloodstone stop her mobility cold, and crowd control in general shuts her down unless she saved Chernobog’s Crystal.
• Burst divers like Magik and Spider-Man can delete her before she recovers, since 275 health is not much.

The other counter is simply patience. If she blows her cooldowns and misses, she has almost no damage until Fortune rebuilds, so surviving her first dive often means winning the trade.

Is Black Cat good in Season 9?

For her first two months she was borderline broken and sat near the top of ban lists. The Season 8.5 balance patch on June 12 handed her the heaviest nerfs of the entire update, trimming Phantom Pursuit’s damage and hiking several relic costs, which knocked her out of the top tier overnight.

In Season 9, which went live on July 10, 2026, she sits in a healthier spot. High-elo and coordinated boards still rate her around A-tier and occasionally list her among the strongest Duelists in Diamond and above, while all-ranks solo-queue data puts her closer to the middle of the pack. The gap is her skill floor: she rewards players who master Fortune management and disciplined dive timing, and punishes everyone else. Season 9 is also barely a week old with an active balance hotfix already out, so expect her standing to keep moving.

Strengths and weaknesses

What she does well:

• Mobility that outclasses almost every other flanker: wall climb, double jump, two dash charges, a grapple, and an untargetable escape.
• The burst to delete a support outright, through her ultimate and the Phantom Pursuit execute.
• She heals off her grapple and Claw Whip and steals Fortune from whoever she hits, so she rarely needs babysitting.

Where she struggles:

• Almost no damage when starved of Fortune, so a rough start snowballs against you.
• A punishing skill ceiling that few players ever fully unlock.
• Low health, and she folds to crowd control and burst if she gets caught.

When did Black Cat release?

Black Cat released on April 17, 2026 in Season 7.5: The Hunt Is On, as the 49th hero added to Marvel Rivals.

Black Cat FAQ

Is Black Cat good in Marvel Rivals?
In Season 9 she is around A-tier in high-elo play and more middling in solo queue. She was one of the strongest heroes in the game before her big June 12 nerf.

Is Black Cat hard to play?
Yes. She carries a 4-star difficulty rating, mostly because managing her Fortune meter and dive timing takes practice.

What role is Black Cat?
She is a Duelist with 275 health, built around flanking and picking off backline targets.

Who does Black Cat team up with?
Her Lucky Loan team-up launched with Captain America and White Fox as her partners. Season 9 reworked team-ups, so verify the current pairing in game.

How do you counter Black Cat?
Use trap heroes like Peni Parker and Namor, lockdown from Elsa Bloodstone, or burst divers like Magik and Spider-Man. Punishing her when her cooldowns are down is the simplest answer.