Marvel vs Capcom 3/Game Elements/Team Order

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Changing Roles

So as mentioned before, whenever a match starts, the characters will be in one of the three roles mentioned. And as said earlier, the roles will switch constantly throughout the game. But what actions, exactly, cause the orders to change? And how do the roles switch when these actions occur?

Character Swapping

Unlike MvC2, there is really only one re-ordering method that occurs in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Character Swapping. For the following examples, let's say you have this team:

  1. Wolverine (Point Character)
  2. Ryu (Assist Character 1)
  3. Captain America (Assist Character 2)


Whenever Character Swapping occurs, your Point Character will directly swap positions with one of the Assist Characters.

So let's say, with Wolverine at point, you perform a Cross-Over Attack with Ryu, your Assist Character 1. That means Wolverine will exit the game and become Assist Character 1 and Ryu will jump in and become Point Character. So your team will now look like:

  1. Ryu (Point Character)
  2. Wolverine (Assist Character 1)
  3. Captain America (Assist Character 2)


Or instead of that, let's say your opponent performs a Snap Back on Wolverine and chooses to pull in Captain America. Wolverine will now become Assist Character 2 when Captain America comes in as the Point Character so your team now looks like:

  1. Captain America (Point Character)
  2. Ryu (Assist Character 1)
  3. Wolverine (Assist Character 2)


Delayed Hyper Combos and Aerial Exchanges

Interestingly enough, no matter what method you use to change characters, Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 only uses Character Swapping. In MvC2, there was also a concept of character rotation with Delayed Hyper Combos. Whenever you canceled into the next character's Hyper Combo, the order of your characters would rotate with the Point Character moving to the bottom as Assist Character 2 and each of the Assist Characters moving up (1 becomes Point, 2 becomes 1).

However, in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, it still performs a Character Swap: if you DHC from Wolverine to Ryu with the example team above, Wolverine and Ryu will just swap positions. Even when you DHC into the third character, Ryu and Captain America will just swap positions, leaving Wolverine as Assist Character 1. That means, unlike MvC2, if you perform only one DHC, Assist Character 2 remains as Assist Character 2.

This same technique is used even when performing Aerial Exchanges. The first Aerial Exchange will swap the Point Character (Wolverine) and Assist Character 1 (Ryu), but the second Aerial Exchange will swap the new Point Character (Ryu) with Assist Character 2 (Captain America).

Strategy Corner

What's very interesting about the changes to the way the order is maintained in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is that it allows you to really emphasize the roles of Assist Characters in a way. In MvC2, whenever you performed a DHC, which was always the preferred method of swapping characters out, the characters would rotate in position. However, what that meant was that your Assist Character 2 became Assist Character 1. And oftentimes, Assist Character 2 really was selected specifically to just act as an Assist. But the next time you performed a DHC, you would bring in Assist Character 2 as the Point Character even though the character might not be an adequate Point Character.

What makes the order changes in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 interesting is that, as long as you perform only one DHC or one Aerial Exchange at a time, you'll continue swapping back and forth between two characters. Assist Character 2 will never rotate up into Assist Character 1's slot! This means that if your Assist Character 2 was chosen specifically to be an Assist and you are not fond of using that character as a Point Character, it's much easier in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 to prevent ever using Assist Character 2 as a Point Character. Just continually DHC and Aerial Exchange between the first two characters on your team and, unless the opponent K.O.'s both characters or snaps in Assist Character 2 with a Snap Back, you can almost entirely avoid using Assist Character 2 as a Point Character.


Character K.O.

Even when a character is defeated, only Character Swapping takes place. So let's say Wolverine gets defeated as the Point Character. Ryu will actually swap in and replace Wolverine and Wolverine will swap into Assist Character 1's slot. Captain America will remain as Assist Character 2 even though there technically is no more Assist Character 1! So your team will look like:

  1. Ryu (Point Character)
  2. Wolverine (K.O.'ed)
  3. Captain America (Assist Character 2)


That means you actually have no one in the Assist Character 1 role. Even if, in the original team order, Ryu is called in via Cross-Over Assist and is defeated as an Assist Character, no re-ordering will take place and Captain America remains as Assist Character 2. So your team would look like:

  1. Wolverine (Point Character)
  2. Ryu (K.O.'ed)
  3. Captain America (Assist Character 2)


In MvC2, if a character was defeated, the defeated character would always take Assist Character 2's position and everyone else would move up. This is no longer the case so players who come from an MvC2 background will have to grow accustomed to this change.

Ways to Change Order

Here is a list of the actions that can cause your team's order to change:

  • Performing a Cross-Over Attack
  • Performing a Cross-Over Counter
  • Performing a Delayed Hyper Combo
  • Performing an Aerial Exchange
  • Getting your Point Character Snapped Out by a Snap Back
  • Having your Point Character get K.O.'ed.