Season 9.5 went live on August 7, adding a new Vanguard and touching 18 heroes in a single balance pass — one of the larger mid-season updates the game has shipped.
The Hood joins the roster
The Hood is the new Vanguard added this patch, entering the game at a 53.0% win rate and a 10% pick rate roughly a week after launch — solid numbers for a freshly released hero, without being obviously overtuned.
Peni Parker reined in
The most talked-about change this patch targets Peni Parker: her Cyber-Web Snare stun effect has been noticeably weakened, making it harder to lock down a single target. She was still posting a 56.5% win rate five days after the patch designed specifically to slow her down, which says more about the strength of her mine and drone control than about the nerf missing its mark.
Current S-tier
As of late August, the community consensus S-tier sits at Peni Parker, Mantis, Magik, Rocket Raccoon, Storm and Ultron. By win rate specifically, Mantis currently leads the pack at 56.8%, just ahead of Magik at 55.9% and Peni Parker at 55.8%.
The bigger picture
Season 9.5 continues a trend started in Season 9, when the Hero Team-Up system got a full overhaul. Between that system change and this patch's 18-hero balance pass, the meta has kept shifting fast enough that a build guide written even a month ago is worth double-checking against the current patch before committing to it.
