Marvel Contest of Champions: 7-Star Ascension+ Has Officially Launched

7-Star Ascension+ is live in Marvel Contest of Champions, introducing Cluster Drops, the Super-Duper Ascension Box, the brand-new ISO-Burst mechanic, and retroactive rewards for every 7-Star duplicate since November 2025.

Greetings Summoners — the wait is over. 7-Star Ascension+ has officially arrived in Marvel Contest of Champions, bringing a brand-new progression system that pushes the strongest Champions in the game to even greater heights. New resources, new crystals, a new ISO-Burst mechanic, and generous retroactive rewards for long-time Summoners are all live.

How Ascension+ Works

Ascending a 7-Star Champion requires three resource types:

• Tier 2 Primordial Dust
• Champion-specific Ascension Tokens
• Class Ascension Tokens

Combining these resources pushes your Champion's Health, Attack, Prestige, and Challenge Rating to new levels. Ascended 7-Star Champions also unlock the brand-new ISO-Burst mechanic.

Introducing ISO-Burst

Every Ascended Champion gets a new MIGHT BAR that charges passively over the course of a fight and increases damage based on how full it is. When MIGHT fills completely, the Champion automatically enters ISO-Burst State — a larger damage boost while the bar drains and resets. The loop runs continuously for both Attackers and Defenders, so placement of Ascended Champions in Alliance War now matters more than ever.

How to Get Ascension Resources

• Empowered Crystals: Test your luck with Empowered Grace Crystals, or pull Greater Empowered Crystals for higher-value drops.
• Featured Valiant Crystals: New Valiant Crystals for Featured Champions now have a chance to award Ascension resources.
• Paragon+ Gift: A Free Greater Empowered Crystal has been attached to the in-game announcement for Paragon-tier and higher Summoners.

Ascension+ Base Pool

Champions in the Ascension+ Base Pool are earned from specific Crystals that grant them as 7-Stars with their A1 Materials, via a new reward format called Cluster Drops. The first time you pull one of these Champions from a Cluster Drop, the materials are consumed automatically and the Champion is Ascended to Rank 1 on the spot.

Kabam says the goal with the Ascension+ pool mirrors the approach taken when the 7-Star base pool first launched: give Summoners a reason to prioritize Champions who haven't been as valuable lately. Beyond individual desirability, the design team specifically picked Champions who work well together as a group, asking questions like "Who hasn't been prevalent recently?" Roughly 33% of these Champions are getting tune-ups alongside their Ascension Launch Pool debut.

Super-Duper Ascension Box

The Super-Duper Ascension Box contains 6 Champions. Opening the Box and pulling one grants both the 7-Star Champion AND their A1 Materials. This is the only place in the game to get Ascension+ Materials for these specific Champions. Once you pull one, that Champion cannot be pulled again until you have pulled all 6.

You can only earn shards to open this Box by getting 7-Star duplicates, with bonus shards going to Max Sig 7-Star duplicates specifically from the Titan Crystal. Shards will be distributed via R.E.R. at a later date.

Brand New Champions With Standard Release

Every new Featured Champion released going forward will drop in Cluster Drops via their Featured Champion Valiant Grace Crystals. If the pulled Champion isn't at A1, the materials are consumed automatically to place them at Ascension Rank 1. The Grandmaster's Grace system will also reward their A1 Materials.

Active Retroactive Economy Rewards (RER)

Two forms of RER are running right now, and they are designed to reward Summoners who have already been pulling Featured Champions.

New Featured Champions

All brand-new standard-released Featured Champions from Lizard onward are enabled for Ascension. If you pulled one of these 7-Stars from their Featured Valiant/Paragon Grace Crystal, you'll be rewarded their A1 Materials shortly after Ascension+ releases. Every additional pull grants another set of A1 Materials. Earning these Champions from other sources won't grant materials — with a few special exceptions.

Exceptions and Early Rewards

• Doctor Strange counts as a "Brand New Featured Champion."
• Lizard grants an additional Lizard Token for every pull from any source before Ascension launch.
• Spider-Man (Pavitr Prabhakar): If you earned him from the past Double Track Event, you'll also receive his A1 Materials shortly after release.

Confirmed RER Champions

The current confirmed list of Champions earning retroactive A1 Materials:

• Spider-Man (Pavitr Prabhakar)
• Lizard
• J. Jonah Jameson (Spider-Slayer Mech)
• Doctor Strange
• M'Baku
• Blue Marvel

Super Duper Ascension Shards

Every 7-Star duplicate since November 20, 2025 will earn Super Duper Ascension Shards, distributed shortly after Ascension+ releases. Max Sig Titan Crystal 7-Star dupes grant additional shards — and these shards are the only way to open the Super-Duper Box. Retroactive rewards are being sent out starting this week, though they can't be used until the Box goes live.

Ascension Power Levels Explained

7-Star Ascension has 11 individual Ranks, with the first two available at launch. Combined, those two ranks grant slightly less than one typical Champion rank in terms of Attack and Health. That means an Unascended Rank 5 Champion is still slightly stronger than a maxed-out Rank 4 Ascension Level 2 Champion.

Unlike 6-Star Ascension, every rank of 7-Star Ascension also increases Challenge Rating (CR). The first two ranks each grant roughly the same CR as a single standard Catalyst rank. Practically, this means if that Unascended Rank 5 fights a Rank 4 A2, they'll be up against a higher CR target — so their combat stats get diminished as a result.

Keeping the Meta Balanced

Kabam explicitly states that Rank 5 and Rank 6 Champions will remain competitive for the foreseeable future, even if they don't yet have access to Ascension. Conversely, Ascending Champions who aren't at the current max available Rank can keep them competitive against higher-ranked opposition. More changes are planned for the full release of Ascension+, with Collectives waiting in the wings as the next major progression system.

What This Means for Summoners

Ascension+ is the biggest roster-shaping update MCOC has seen this year. Between the Base Pool, the Super-Duper Box, retroactive rewards stretching back to November 2025, and the new ISO-Burst combat mechanic, Summoners who have been stockpiling 7-Star duplicates are about to see that investment pay off in a major way. Paragon and Valiant players should log in right now and claim their Free Greater Empowered Crystal — that guaranteed Ascended 7-Star is a free head start on a system that is about to reshape Battlegrounds, Alliance War, and endgame content for the foreseeable future.