MARVEL Contest of Champions V57.0 Release Notes: New Champions, the Towers Mode, and a Sweeping Echo Damage Rework

The V57.0 update for Marvel Contest of Champions adds Champions Phyla-Vell and Shatterstar, debuts a new Towers game mode, and rolls out the Stars and Martyr Event Quest. The headline change is a major rework to 'Echo Damage' effects — including Trauma, Overload, Resonance, and Reverb — alongside Pride Month festivities and a long list of bug fixes.

The official V57.0 Release Notes for Marvel Contest of Champions have landed, headlined by two new Champions, a brand-new Towers game mode, and a sweeping rework of the game's "Echo Damage" effects that reshapes how a long roster of fighters deal burst damage.

New Champions

Phyla-Vell

A descendant of the Captain Marvel lineage, Phyla-Vell uses her Kree and artificially created Eternal physiology to protect the cosmos. After gaining and then relinquishing the title of Captain Marvel, she joined the Guardians of the Galaxy as "Quasar" to battle otherworldly threats like Annihilus. It was during this time she met her partner, Heather Douglas — known as Moondragon — who was ultimately taken over by the Dragon of the Moon and perished during the battle against the Phalanx. To save her, Phyla made a pact to become the new Avatar of Death in exchange for Heather's return, gaining new abilities and the title Martyr.

Shatterstar

Shatterstar is Gaveedra Seven, a mutant gladiator from the Mojoverse and the time-travelling son of Longshot and Dazzler. Born with many of his father's superhuman traits and his own mysterious mutant powers, he can channel powerful shockwaves through his swords and even open portals to other universes. Those skills forced him into the role of a televised arena fighter under the control of Mojo.

Champion Updates and the New Towers Mode

Thor (Ragnarok) is receiving an update — players can tune into the weekly Twitch streams to gather Observance and claim the newly polished gladiator. The build also introduces Towers, a new game mode that challenges your Champions' growth: Defenders can only be defeated at their strongest, meaning you must beat them from full health within the allowed time or try again.

Event Quest: Stars and Martyr

Mojo, the malicious master of multiversal multimedia, is changing the channel on his schemes — forcing Phyla-Vell and Shatterstar to boost his ratings in the new Stars and Martyr Event Quest. A companion Power of Towers Realm Event places the Side-Quest rewards into a Towers-focused track to earn as you explore the new mode.

Additional Events

• Incursions – Pump it Up Saga Sector: Bring your #Saga-tagged Champions to tackle Challenge Rooms and Incursion Zones with Set Defenders and Buffs around an Unstoppable theme.
• Alliance War Showcase – Tooth and Claw: Featuring Dinosaur and Meteor Tactics, Defender Mastery loadouts, and a special Block for Saga attackers — now permanently available in the Saga Showcase Tower.
• Pride Month – Sparkle and Shade: Celebrate with exclusive Profile Pictures, Titles, and rewards showing all the colors of Pride.
• The Champion's Workout Routine: Fight in special arenas to earn Relic-based rewards, ISO, Gold, exclusive Titles, and Profile Pics.
• Creepies Vs Crawlies: Pick a side — Symbiote or Spider-Verse — and take on Alliance Coliseum to earn points in one of two special Alliance Events.
• Alliance Coliseum Week-Long Event: A week-long battle against Corvus Glaive; survive his cruelty to maximize those podiums.

The Echo Damage Rework Explained

The headline balance change in V57.0 is a rework to a group of mechanics the team is collectively calling Echo Damage effects — including Trauma, Overload, Resonance, and Reverb, plus other Champions whose burst damage is based directly on the damage dealt by a hit. Champions that deal a set amount of burst damage, such as Absorbing Man, are not affected.

The reason for the change: Echo Damage effects used to interact exponentially — and uncontrollably — with effects that increased or decreased "all damage dealt," such as Vigor or Protection. Because blanket damage increases are rare outside of Raids and the Big Things Alliance War map, while Protection effects are more common, the developers note this change is actually a net damage increase most of the time it comes up, and in many cases won't affect these Champions at all.

Going forward, the team is using the term "real damage dealt" to describe damage calculated before damage caps or "all damage dealt" modifiers like Protection or Vigor, but after factors like Armor, Resistance, or Fury. The broad categories break down as follows:

• Echo Damage effects (named or not) now scale with "real damage dealt."
• Damage reflection effects also scale with "real damage dealt" — including immediate reflections (Killmonger) and delayed ones (Mysterio, Enchantress). These Champions will now reflect the full incoming damage while under Protection.
• Defensive Regeneration effects continue to scale with actual damage taken (e.g., "on Struck" Regenerations like Lizard or Hulking, and Block Regeneration like Kushala or Purgatory).
• Life Steal effects (Purgatory, Ghost Rider's Genesis Passive) continue to scale with actual damage taken by the Opponent, preserving the fun of healing to full on a single hit.

To clear up confusion over what counts as "echo damage," the developers published the full list of affected Champions and mechanics:

• America Chavez – echo damage and damage reflection
• Air-Walker – echo damage
• Ant-Man (Doctor Octopus synergy) – damage reflection
• Anti-Venomoid (Science) – Trauma
• Bahamet – echo damage
• Beta Ray Bill – Resonance
• Bishop – Special 2 Incinerate
• Black Panther (Civil War) – damage storage
• Blue Marvel – Overload
• Captain Marvel – echo damage
• Cull Obsidian – Rout
• Dani Moonstar – Overload
• Daredevil (Hell's Kitchen) (base kit and synergy) – instant bleeds
• Dazzler – Resonance and damage reflection
• Doctor Bong (and Shocker synergy) – Reverb
• Electro – damage reflection
• Enchantress – damage storage/reflection
• Falcon (Joaquín Torres) – Trauma
• Gentle – Reverb
• Gwenmaster – damage reflection
• Heimdall – Resonance
• Hercules – echo damage
• High Evolutionary – echo damage
• Hulk – Trauma
• Invisible Woman – echo damage
• Jubilee – echo damage
• Kitty Pryde – echo damage
• Knull – instant bleeds
• Karnak – instant bleeds
• Killmonger – damage reflection
• Luke – Trauma
• Lotan – Overload
• Mysterio – damage reflection
• My Little Symbiote (Venompool synergy) – echo damage
• Namor – damage reflection
• Northstar – Reverb
• Nova – echo damage
• Photon – Overload
• Phyla-Vell – Resonance
• Quake – damage reflection on block
• Quicksilver – Trauma
• Red Hulk – echo damage
• Red Guardian – Trauma
• Rhino – Trauma
• Sauron – echo damage
• Sentry – Trauma
• Sentinelbot (Science) – Trauma
• Sersi – echo damage
• She-Hulk (Deathless) – Trauma
• Silver Samurai – Overload
• Spider-Gwen – Hunter Spider echo damage
• Spider-Man (Stealth-Suit) (Vulture synergy) – echo damage
• Thanos Gauntlet Boss – damage reflection
• Thor (Ragnarok) (Valkyrie synergy) – echo damage through block
• Venompool – Hunter Spider echo damage
• Venom the Duck – Toxic armor

Separately, the burst-damage component of named Echo Damage effects can no longer fail independently due to Ability Accuracy reduction, since the parent effects are already subject to that failure (this does not apply to Champions without named effects, such as Nova). The team also accounted for Gentle and Silver Samurai, whose Reverb and Overload now intentionally multiply through their Daunted effects twice. Finally, several Cosmic Champions who interacted favorably with the Thor relic's Vigor received minor compensatory increases:

• Nova: Medium, Special 2, and Special 3 potencies increased by 10% each
• Air-Walker: Special 2 and Power of Galactus bursts increased by +5% flat each
• Beta Ray Bill: Resonance potency increased from 60% to 65%
• Captain Marvel: Binary Ignition damage increased from 30% to 32%
• Sersi: Special 2 burst increased from 30% to 33%
• Knull: Instant bleeds increased from 65% to 66%

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed an issue with M'Baku's Heavy Attack not breaking blocks on the second hit.
• Fixed an issue with the Adamant Axiom node not working correctly in Coliseum.
• Updated the Undermine pause menu description to more accurately reflect the ability.
• Fixed an issue with the Ascended 7-star champion profile picture border on certain screens.
• Fixed an issue with Storm (Pyramid X)'s "Guardians of the Pyramid" synergy with Apocalypse not catching all Prowess on fight start.
• Fixed an issue where triggering Evade while Rooted caused backwards translation after Root expiry.
• Fixed an issue with the Collectives tutorial incorrectly advising the player to "Tap anywhere to continue" when it didn't actually mean "anywhere".
• Removed the redundant 88:88 timer on the fight pause screen.
• Fixed an issue in which Hercules was unintentionally benefitting from extra Prestige.
• Made cosmetic changes to Heimdall's HUD to keep icons in a more consistent order.
• Fixed an issue with M'Baku purifying too many debuffs on his Special 1 hits.
• Fixed an issue with Captain Marvel's Stolen Memories synergy granting Rogue burst damage on non-Physical hits.
• Fixed an issue in which Gwenmaster (during her Killmonger phase) was reflecting damage from non-contact attacks at full strength rather than scaling with her power.
• Fixed an issue with Heimdall's Resonance Buff not scaling all the way to 100% total potency.
• Fixed an issue with the High Evolutionary's Signature Ability not increasing the bursts of damage from the Evolutionary Field for hits into the Opponent's Block.
• Fixed an issue with Mysterio's synergy with Old Man Logan not increasing the Regeneration from Reflection Gas.
• Fixed an issue with Gauntlet Thanos's Primeval Cocoon incorrectly triggering its stun reflection when inflicted with Sleep effects.
• Reworked Venom the Duck's Toxic Armor damage to scale more consistently with the Opponent's Armor Rating.
• Fixed an issue with Archangel's Neurotoxins not responding to potency modifications.
• Clarified several ability descriptions on Archangel's info page.

What This Means for Summoners

V57.0 is a meaty update that pairs fresh roster additions with one of the most significant mechanical clean-ups in recent memory. The Echo Damage rework is the change to study closely — if you main any of the listed Champions, their burst damage will behave differently in modes with heavy Protection or all-damage modifiers, often for the better. Add the new Towers mode, the Stars and Martyr quest, and a full slate of seasonal events, and there's plenty to dig into across The Battlerealm this month.