So, I’ve seen a ton of people trying to come out of the woodwork to justify Storm’s recent treatment in Rivals with her epic skin. Which while abhorrent, I want to actually acknowledge these points instead of just ignoring them, so let’s dive in.

**“Her pick rate is low”**

So according to the Marvel Rivals Hero Hot List, Storms pick rate is about 2.27%. Pretty low, I will admit, however when you look at in in context this argument falls apart almost immediately.

Black Cat has a pick rate of 2.42% Psylocke has a pick rate of 3.08%, Loki (I bring him up because of Lady Loki) has a 2.77%, Hawkeye (Who just got another legendary) has a pick rate of 2.35%, Magik (Who has 6 legendaries) has a pick rate of 3.08%. So as you can see, clearly pick rate isn’t the only or even primary factor as to who gets a legendary.

**“Her skins don’t sell”**

So again, in a vacuum this is also true. Yes her skins don’t sell very well, but there’s an easy to answer reason for that. 4 of her 8 skins were all free to obtain. In fact she had the most amount of free skins out of any Rivals Character, one of her paid skins is a also mini-pass skin, while the other is a twitch drop skin. So clearly they aren’t even giving her much of a chance to actually make some money. Her last shop skin was around a year ago at least.

**“Not every summer skin is Legendary”**

This is true, and while it is the strongest defense for this, it does still have a hole in it. Storm is the ONLY female character for her summer skin to be an epic, and to only have two chromas. Every other female summer skin is a legendary and has a total of three colors you can pick from.

**“It’s just a skin in a game, why are you so pressed.”**

Racism, or more aptly, discrimination in the world takes many many forms. It’s proven that the biggest contributor to racist and discriminatory treatment and the furthering of the racial empathy gap is the micro aggression. The tiny things that we experience in a day to day basis that reinforce stereotypes or cement the idea of a lesser class.

[https://mhanational.org/resources/microaggressions/](https://mhanational.org/resources/microaggressions/)

**Conclusion**

In my opinion this is definitely a bad look. A very very very bad look for Rivals. They’ve been treating black characters poorly ever since launch, and I’m growing irritated with the people who decide they want to argue that this isn’t connected to race or isn’t that deep. It is that deep. You just want to bury your head in the sand and not acknowledge it as such because it makes you feel bad.

I’m not gonna say harass the dev team, the moderators, or anything like that. That is not how we fix this, and the mods on Reddit have nothing to do with this. What I will say is if you wish to prove them wrong that we won’t buy a Storm skin, buy it. Support our black queen. But you don’t have to, I’m not trying to tell you how to spend your money. I’m simply here to point out some flaws in some arguments I’ve seen.

If I’ve gotten any information wrong, somebody please feel free to correct me. I do not wish to misinform anyone, this isn’t some deep dive, I did this with some basic research.

Let’s Discuss, Shall We?