House Paxley has always been hiding something.
The most powerful magical family in the Moniyan Empire, sitting in their castle in the south of Moniyan, dealing in forbidden dark arts for centuries. We've met Aamon, the eldest son carrying the weight of the Paxley name. We've met Gusion, the rebel who walked away from everything his family stood for. And now, MLBB is introducing a third Paxley into the Land of Dawn.
Marcel Paxley, the Soul Photographer. Hero 132. Coming March 11, 2026.
He is the strangest hero this family has ever produced, and this family already includes a man who fights with holy light after rejecting dark magic and an assassin who shatters himself into crystalline shards.
#Who Is Marcel Paxley?
The Fandom wiki describes Marcel as "a masterfully composed double exposure." That framing is deliberate. In photography, a double exposure means two images layered on the same film. Marcel is literally two people in one: the refined, composed young man raised in Castle Aberleen, and Clemar, a torn soul that broke away from Marcel through dark magic and now lives inside a camera.
Clemar is not just a tool. He is a split-off piece of Marcel's own soul.
That detail sits differently when you think about what House Paxley does. The family has always practiced dark magic, the kind that the rest of the Moniyan Empire feared and whispered about. Aamon inherited that power as the family heir. Gusion rejected it entirely, seeking holy light instead. Marcel took a different path: the dark magic found him anyway, tore a piece of his soul out, and that fragment became his companion, his camera, his partner.
He travels the Moniyan Empire with Clemar, creating what his lore calls "dark magic photography." The camera sees things regular eyes cannot. It captures moments, freezes them, holds them still. And it does the same to enemies on the battlefield.
The lore writes itself into the kit here. This is one of the things MLBB does well when it gets it right.
#Why the Paxley Saga Matters
If you want to understand why Marcel's arrival hits different for lore fans, you need to know what came before.
House Paxley ruled Castle Aberleen for generations, granted their dukedom roughly a thousand years before current MLBB events under the legendary mage Valentina. The empire feared them. Their dark magic was real, powerful, and forbidden in polite society.
Aamon was born first. The heir. He spent his whole life carrying the Paxley name on his back, becoming the Duke of Shards, a man who made brutal choices to protect his family even when those choices cost him everything. Then Gusion was born, a natural prodigy who wanted nothing to do with any of it. He got cursed by an ancient prophecy, Aamon imprisoned him to protect the family's reputation, and eventually Gusion fought his way out to forge his own identity as the Holy Blade.
The Paxley timeline in MLBB's lore has always felt unfinished. Two brothers, one who stayed and one who ran, and the family itself still sitting in the south, still practicing dark magic, still producing gifted children who don't fit the mold.
Marcel is the next piece of that story.
He's not the heir. He's not the rebel. He is something different: an artist, a wanderer, a young man whose soul was literally split by the dark magic that defines his family. He carries Clemar with him not because he chose it, but because there was no other way. The Paxley curse does not ask for permission.
#Marcel's Kit: Time Stops in the Land of Dawn
Marcel is a Support hero, but calling him a traditional support undersells what he actually does.
Passive: Platinum Snap
Clemar automatically photographs nearby enemy heroes on a cooldown, briefly immobilizing them and dealing True Damage based on their max HP. Marcel gains a shield equal to that damage, and so does a nearby ally. Marcel's basic attacks reduce the cooldown per target, so staying close to enemies matters.
His basic attacks also deal bonus Physical Damage that scales with his Total Physical Attack, Physical Defense, and Magic Defense. Notably, they cannot crit. This passive rewards you for building tanky, staying in the fight, and attacking constantly.
Skill 1: Framed Moment
Clemar focuses on an area around Marcel, then after a brief delay completes the shot, dealing Physical Damage and immobilizing enemies for 1 second. Straightforward crowd control built on the same photography concept as the passive. You are literally stopping your enemies in place to photograph them.
Skill 2: Tracking Shot
Marcel gains 15% movement speed. When moving toward an enemy hero, that jumps to 75%. Use again: Marcel dashes in the target direction, leaving a phantom behind. Clemar stays at its original location while Framed Moment is active.
This skill is how Marcel plays paparazzi. He is literally chasing targets for the shot. High mobility for a support means his passive has more opportunities to proc, and the phantom he leaves behind creates confusion.
Ultimate: Golden Hour
This is why Marcel is already attracting bans on the Advance Server.
After a short delay, Clemar takes a wide-angle shot of a designated area. During the 3-second duration, Marcel enters his Tracking Haste state within the area, and everything else is placed into Frozen Moment. Every other unit, ally or enemy, minion or jungle creep or turret, cannot move and becomes immune to all damage except from Marcel.
All ranged basic attacks and projectiles entering or exiting the frame are also suspended. When the duration ends, everything resumes simultaneously, and those suspended projectiles deal 50% of their original damage when they land.
The implications are enormous. Beatrix's Bennett Ult, flying toward your carry? Frozen. Xavier's Ult streaking across the map? Frozen. Aldous charging at your backline? Frozen. Marcel moves freely inside the stasis zone, attacking and using skills on frozen targets, then all those suspended projectiles hit at once when time resumes.
Getting caught inside Golden Hour without Purify means you are not going anywhere. And according to testing on the Advance Server, Purify does not work inside the Golden Hour zone. The stasis CC is specifically noted as the only crowd control that works on heroes with CC immunity.
The counterplay is positioning, not cleansing.
#Marcel Plays Like a Shadow Waiting for the Frame
Put this kit together and you get something that feels genuinely new for MLBB.
Most supports either protect from a distance (Floryn, Angela) or dive in and create chaos (Diggie, Kaja). Marcel does neither. He walks beside you, constantly threatening nearby enemies with Clemar's lens, building shields through proximity, and waiting for the exact moment to freeze everything in place.
Golden Hour is not a panic button. It is a photographer's moment. You wait, you read the fight, you choose your frame. Then everything stops and your team gets three seconds where only you can act.
The risk is real: freezing your own carry is just as easy as freezing the enemy assassin. The skill floor here is higher than it looks. But in coordinated play, a well-timed Golden Hour wins teamfights before they start.
He builds tanky. HP and defense items feed his passive's damage and shield output, and his basic attack damage scales with Physical and Magic Defense. This is a support who gets stronger by surviving, not by funneling resources.
#When Marcel Arrives
Marcel is currently active on the MLBB Advance Server. Based on confirmed information from official MLBB social media, his global release date is March 11, 2026. That tracks with MLBB's typical formula of releasing new heroes at the start of a new ranked season.
Expect ban priority the moment he lands. He will be the most complained-about hero in casual lobbies for the first two weeks, and a serious draft pick in organized play.
The Paxley timeline is still not complete. Gusion's story has a hanging thread. Aamon's arc left questions unanswered. Marcel's arrival suggests Moonton has not forgotten about Castle Aberleen and the family that made the Moniyan Empire nervous for a thousand years.
Three Paxleys in the Land of Dawn, each carrying the family's dark magic in a completely different way. Aamon fights with it. Gusion runs from it. Marcel photographs it.
Check Gusion's hero page and Aamon's hero page on mlbbhub to see where those two brothers stand right now. When Marcel drops on March 11, you'll want to understand the full picture.