Everything you need to know about Supercell's Brawl Stars

Brawl Stars is one of the most popular mobile games right now. The game is developed by the Finnish company Supercell, which is also responsible for the development of Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. The game was globally released on December 12, 2018, for full access after one and a half years of the beta phase. Brawl Stars is a free to play multiplayer strategy shooting mobile game with multiple game modes available to players. The game is very friendly to free-to-play players since all the features of the game can be unlocked without paying a penny. New players might struggle in the game but with effective learning and proper practice, anyone can get a grip on the game. Here is a beginners guide that will help players who are just starting out with Brawl Stars-

Start of the journey

Once you downloaded Brawl Stars, you will have to participate in a compulsory short tutorial that will teach you about the mechanics of the game. Brawl Stars has a simple mechanic with only three buttons, the blue joystick on the left is for movement, the red button on the right is for attacking and attacking will charge up your “super” which is a yellow button below your attack button. The first brawler that you will get is Shelly, a decently ranged shotgun brawler that deals a huge amount of damage up close. Right after you get into the game, it's recommended to connect a Supercell ID before opening boxes, because you will immediately get Barley (a rare brawler) and also his Wizard Barley skin.

Wizard Barley from Brawl Stars, Supercell

Barley is a thrower, which can throw attacks from far distances and across walls.

Things you need to know

All Brawlers can be acquired through opening boxes, and you will get the brawler by chance depending on the rarity while opening boxes. The rarity of brawlers is divided into:

1. Trophy road: obtained through the trophy road rewards
2. Rare: Boxes/Gems
3. Super Rare: Boxes/Gems
4. Epic: Boxes/Gems
5. Mythic: Boxes/Gems
6. Legendary: Boxes/Gems

There are three types of Brawl Boxes, which will provide you with coins, brawlers, power points, star powers, tickets, token doublers, and last but not least free gems:

1. Normal Brawl Box: Requires 100 tokens
2. Big Brawl Box: Requires 10 Star tokens
3. Mega Brawl Box: Gems/Trophy road

Items obtained from boxes have a specific purpose to help you progress the game:

• Tokens: Can be obtained by playing (Takes 2 hours and 24 minutes to charge up 20 tokens, and a maximum of 200 tokens can be stored to acquire)
• Star Tokens: Can be obtained by winning the first game for each rotation of maps
• Coins: To upgrade your Brawlers
• Power Points: Requirement to upgrade Brawlers
• Star Powers: An extra skill for your Brawler that can be obtained from boxes after your Brawler reaches Power Level 9
• Tickets: Requirement to play special events during each weekend
• Token Doublers: To double your tokens
• Gems: A rare currency that can purchase most items, Brawlers and skins
• Star Points: A special currency obtained through season, power play & Championship Challenge rewards, which can be used to buy special skins and Brawl boxes
• Experience: Level up your profile and provide a small number of tokens each time you level up

Trophies are the backbone of the game, you gain and lose trophies as you win or lose games:

• Individual Brawler Trophy: Each brawler has its own trophy count and ranks, your brawlers will rank up depending on the trophies you get, the current rank limit is Rank 35 at 1250 trophies, you may push past 1250 trophies but your rank would not increase any further. Once you push past 550 trophies (Rank 21) for a particular brawler, the trophy will drop according to how high you push after each season, you will get star points in return. Each time a brawler ranks up, you will get a 10 token reward. There is a leaderboard for each brawler as well.
• Total Trophy: Your total trophy is determined by the sum of all your brawlers' trophies, you get trophy road rewards for each milestone you reach such as brawlers, new events, tickets, brawl boxes, power points & coins.
• Power Play Points: A separate scoring system from trophies, which can be obtained through winning or losing Power Play games. You will get star points as a reward depending on how many points you've obtained for the season.

Both Regular & Power Play seasons last for two weeks.

Brawl Stars offers multiple game modes in the game-

• Gem Grab (First Slot Rotation): One team has to hold on to 10 or more gems for 16 seconds to win, the countdown will breset if someone dies and the gem count drops below 10 or when both teams hold the same amount of gems. (3V3)
• Showdown (Forth Slot Rotation): A battle royale mode that is played by 10 players, there is a solo & duo selection, and also paired with modifiers depending on the rotation.
• Brawl Ball (Second Slot Rotation): The first team to score 2 goals win, if the game is tied after the timer ends, the game goes overtime for 1 minute, and the game is a draw if it ends with a tie. (3V3)
• Bounty (Third Slot Rotation): The team with the most stars win, each player is spawned with 2 stars to begin and one star is added onto a player with each kill with a maximum of 7 stars. (3V3)
• Heist (Third Slot Rotation): The first team to destroy the opponent's vault wins, if the timer ends, the team with more Hp on their vault wins, if the % is the same it is a tie. (3V3)
• Siege (Third Slot Rotation): Same way to win as heist, but you need to pick up bolts for a few seconds, and the team with more bolts will spawn a siege robot at set intervals to help take out the opponent's IKE turret (ranged). (3V3)
• Power Play (Sixth Slot Rotation): A separate scoring system that includes all the modes previously mentioned. Only available to players with at least one brawler with star power.
• Special Events (Fifth Slot Rotation): Available on every weekend and uses tickets to play. 3 different modes currently Boss Fight, Big Game, Robo Rumble.
• Championship Challenges (Extra Slot): Available once monthly, open for all players to compete in and if a player can get 15 wins before 4 losses, the player will have a chance to compete in a regional qualifier which will lead up to the World Championship. (3V3)
• Seasonal Events (Extra Slot): New events that Brawl Stars introduce for a limited time. Past events: Graveyard Shift, Present Plunder, Hot Zone.

One of the main attractions of Brawl Stars is the large variety of different events, which is different from traditional games which only include a few types of gameplay. This will also motivate players to gain mastery in either a specific brawler, game mode, or even a general mastery of the game.