Gaming
esports
A Beginner's guide to your new favourite mobile esport
Brawl Stars - the latest offering from mobile game giant Supercell - has became a fan favourite amongst casual gamers and even Overwatch League desk hosts alike.
The game even found itself being added to the Red Bull MEO by ESL Finals in Germany. The game will be part of a showcase tournament on the 1st and 2nd of February with well known content creators leading their teams. The competition is currently in full swing but you can follow it’s progress here. Popular esports personality Goldenboy has approved:
There’s a reason Brawl Stars is dominating social media discussions and being added to tournaments - it’s a fun game. Free for both Android and iOS the mobile fighter game or party brawler, if you like, is 3 to 4 minutes of giggles that even your mom will enjoy (and she’ll stop playing Candy Crush, so everyone wins).
Brawl Stars
© Supercell
Here’s some basic tips to getting started if you’re a complete n00b:
The game allows you to enter a map, most commonly with 2 other players, in a 3v3 set up (this depends on the events, but we’ll get to that in a minute).
You play as a Brawler. These Brawlers are the game’s characters. There are currently 22 Brawlers available. You start with one and as you play you unlock new brawlers. These brawlers also have various types. Some are fighters or healers while others are assassins or sharp shooters. Each brawler as an Attack, Super and Star Power. One of our favourite n00b brawlers is Nita. The evil little kid in the bear hat. She is able to rupture or play overbearing depending on what you need but her Star Power is Bear With Me - where she releases her own bear into the arena to fight on her behalf.
The more you play, the more brawlers you unlock. The best way to learn their skills is to play with them and level them up. Easy!
Now to the events. The game itself allows for 9 various types of games that you can brawl. The 6 non ticketed events are Bounty, Brawl Ball, Gem Grab, Heist, Solo Showdown and Duo Showdown. You’ll likely start with some of these. The 3 ticketed events are Robo Rumble, Boss Fight and Big Gone.
The events are explained to you so you’ll be able to follow relatively quickly. What you’ll need to master is the controls. On the left side of the screen you drag your finger around to control your Brawler’s movement. On the right hand of the screen you drag your finger around to aim and fire - so to attack. Ideally, you want to hold your phone like a game controller and use a left hand thumb for movement and right hand thumb for attacking. The finger dragging is a bit like moving a joystick around. Attacking can be done in a variety of ways - you can drag to aim and release to fire a long range attack or tap the right quickly for rapid fire.
As you cause damage you’ll power up your Super Ability. When this is fully powered you’ll see the yellow button on the right ready to go. You’ll need to hold it and drag to aim - and thus target your super ability - or you can rapid fire it to release right where you are.
Your Brawler has two bars above their head. One is a health bar and the other shows how many attacks you have ready to go. Move away from the fight to fill those bars up again.
Finally - you need to unlock brawlers and level up your current Brawl Stars. The more matches you play the more tokens you earn and these allow you to open Brawl Boxes. Brawl Boxes have new brawlers inside, tickets, coins and power points. The more you play the more tokens you earn and the more Brawl Boxes you can open.
And now you’re ready to jump into Brawl Stars. If you feel you’ve mastered the art of the game then you need to move on to this article that breaks down events and reviews the competitive potential of your new favourite mobile esport:
