If you’ve ever played games on your smartphone, chances are you tried either Brawl Stars or Clash Royale (or Clash of Clans). The games, created by Supercell, are some of the most popular, with over 800 million downloads combined. Despite being made by the same company and having a similar art style, the two are vastly different games because of their genre, pacing and mechanics.
Although you, as an A1AL fan, probably know all about the games and are itching to apply through the official tournament page, we’re going to start with the basics and work our way up.
Brawl Stars is a top-down arena-style shooter with three players per team, while Clash Royale is a 1v1 duel more angled towards strategy, where you collect characters in “decks” and upgrade them. Brawl Stars has been a popular esports title and one of the few “Western” mobile games that attract large audiences. The Brawl Stars World Finals 2024 had more than 1 million viewers!
What they have in common
Opening the games side by side will show one big similarity: the art style. Since Supercell is seeking to have a uniform “vibe” across its titles, the characters in both games, despite being different, have the same feel to them. Both are optimistic, rounded, and polished cartoon characters.
Both games are generally easy to pick up and just play, but being properly good at the game (like our current champions and best regional team Salada de Frutas) requires dozens of hours and very capable fingers.
Brawl Stars: a weird mix of everything
The best thing about Brawl Stars, to us, is its good sizing and format. Despite being a team-based game, you can progress pretty far by just playing with random teammates, and there’s no need for voice chat since the maps are mostly very straightforward: go here, capture this, score a goal (yeah), and collect gems.
In BS, several types of brawlers (characters) fill specific roles, such as tank, DPS and support, similar to many other games in the last 20 years. All this combined makes for a good learning curve and a good experience for just dropping in and playing. Unlike some other games in the League, BS matches are relatively short.
BS is challenging for viewers because there’s always something going on, and learning what each character does is tough. For us at the League, it’s also frustrating that the game’s pick-and-ban phase can’t be broadcast through the client during the events, so we always have to make do with setups that try and work around it.
Clash Royale: kind of like chess
Clash Royale is the older of the two and the game that launched Supercell into stardom. The mechanics are very different from BS because it’s a 1v1 duel with cards that turn into creatures or spells once dropped on the map. The idea is to destroy the opponent’s turrets and base, but you can’t control any creature directly, you just throw them down and hope for the best. Of course, there’s more to it – managing elixir (energy), combining units or timing your pushes.
CR has become a very popular pastime since your deck and cards are all you need to battle, making it an excellent choice for waiting rooms, break rooms and, well, other rooms. Clash Royale is often compared to chess for its counter-focused gameplay and has a similarly strong learning curve. Players with weaker decks or less time on their hands will have a very hard time competing and going up the ladder, which is the main way of progressing in CR.
Ready to join the League?
Brawl Stars has been a major part of the A1 Adria League for many seasons, and we encourage any interested players to join the League and try their luck against some of the best in the region. Apply through the home page of the Brawl Stars tournaments. Good luck!
