Brawl Stars November Update: Balance Changes, Ranked Rework and New Brawlers

Supercell took Brawl Stars down for maintenance on November 11, pushed balance changes to ten Brawlers ahead of the World Finals, and then corrected Wendy again on November 12.

Nine of those ten lines are nerfs, and the tenth trades damage for shielding. Two land on Brawlers nobody can play yet. Underneath the maintenance sits the November update itself, which rebuilt Ranked from the entry requirements up, added three Brawlers, and shipped with a ban wave.

Amber lost the most. Her main attack dropped from 2100 to 1800 damage, and the Super charge she earns from her own Super fell from 53 to 40. The update’s own balance pass had already pushed her Dancing Flames gadget from a 14 to a 20 second cooldown and shrunk her Hypercharged Super radius from 1600 to 1200.

Mr. P’s Porter Reinforcements now consumes ammo and sits on a 26-second cooldown instead of 22, which takes away the free pressure that made the gadget so cheap to throw out. Gale got the same cooldown number on North Wind Wall, plus a cut to projectile redirection from 30% to 20%. Lou’s Avalanche builds 40% freeze where it lands rather than 50%, and Chester’s Prankster’s Surprise box fell from 2250 to 1800 health.

Those names share a cause. The November update handed new Buffies to Mr. P, Lou, Gale, Mandy, Chester and Berry, rewriting their gadgets and star powers, and everyone on that list except Berry turned up on the nerf sheet days later. Mandy took the longest entry: her Caramelize gadget now slows by a percentage instead of a flat 350, the Cookie Crumbs cooldown refund fell from 50% to 30%, and both gadgets now charge her Super the way the cards always said they did.

The patch notes open with a line about restraint:

“This time we’re taking a lighter approach as we don’t want to change things too drastically so close to the World Finals!”

— Supercell

The Gale change read differently on Reddit, where one comment walked through the whole cycle:

“Create a new gale gadget to block projectiles. 2. It blocks projectiles. 3. QUICK, NERF IT!”

— snoopmt1

Vince’s Hypercharged Super now spawns four caterpillars instead of six, and those pets decay 30% faster. It landed in the same update as the first Hypercharge for Cosmo, who joined the roster in September for 1,900 Mythic Credits as the opening member of the Planetarium Trio. Vince came second in October, and the same update that gave the pair their Hypercharges also moved Cosmo to 3,600 health and shrank his Telescope Trap.

Two of the ten changes hit Brawlers still in pre-release. Thunder Frogs, the Legendary artillery trio whose Super fuses them into one jumping frog, lost 150 damage off the middle of their main attack, 500 healing off the Soothing Shock gadget, and a third of the lifesteal on Leech Landing. Rey, the Mythic marksman who marks targets and fires at every visible enemy when his Super goes off, had his Queen’s Gambit cooldown moved from 15 to 18 seconds. Rey shares the update with Ruby, the first pair in the game built around a shared synergy trait: his attacks heal her for 800 health, hers heal him for 400, and each moves 10% faster toward the other. None of the three had been playable for a single match when the nerfs landed.

“Not even released and thunderfrog and rey already got nerfed”

— MurkyPurpose1925

Wendy’s main attack fell from 1000 to 800 damage while the shield she gains per hit rose from 30% to 38% of that damage, which works out to 608 shield instead of 600. One reply did the math:

“so broken 608 instead of 600 bro”

— PRAWNREADYYYY

A day later Supercell fixed something it had not announced. Wendy’s Super had started charging in eight hits instead of six, and the November 12 correction put her back to six. The maintenance also repaired Berry’s Super dash, which healed only one teammate when several stood close together, stopped Emz’s Hypercharged Super from stunning enemies pressed against walls, and made Mandy’s Cookie Crumbs grant Super charge as the description always claimed.

Ranked took the heaviest rewrite of the whole update. It now unlocks at 5,000 trophies instead of 1,000, every rank asks for Power 11 Brawlers rather than Power 9, and Diamond requires 12 owned Brawlers instead of 9. To pay for that, the number of free maxed Brawlers per season doubled from three to six. The season reset drops you two ranks now, not six, and Ranked teams are gone at Masters I and above. Best-of-three Elo now moves with rounds won, so a 2-0 pays more than a 2-1 and a 1-2 costs less than a sweep. Pick and Ban got a wider grid, filters, ban suggestions, and quick chat so a teammate can ask for a counter without typing. Reaching Pro no longer qualifies anyone for BSC 2027.

Mega Showdown drops 20 players onto one map with bosses that hand out Power Cubes. Counterlight runs two rounds in which each team tries to beat the capture time the other just set. Supercell added Ukrainian language support, raised the Brawler Blast choice odds from 50% to 100%, and said it had suspended more than 53,000 accounts for 31 days over third party software and idle trophy farming, with roughly 4,000 more banned for win-trading.

Brawl Vice runs as the season around all of it, with Bull, Poco, Undercover Buzz and Black Market Barley dressed for a neon crime story. Brawlidays follows, bringing Santa Squeak, Nutcracker Draco and Gingerbread Starr Nova.

Brawling still feels good to me, and the Brawl Vice start screen is most of the reason: it looks like a GTA 6 billboard wandered into Starr Park. Two of my honest passions in one place, lol. I can live with a ten line nerf list when the lobby looks like that.

Read also: Brawl Stars Free Rewards tracks what the game is handing out right now: a free Coffin Box and 10 Gems sitting in the Supercell Store, no active redemption codes at the moment, and 26 QR codes that still pay out.