Brawl Stars Tier List: Best Brawlers After November's Patch

Brawl Stars just shipped its biggest single update of the year. Supercell's November 2026 release notes cover a full rework of Ranked, three new Brawlers arriving back-to-back, and balance changes touching more than two dozen characters across both the standard game and the separate Brawl Arena mode. If you log in today and your old Ranked picks feel off, it is not in your head — the meta genuinely moved. This tier list ranks who is worth playing right now, based strictly on what Supercell's own patch notes confirm, not on leaked numbers or guesswork.

01What Changed in Brawl Stars This November

The headline feature is what Supercell calls Ranked's "biggest rework yet." Every rank from Bronze through Diamond now requires Power 11 Brawlers, up from Power 9, and Diamond specifically jumps to 12 — matching the Mythic requirement. To soften that, the number of free maxed Brawlers each season rises from 3 to 6. Ranked itself also unlocks later: 5,000 Trophies instead of 1,000, though anyone who already had access keeps it and gets a Chaos Drop as compensation. Brawl Arena, the mode built around scaling stats as a match goes on, still opens at 1,000 Trophies and is unaffected by that change.

On top of the Ranked changes, three new Brawlers join the roster: Thunder Frogs (Legendary, Artillery), and a linked pair, Rey (Mythic, Marksman) and Ruby (Mythic, Damage Dealer), whose traits heal each other when they fight on the same team. Two new Hypercharges landed for Cosmo and Vince, and six Brawlers — Mr. P, Lou, Gale, Mandy, Chester, and Berry — got new or reworked Buffies. Then there is the balance pass itself: a double-digit list of buffs and nerfs to the main game, plus a separate set of scaling adjustments that only apply inside Brawl Arena.

Next stop: UPDATE! 🚗💨 We're heading into maintenance to add the new content to the game! In the meantime, check the release notes in-game for all the details 💪

— Brawl Stars (@BrawlStars) on X

02S-Tier: The Buffs That Rewrote the Meta

These are the Brawlers whose confirmed numbers jumped enough to change how you should draft them, full stop.

• Darryl — Super damage rises from 660 to 720, and his Super no longer loses unused charges when he dies. That second change matters as much as the number: trading your Super into a kill used to be a hard requirement, and now it is just the ideal outcome.
• Melodie — Main Attack damage goes from 460 to 500 and her note damage from 920 to 1000, with the same death-charge protection Darryl got. Stacking those two changes makes her poke noticeably harder to trade with and punishes aggression against her more than before.
• Hank — A flat health increase from 5500 to 6000 is one of the larger raw buffs in the patch. He was already a frontline pick built to soak damage; this just raises how much punishment he can take before a fight turns.
• Shelly — Main Attack damage up from 300 to 340 and Super damage up from 320 to 360. Shelly is a starter Brawler by design, and these numbers push her back toward being a genuinely strong pick rather than just an easy one.
• Draco — His Super was reworked for "more consistent damage application," with the number backing that up: 1120 to 1620 damage, alongside damage reduction rising from 20% to 25%. That is the single biggest percentage jump of any confirmed change in the patch, and it moves Draco from a niche pick into a legitimate Ranked option.

03A-Tier: Still Reliable, Lightly Adjusted or Untouched

Not every winner got a dramatic number. These Brawlers either picked up a smaller, genuinely useful tweak or simply sat out the nerf list entirely while the Brawlers around them got weaker — which is its own kind of buff.

• Chuck — Main Attack reload speed drops from 2000 to 1800 and his Super keeps its charge on death, the same protection Darryl and Melodie received. A faster-shooting support Brawler who does not lose his payoff to a bad trade is a safe pick in almost any draft.
• Ziggy — Main Attack damage rises from 950 to 1050, though his Great Ziggini Star Power bonus damage falls from 18% to 7%. Read this as a buff for anyone using Ziggy's base kit and a real cost for anyone who built around that specific Star Power.
• Buster, Angelo, and R-T — Smaller, quality-of-life buffs across the board: Buster's trait now charges his Super 10% faster near allies, Angelo's Main Attack charges 10% quicker, and R-T's projectile size grows by 15%. None of these move a Brawler into S-tier on their own, but all three got strictly better and none have an offsetting downside in the notes.
• Surge, Cosmo, Damian, Squeak, and Kit — Supercell filed these under a general "Changes" heading because each mixes a buff with a tradeoff. Cosmo's health rises from 3400 to 3600, but her Telescope Trap gadget shrinks and its cooldown grows. Damian and Squeak both get straightforward damage increases on parts of their kit. Kit's Super now lands its hits closer together in time (0.75s and 1.5s instead of 1s and 2s) without a stated damage change, which should make him feel less punishing to use even if his ceiling is the same.

04Fallen From Grace: Who the Nerfs Hit Hardest

Twelve Brawlers took nerfs in the main game this patch, and a few of them lost more than one number at once.

• Gus — The headline nerf of the patch. His max spirits on the map drop from 10 to 3, Super charge rate falls 8%, his Knockback Spirit gadget's damage is cut from 540 to 260 with a longer cooldown, and his Healing Bonanza Star Power's bonus healing drops from 75% to 50%. Gus was a dominant support pick before this patch; cutting his spirit cap by 70% alone is enough to drop him out of S-tier, and the stacked gadget and Star Power nerfs make the fall steeper.
• Shade — Health falls from 3700 to 3400, Super duration drops from 6s to 4s, and both his Jump Scare gadget and Hardened Hoodie Star Power lose a meaningful chunk of their shield value. Four separate nerfs to the same Brawler is a clear signal Supercell wanted him out of top-tier conversations.
• Amber — Both of her gadgets get longer cooldowns and reduced values, her Super's damage-over-time drops from 480 to 400, and her Hypercharge Super radius shrinks from 1600 to 1200. A Brawler built around sustained area damage just lost some of both the damage and the area.
• Wendy, Colette, Ash, Max, Brock, and Rico — None of these took a single huge hit, but each lost enough utility to slide down a tier: Wendy's projectile size and gadget range shrink, Colette's Hypercharge-Super interaction loses 75% of its charge rate, Ash loses charge rate on two separate fronts, Max's mobility Star Power and gadget both get weaker, and Brock and Rico each lose value on a Star Power tied to their Hypercharge or escape tools.
• Pierce, Maisie, and Nori — Smaller, single-number nerfs: Pierce's last-shot damage drops from 1500 to 1400, Maisie's Main Attack damage falls from 1500 to 1360, and Nori's Super damage per fish drops from 4% to 3%. Worth noting if you lean on these Brawlers, but not enough on its own to bench them.

05The Three New Brawlers: Early Read

Thunder Frogs, Rey, and Ruby are too new for a confident tier placement — Supercell's own notes do not publish full base health or damage figures for most of their kit, and there is no reliable match data yet. Treat everything here as an early, unconfirmed read rather than a verdict.

• Thunder Frogs (Legendary, Artillery) — The confirmed numbers that did make the patch notes are notable: its Soothing Shock ability heals allies for 2000, and its Hypercharge deals 1050 damage inside its triangle area and up to 1500 at the edge. That is a lot of burst and sustain packed into one kit, and artillery Brawlers with both utility and damage tend to land strong on release.
• Rey and Ruby (Mythic, Marksman and Mythic, Damage Dealer) — Supercell built these two as a linked pair through a "Power Couple" synergy trait: Rey heals Ruby for 800 Health when they fight together, and Ruby heals Rey for 400 Health in return. Ruby's two gadgets add more direct value — Shuffle and Cut heals for 800 while dealing 15% of a target's max health in damage, and Stack the Deck deals 200 damage per bouncing Spade. Rey's Hypercharge, Winning Position, can deal up to 2700 damage once its marks trigger. On paper, a Marksman/Damage Dealer pair that heals itself while also carrying some of the patch's highest single hits is worth drafting together once you unlock them, even before a wider meta read exists.

Brawl Talk: Ranked Refresh, 3 New Brawlers and Traditional Brawlidays!, uploaded November 1, 2026 on the official Brawl Stars YouTube channel.

06Brawl Arena Runs Its Own Separate Meta Now

Brawl Arena scales Brawler stats as a match goes on, and Supercell tunes that scaling independently from the main game — so a Brawler nerfed above can still be fine in Arena, and vice versa. This patch's Arena-only nerfs hit damage or health scaling on Ollie, Janet, Grey, Gigi, Stu, Starr Nova, 8-Bit, Mandy, and Piper, with Gigi and Stu losing both a health and a secondary scaling stat at once. On the other side, Nori, Fang, Najia, Doug, and Chuck all got their Arena scaling buffed. If you play both modes, do not assume a standard-game tier list carries over — check which list a Brawler change belongs to before you bench or prioritize them in Arena specifically.

07How to Adjust Your Ranked Draft Starting Now

The Ranked Refresh changes what you need in your pool just as much as the balance patch changes who belongs in it. A few practical adjustments make the transition easier instead of frustrating.

How to Adjust Your Ranked Draft

1. 1Open your Brawler list before you queue and flag anything under Power 11 (Power 12 for Diamond) — Ranked will reject a pick that doesn't meet the new requirement mid-draft.Pre-match
2. 2The season's free maxed Brawler allowance doubled from 3 to 6. Use the extra slots on flexible S- or A-tier picks like Hank or Shelly so your pool isn't limited to Brawlers you've already invested in.Season start
3. 3Gus lost most of his spirit cap and a big chunk of his gadget damage, so he's no longer worth forcing. If an opponent bans him, don't waste a counter-pick preparing for a Brawler that's already weaker this patch.Draft phase
4. 4Both Brawlers keep their Super charge on death now, so a risky all-in Super no longer feels like a wasted resource if the trade doesn't finish the fight.Mid-game
5. 5His reworked Super hits for 1120 to 1620 damage with higher damage reduction, which makes him far more reliable for clawing back a losing fight than he was last patch.Late-game
6. 6Brawl Arena's scaling nerfs and buffs (Gigi, Stu, Nori, Chuck, and others) are tuned independently from the main game — don't bench a Brawler in Arena just because this list drops them in standard modes.Brawl Arena

None of this requires a complete overhaul of your account — Supercell's free maxed Brawler increase exists specifically to cushion the higher Power requirements. Spend your first few post-patch matches confirming which of your Brawlers still qualify before you queue a serious Ranked session, rather than finding out mid-draft.

This tier list reflects Supercell's own confirmed November patch notes as of publication, not play-tested win rates — treat S- and A-tier placements as informed opinion, and expect some positions to shift once Brawl Stars' competitive scene has had a few weeks to play the new numbers out.