Supercell has done something to Brawl Stars that it has spent years resisting: it deleted Starr Road. The September update swaps the linear brawler-unlock path for Brawler Blast, a shooting-gallery minigame that decides which new fighter you walk away with — and it arrives inside a Back 2 School season, Royal Academy, that ends with Duolingo's green owl taking over the game for two weeks.
It is a lot for one patch, and the progression change is the part that will matter in six months. Everything else — the skins, the crossover, the Halloween tease — sits on top of it.
Brawler Blast replaces Starr Road entirely
Starr Road was Brawl Stars' answer to a roster that had grown past a hundred characters: a branching path you spent Credits on to pick your next unlock. Brawler Blast keeps the Credits and throws out the choosing.
When you have banked enough Credits, up to ten unowned Brawlers of the current rarity are loaded into a shooting gallery. You fire shots, targets go down, and the last Brawler standing is the one you unlock. If you own most of the rarity already, the empty slots become blank targets. Rarity costs have not changed — 160 Credits for Rare, 430 for Super Rare, 925 for Epic, 1,900 for Mythic, 3,800 for Legendary, 5,500 for Ultra — and there is a fixed order of rarity unlocks that the Brawler Collection screen now shows you.
The other structural change: Rare and Super Rare Brawlers that used to come out of Trophy Road now come out of Brawler Blast instead. Trophy Road and Fame have both been pulled off the Home screen, and Brawler Blast and Fame now live inside the Brawler Collection — Blast on the left of your roster, Fame on the right.
Whether this is better or worse depends entirely on how you feel about being handed a Brawler versus picking one. It is undeniably more fun to watch. It is also, for anyone chasing a specific character, strictly less control than they had a month ago.
The Brawler List itself got rebuilt while Supercell was in there: it scrolls horizontally now to match the rest of the game, uses smaller cards so more of the roster fits on screen, and — finally — has a search function.
Royal Academy: Hank coaches, Nani runs the school
Season 54's Brawl Pass is built around two Epic skin sets. Set one is Head Coach Hank, with Trainer Hank and Team Captain Hank as its two chromas. Set two is Principal Nani, backed by Head Teacher Nani and Queen Nani. Clearing the pass also hands out the Royalty title.
Outside the pass, the season stocks Drum Major Najia and Academy Ollie as Mythic skins at 199 Gems each, Academy Mandy as a Legendary at 299 Gems, and Trash Goblin Darryl at 199 Gems. The standard Brawl Pass runs $8.99 and the Plus tier $12.99; the paid track carries 9,500 Coins, 2,500 Power Points, 2,500 Credits, 3,200 Bling and 50 Gems, with Plus raising the Gems to 150 and doubling the Keys.
Those Keys are new, and they feed a Vault. Four Key types unlock Buffies, resources, Brawlers and skins from it, and they can also be spent on skins from earlier passes — the Windstock sets from last month's season being the example Supercell points at. It is a soft fix for the oldest free-to-play complaint in the game: miss a season, lose the cosmetics forever.
Cosmo now, Vince in October
Cosmo is the Mythic Controller arriving this month — Starr Park Observatory's lead astronomer, and mechanically one of the stranger kits Supercell has shipped. His attack fires three projectiles that orbit in a circle, spreading apart as they travel while growing in both size and damage, so his damage profile inverts the usual falloff. His Super attaches a positive magnet to an enemy and gives his teammates' shots extreme homing toward that target, which makes him a genuinely coordination-dependent pick.
His gadgets split between control and denial: Planetary Pushback knocks enemies out of an area, while Telescope Trap reveals a zone for six seconds — invisible enemies included — and blocks every movement ability inside it, so no dashes, jumps or teleports. Star Powers are Precession, which speeds the orbit up 25%, and Ammo Attractor, which reloads two ammo on a Super hit.
Vince follows in October as a Mythic Damage Dealer, and he is the most mechanically fussy Brawler in a long while. Caterpillars spawn near him passively; hitting them with a coffee attack or walking over them converts them into moths for his collection, and dying costs him half of it. His Super inflicts a Caterpillar debuff that makes his main attacks hit harder, Metamothosis converts every nearby caterpillar at once, and Bug Bandage heals him 1,200 per conversion. A damage dealer whose output depends on a resource he loses on death is a real design risk — it will either be excellent or unplayable at high trophies.
Nori and Wendy also pick up Hypercharges: Master Fisherman pulls every enemy into the water with Nori before the area damage lands, and Green Energy boosts Wendy's Shield Generator health and absorbs 90% of the damage she and her teammates take.
Duo takes over for two weeks
The crossover is the headline, and Supercell is playing it as a mascot war: two green mascots, Duo and Spike, fighting over the same players. Duo's classroom becomes the setting for a brand-new Boss Fight, a Community Event, themed PSIs, daily rewards and a full event hub, running two weeks. The framing is that players collectively grind down increasingly powerful versions of Duo while community-wide challenges tick along in the background.
Outlets covering the Brawl Talk have pointed to September 19 as the start; Supercell's own release notes commit only to the two-week window, so treat the date as reported rather than confirmed. Reporting on the mode also describes a 20-player co-op boss encounter in which answering language questions grants buffs or shrugs off incoming damage — which would make it the largest single-lobby mode Brawl Stars has ever run.
And then Brawl-O-Ween, in phases
October is already spoken for. Brawl-O-Ween is being stretched into a month-long, multi-phase event with a story built around Gus, unlocked through puzzles, community choices and a creator-led segment before a finale ties it together. Classic Brawl-O-Ween bosses return and there is a new gacha coffin.
It also brings Loony, Gus's balloon buddy and Brawl Stars' first lobby companion. Loony sits on the Home screen for the duration, reacts to your matches, and can be poked, dragged, shaken, squeezed and thrown. It talks in speech bubbles about wins, losses, trophy milestones and unlocks — and there is a Loony Dialogue toggle in Settings that, in Supercell's words, tapes its mouth shut.
Loony's Loot layers on daily rewards: each of your six daily wins sends a reward into the balloon, and you press and hold to pop it open once all six are done. Rewards are Starr Drops or Chaos Drops, zero to two Starr Drops a day, and if you forget to claim, it grants automatically the next day.
The Royal Academy season is live now on iOS and Android, with the Brawl Pass and Cosmo available in-game and the balance pass — buffs for Jae-Yong, Bea, Ziggy, Jacky, Jessie, Colette, Janet, Maisie, Clancy, Bo, Eve, Buster and Tara among others — already applied.
