I Played 367 Matches of Brawl (Yes, Really) — Here's What It Got Right (and Wrong)

I've been a fan of League of Legends for a few years, starting back in Season 2 when Darius was adorning the log-in screen by smashing in the head of a hapless soldier. Riot Games' MOBA was different at the time: the meta was not as well-established, the game was still (arguably) niche, and for-fun game modes were still a thing.

When Season 8 came around, I lost that drive to play Summoner's Rift Ranked — I explored this in my article talking about how Brawl was everything I needed from League of Legends— and I became an ARAM slave since then. I've played nearly 10,000 matches, but I stopped caring as much due to the lack of progression and agency on being able to play what I wanted, because who wants to bear the mantle of Udyr in an all-ranged composition?

Brawl came and went in what felt like a blur — I was unable to enjoy over 10 days of it due to Summer Game Fest, but I still managed to log over 300 matches (367, to be exact) before it ran out. I keep a spreadsheet at hand to calculate all sorts of things, and according to this, I spent an average of 73 hours playing it.

Now, we're out the other side. Brawl is gone from League of Legends with no return confirmed (Riot Games has been verbal in reddit that they're gathering feedback, but the when is as murky as ever), and it's back to slaving away at ARAM. But now that hindsight is 20:20, let's talk a bit about Brawl: what it got right, what it got wrong, and things I wish to see in the future.

Right: The Map

As a person who has sunk hours upon hours in the Howling Abyss, I would be remiss not to mention the map of Brawl. Having previously felt envy towards the face-lifts that Summoner's Rift gets adorned with, I can't say I didn't feel envy that our bridge has only gotten a few repairs over the last years.

I'm a fan of the Freljord, don't get me wrong, but the Howling Abyss was built in April 2013, which means it's a 12-year-old map. It's old, it has antiquated textures… after 10,000 matches, I was tired of the blues and whites.

Sure, the recent update added rotating maps like Butcher’s Bridge and Koeshin’s Crossing, but once they rotate out, it’s back to the same old. Bandle City is beautiful, featuring a wide range of colours, high-graphic textures, and a pretty great terrain that isn't too restrictive, but terrain-dependent champions can still enjoy it (another thing about Howling Abyss that isn't great).

Wrong: Yordle Catch-Up Buff

I don't often like to use the word loathe... but I loathe the Yordle Catch-up Buff.

Look, in a for-fun game mode, I get that you don't want early-game champions to snowball and end the match too quickly, but the Yordle Catch-up Buff entirely removed the possibility of finishing a match early before enemies inevitably scaled. Brawl is ticket-based, like SMITE's Arena, so there's no rushing turrets and the Nexus before notoriously early-game champions get out-scaled by Kayle or Smolder.

This buff dictated way too much about how the match would evolve. Increasing your damage taken by 20% and reducing enemy damage taken by 20% means there's a 40% damage discrepancy that, at the whim of the announcer, you would have to account for. Oh, I'm sorry — did it catch you in the middle of a teamfight? Too bad. Now Quinn is pretty much a tank with free 70 Armor and Magic Resist.

There was a match where the enemy had a Kayle, and I was playing Rell. I told my mostly-Early-Game team that we should press the advantage, engaging as much as we could. They got the Yordle Catch-up Buff...

Four times.

Even winning with it feels ungratifying. If you're falling behind, the comeback doesn't feel like you managed to endure and out-scale; you just waited until the Yordle Gods blessed you and then steamrolled them to feed your carry, ensuring they get the on-fire buff to boot to reduce their haste. It makes no sense.

Right: Picking Phase (or Lack Thereof)

SMITE's Arena is a crapshow of trying to click your God faster than everyone else, and though victory favours the swift-fingered, there's little more infuriating than engaging in chivalrous behaviour and hovering your preferred God... only to have someone either disregard it or pick it and insta-lock.

I'm not going to pretend that Brawl's champion select is perfect, but the thing is, nothing would please everyone. A more Summoner's Rift experience of pick-and-ban would make the matches artificially longer, whereas a free-for-all just leads to hating your teammates before you've even logged into the round.

Sure, there were times we were full AD, or full AP, or had no engage... but with 10-minute matches, that seldom mattered because, before I knew it, I was already in my next game. Being able to ensure you can play your favourite champion means less having to optimise, which, though I'd love to be able to coordinate a full knock-up team for Yasuo, just sounds like a nightmare to get what you'd like.

It's not perfect, but it's a compromise to ensure everyone can enjoy their champions. But on that note...

Wrong: Champion Variety and Balancing

Shaco. Kha'zix. Smolder. Kayle. Blitzcrank. Pyke. Mel. Brand... Is your blood boiling yet? Because I had to take a breather from the PC just typing those names.

The League of Legends community has a bit of a min-maxing habit that has all too often burnt out players from the for-fun game modes. URF notoriously got hit with people picking the best-in-slot and then steamrolling the enemy who dared to have the gall to experiment with something new. Brawl fell into this category slightly, but there were also no balancing mechanics in place to punish this sort of behaviour.

Look, it's Brawl's first run, and I'm willing to bet it's something the team is trying to brainstorm at the moment. I often wonder, if Brawl hadn't been limited, would the need to squeeze every ounce of fun from the game mode have existed? Was it a problem with those who loved these champions simply picking them because it was only going to be around for a minimal time?

Whether it was due to the limited-time nature or their balancing, I hope we can at least be free from the constant meta-abusing, to some extent, in the next iteration.

What I'd Like to See

I played 367 matches of Brawl; I don't have to tell you I loved it — I'd hope that's implied. It's fun, it's fast, it fits the perfect casual need for those who want to play League of Legends... but don't want to play League of Legends. When it returns, I'll be there trying to play another 300,400 matches (Summer Game Fest willing), and I'll enjoy it to the maximum. I've highlighted what I liked and disliked, but there's so much more I couldn't fit into one article, but there are a few things I'd like to see.

First of all, I'm one of those nerds who paid for the Eternals. Yeah, I know; I got scammed and bought glorified Champion-specific achievements when Challenges released shortly after — sue me. I like it when the numbers go higher, and I like keeping track of these things, but if Brawl were to become permanent and Eternals still disabled? I'd be gutted.

Next up is none other than minions. Look, I picked Rell for 100 matches in a row trying to get the Iron Maiden title, which means that it took me about three hours to kill one wave of minions, and by that time, the match was pretty much over. My glee of shoving in six measly creeps and sticking it to the enemy was, too often, invalidated by AoE clearing. Sydra, Lux, Aurelion Sol, Ziggs, Brand, Malzahar... one measly AoE spell, and suddenly, that was three hours of hard work thrown in the bin. Minions have to have more consequences teams who abandon one-person clearers.

Finally, my final mention has to go to the zoom. My wife has Fibromyalgia — despite what Family Guy might have you believe about the condition — and Brawl's map is more packed than the Howling Abyss. The zoom being Summoner's Rift level rather than ARAM feels criminal — it makes playing in Purple Side a pain (literally) for my wife, and it makes catching the millions of flying spells a near impossibility. I'm lucky I learned to play, and can, with the camera unlocked, but melee champions facing three ranged while stuck on the Purple Side is something I don't think makes for a fun experience for most.

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There are so many other things I'd love to touch on. Jungling and how it was a bit too strong, match length, how I'd love for it to be longer, tickets, new announcer... but these were the things I found were most prominent in my time throughout Brawl.

The short and sweet of it is this: Brawl was the ARAM experience condensed into a "pick-your-champion" format with a nearly perfect match length — short enough that if you ended up getting stuck with the most obnoxious team known to humanity, you can forget about it in the sea of other games. But the Yordle Catch-Up Buff needs to be entirely reworked or removed (hopefully the latter).

Oh, and to everyone who played about 20 matches of any of the overpowered champions back-to-back with disregard? For shame.

I'm kidding. No, I'm not.