Brawl Stars: New Legendary Brawler Sandy, Lone Star and Takedown Modes, New Skins, and Balance Changes Explained

Brawl Stars just received a massive new update, introducing Legendary Brawler Sandy, two new game modes, new skins, and a whole host of balance changes. There’s so much going on in this new update that we thought we’d put together a guide explaining it all to help you make sense of it.

New Legendary Brawler: Sandy

Sandy is a brand new Legendary Brawler that specialises in AoE attacks and group support. His attacks hit moderately hard and can assist his teammates, from hiding them to healing them.

Statistics and Skills

Star Powers

Rude Sands

Sandstorm now also damages enemies for 200 damage per second.

Healing Winds

Sandstorm now also heals friendly Brawlers for 300 health per second.

New Game Modes:

There are two new game modes in Brawl Stars, one of which you can play right now, and another that will arrive soon. Let’s take a closer look at these new modes.

Lone Star

Lone Star is basically a free for all version of Bounty. 10 players compete with each other to gather as many stars as possible until the game is over, with the winner being the player with the most stars at the end. Die and you respawn on the edge of the map.

Takedown

Takedown isn’t currently available in Brawl Stars. It’s yet another free for all mode that sees 10 players try and take down a boss that’s controlled by the AI. The winner is the player that deals the most damage to the boss, and you can sabotage your opponents by attacking them and taking them out.

Again, you respawn on the edge of the map upon death. To help struggling players, Power Cubes will spawn randomly on the edge of the map, and defeated players will drop these upon death.

New Skins

Gene, Sandy, and Barley will all receive special new skins soon, and we’ve included their images below to give you a taste.

Pirate Gene – 80 Gems

Sleepy Sandy – 30 Gems

Red Wizard Barley – 2,500 Star Points

Brawler Balance Changes

Below, we’ll round up all of the balance changes that affect all of your favourite Brawlers.

Barley

Barley gets a buff. His Medical Use Star Power now heals 400, up from 300.

Brock

Brock gets a buff. His Incendiary Star Power now deals 500 damage per second, up from 400.

Crow

Crow gets a buff. Enemies deal 13% less damage during the Extra Toxic Star Power, and Carrion Crow grants a 120 damage bonus, up from 100.

Nita

Nita gets a buff. Hyper Bear Star Power now increases Bear’s attack speed by 60%, up from 50%.

Pam

Pam gets a buff, and now deals 260 main attack damage, up from 240.

Rosa

Rosa gets a buff. Her health increases from 5,200 to 5,400 and her Thorny Gloves Star Power increases from 200 to 220.

8-BIT

8-BIT gets a nerf. Reload speed has been increased to 1.5s from 1.3, and Extra Life now respawns with no ammo.

Bibi

Bibi gets a nerf to Home Run Star Power, which now increases speed from 15% to 12%.

El Primo

El Primo gets a nerf. His Meteor Rush Star Power will now increase his speed by 28%, down from 32%.

Mortis

Mortis gets a nerf. His Coiled Snake Star Power now charges slower, in 3.5 seconds rather than three seconds.

Piper

Piper gets a nerf. Her Snappy Sniping Star Power provides a 0.3 bullet gain, down from 0.4.

Shelly

Shelly gets a nerf. Her Band Aid Star Power now heals 1,800, down from 2,000.

Tick

Tick gets a nerf. Their Automa-Tick Reload Star Power now decreases reload time by 13%, from 15%.

Carl

Carl gets a buff and a nerf. His main attack now deals 600 damage, up from 580, but a 0.5s cooldown has been applied between attacks. This is to prevent spamming his main attack by standing near a wall.

Poco

Poco gets a buff and a nerf. His Da Capo Star Power now heals 600, up from 500 but his Screeching Solo Star Power now only deals 800 damage, down from 1,000.

Miscellaneous Fixes and Changes

Now we’ll round up all of the miscellaneous changes included in the latest update:

• El Primo and his skins have been redesigned
• Summer Jessie’s effects have been redesigned
• Beach Brock’s effects have been redesigned
• Rico’s animations have been redesigned
• Piper, Bo, and El Primo have new portraits
• There’s a new event slot, which unlocks at 1,600 Trophies
• Lone Star and Takedown will appear in this new slot, with seven new maps for each mode
• Invisibility no longer works against IKE in Siege
• In Boss Fight, the boss will now target the closest Brawler when using a Rocket Attack
• In Showdown, the maximum number of Power Cubes a Brawler can drop has been capped at 5.
• Brawl Stars no longer supports x86 Android devices

Glen Fox

Head of Editorial

Glen has over a decade's worth of experience in gaming journalism, writing for Pocket Gamer, Pocket Tactics, Nintendo Life, and Gfinity. When he's not badgering everyone about the dangers of passive text, you can probably find him playing Wild Rift.