Everything you need to know about the Brawlhalla Winter Championships 2020
Brawlhalla competitive tournaments have gone from strength to strength in the last few years, and it seems the exhilarating 2D platform fighting game isn’t done yet for year five.
The Brawlhalla Winter Championship (Online) is open-entry, running from the 22nd of February to the 23rd and will feature the best Brawl players from America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
There are 32 places in the World Championship final, with the largest single tournament prize pool in Brawlhalla Esports history: $150,000.
WHO WILL WE SEE COMPETING?
While the Winter Championship isn’t invite-only, we can expect to see some of the previous years' champions come back to reclaim their titles. These players include Boomie (Tempo Storm clan) who was Brawlhalla World Champion in 2017 and 2019, as well as ithrowow and STTP Wilson. Director of esports at Brawlhalla, Foda, also confirmed to us that Phazon and SimbaTheJanitor (NA) will be in the running, as well as simpLe and Zero (EU).
Click to enlargeWHAT TO EXPECT TO SEE IN THE GAMEPLAY
When it comes to the legends that will be used in the Brawlhalla Winter Championship matches, we can look to the most popular legend stats from the 2019 World Championships. The most used characters were by far defence-heavy Barraza and stat-balanced Bodvar (in a 2v2 scenario) with Japanese-inspired Hattori being the next most-picked brawler. Less used, but still fashionable were Norse god character Thor, cowgirl Cassidy, and samurai Koji.
The weapons these Legends implement make up the meta of recent competition; blasters, axes and the staff. Gadgets are not included in competitive matches, neither are boosted stats, and team damage is on. While the lance weapon is king in public games (used by Orion, Vector, etc) this doesn’t appear to be the case at a pro-level.
Blasters users tend to implement the ABS method – always be shooting, This gives you a chance to catch players who breeze into the range of your shots. Staff-using legends can also employ the powerful helicopter hit move (spinning down or up). Axes pack a punch, so its easy to understand why they are used so frequently.
When it comes to strategy, edge-guarding is enforced by many players, who will camp the edge of a map when the opposing player/s are returning from a hit with the intention of smacking them down, as is gatekeeping weapons (throwing your previous weapon to pick another one up so your competitor is left unarmed) which can prove very frustrating even in casual games.
TOURNAMENT DATES
FEB 22, 2020
Brawlhalla Winter Championship 2020 (NA) – 1v1
FEB 23, 2020
Brawlhalla Winter Championship 2020 (AUS) – 1v1
FEB 23, 2020
Brawlhalla Winter Championship 2020 (SEA) – 1v1
FEB 23, 2020
Brawlhalla Winter Championship 2020 (EU) – 1v1
FEB 23, 2020
Brawlhalla Winter Championship 2020 (SA) – 1v1
WHERE TO WATCH THE WINTER CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES
All match fixtures of the Brawlhalla Winter Championships will be streamed on the official Brawlhalla Twitch and you can check out their Twitter for stream time info, or join their official Discord server.
Images via Ubisoft and PAImages