League of Legends’ 2025 Season 2 is arriving soon and with it comes a brand new game mode which is somehow even more relaxed than ARAM or Swift Play: Brawl.
While most of LoL’s recent game modes have been huge, complex creations with lots of layers like Swarm and Arena, Brawl is much simpler and straightforward. According to Riot Games, Brawl is LoL’s answer to team deathmatch in first-person shooter games where two teams compete to collect the most kills.
The Brawl mode will take place on a brand-new, adorable map themed around Bandle City, the mystical and whimsical home of Yordles like Teemo and Heimerdinger. Here’s everything you need to know about Brawl.
What is League of Legends Brawl?
LoL Brawl is a fast-paced version of the MOBA simplified to extreme measures. Every player picks their champion, then loads into a map where there are no towers, no objectives, and no epic monsters. There are two teams of five players and each team’s minions, nothing more.
Both teams have a collective health bar of 250 points. Once a team’s health drops to zero, the other team wins and, according to Riot, this should only take around 10 minutes, which makes it LoL’s quickest mode yet.
But how do you reduce your opponents’ health bar? Simply by picking up kills and pushing minions. Every champion kill deals five damage to the enemy team. Killing a minion will also deal one damage to your opponents until they hit a certain threshold, allowing for possible comebacks. While this one damage doesn’t sound like a lot, it can rack up quickly. Especially because on the opposite side of your spawn will be a portal that you can escort minions into. Doing so will deal another one damage to your opponents, even when the team is low health. If you can clear an enemy wave and then push a wave of your own uncontested into a portal, you’ll quickly rack up a lot of damage.
While there are no objectives, there are still some jungle camps positioned on the side of the Brawl map’s single lane. These camps will each deal out unique and powerful buffs that will supposedly make every type of champion and playstyle viable. However, no other details about these camps have been made available yet.
There are also snowball mechanics, meaning players will earn a significant amount of gold just for existing and earn even more by picking up kills and farming. However, Riot has also put in a comeback mechanic by increasing the damage a struggling team deals and reducing the amount of damage they take, evening out the playing field for players of all skill levels.
Is League of Legends Brawl good?
It’s hard to say, considering the mode isn’t even out yet, but it likely depends on what you want from your LoL gameplay.
Riot Games are aiming for this to be a casual game mode for people who want to play with no pressure. There’s no strategy or intense gameplay, just a relaxed mode for people who want a quick game or a stress-free environment for new players who want to practice a champion, something the randomness of ARAM doesn’t allow.
And with the comeback mechanics, Riot are also hoping Brawl will be a good place for friend groups of differing skill levels to play together.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
