Playing
How a scrim works
From pressing Join to your rating changing, step by step.
A scrim is a practice match between two teams. BrawlScrims runs the whole thing inside Discord, so nobody has to organise it. You join a queue, and the bot handles the teams, the maps, the result and the ratings.
Numbers on this page are the defaults. Every server can change them, and Settings and features lists them all.
From queue to result
- Join a queue. A queue is a channel with a panel in it. Press Join Queue on the panel. It shows how many players are already waiting. Press it again to leave the queue.
- Wait for it to fill. A match starts when 6 players are in. The bot prefers players close to your rating, and widens the search the longer you wait, so a quiet queue still fills.
- Go to the match channel. When a match is found, the bot opens a private channel for the players. It pings you there and sends you a direct message.
- Ready up. Everyone has 4 minutes to press Ready Up in that channel. The match only starts once every player has.
- Get your teams. The bot then posts both teams and the maps for the series. Teams are made by ELO, and parties stay together. You never pick teams yourself.
- Host the room. One of you opens a friendly battle in Brawl Stars, invites everyone, puts players on the teams the bot gave you and shares the code. The bot doesn't pick a host, so agree on it in the channel.
- Play the series. A match is best of 5 by default. The first team to win 3 maps wins the match.
- Vote. Press Vote in the match channel and pick the team that won the whole series. The result is locked once 4 of the 6 players agree. In the same panel you can vote for an MVP, but not for yourself.
- Ratings update. Winners gain rating and losers drop some. Rank roles change for anyone who moved rank, and the result is posted in the results channel. The match channel is deleted 5 minutes later.
Ranked and casual queues
Every queue is one of two kinds. In a ranked queue your rating moves and the result counts on the leaderboard. A casual queue plays exactly the same way, with the same teams, but ratings never change. Casual is good for warming up or trying a brawler you don't usually play.
The panel and the channel name tell you which kind a queue is.
When something goes wrong
| What happened | What to do |
|---|---|
| Someone didn't ready up | Nothing: the match is cancelled, and everyone who readied goes back to the front of the queue, in the order they joined. In ranked queues, the players who didn't ready get an automatic warning, on servers that use warnings. |
| Everyone wants to stop | Use /cancel. It needs 4
players to agree. A cancelled match changes nobody's rating. |
| Your team wants to give up | Use /forfeit. Your whole team
has to agree, and the other team gets the win. |
| Someone left mid-game | The bot can't see inside Brawl Stars, so it
won't notice. Agree to /cancel, or play it out and vote as
normal. |
| Nobody agrees on who won | Ask a Scrim Supervisor. Staff can set the result from the match channel. |
| The match is stuck | Ask a Scrim Supervisor to end it with
/setresult in the match channel. You can't queue on this server
until it ends, or until 3 hours after it started. |
| The bot couldn't start the match | This can happen when the bot is missing a permission. Nobody is kept out of the queue by it. The players are put back in the queue, and anyone who isn't can join again straight away. |
Staying in the queue
You can't join a queue while you're still in a match on the same server. That includes the ready-up stage. Once your match has a result or is cancelled, you can join again. A party can't queue while any of its members is still in a match there.
A match only holds you back on its own server. It never stops you queueing on another one. A match that still hasn't ended 3 hours after it started stops holding you back too, and so does one whose channel was deleted.
If you sit in a queue for 60 minutes, the bot checks you're still there. Press Still here within 10 minutes, or you're taken out of the queue.