If you’re tired of grinding ranked matches and risking your hard-earned trophies every time you want to mess around with friends or test a new brawler build, knowing how to do friendly battles in Brawl Stars is the solution you’ve been missing. These low-stakes, custom matches let you set your own rules, play with whoever you want, and mess up as much as you like without any penalty to your account progress. I’ve spent hundreds of hours messing around in these matches with my clanmates, testing weird team comps and new game modes before they hit the main rotation, so I’ve got all the details you need to get set up fast.
How to Do Friendly Battles in Brawl Stars: Step-by-Step Setup
Setting up a friendly battle takes less than 30 seconds once you know where to look, and you don’t need any special account level or unlock to access the feature. First, load into the main game screen and tap the “Friendly Battle” icon on the right-hand side of the play menu, right below the ranked and event match options. From there, you’ll get to pick the game mode, map, and any special rules you want to apply before sending invites.
You can invite players from your friends list, your clan, or even share a room code with people you’re playing with cross-platform, as long as they have a Brawl Stars account on any supported device. If you don’t have enough people to fill both teams, you can add bot players to fill empty slots, adjusting their difficulty from easy to master to match your skill level. You can also lock the room so no random players can join if you only want to play with people you know.
One common mistake new players make is thinking they need to have a full 3v3 team to start a friendly battle, but that’s not true. You can play 1v1, 2v2, or even free-for-all showdown matches with as few as two players total, so don’t wait for a full group to start having fun. You can even swap teams mid-match if you want to mix up the dynamic without starting a whole new room.
Best Rules and Settings to Use for Friendly Battles
The best part of friendly battles is that you’re not stuck with the default rules Supercell uses for public matches. You can tweak almost every setting to fit what you and your group want to play, whether you’re messing around for fun or practicing for an upcoming clan tournament. I’ve tested almost every combination of settings over the years, and these are my go-to picks for different scenarios:
- For casual fun with friends: Turn off friendly fire, set bot difficulty to easy, and pick a silly game mode like volley brawl or basket brawl for low-stakes laughs. You can also enable unlimited supers if you want to mess around with maximum chaos.
- For practicing new brawlers or builds: Set bot difficulty to expert or master, pick a ranked map from the current rotation, and keep default rules on. This lets you get used to how your brawler plays in real match conditions without risking trophies.
- For clan scrims or competitive practice: Use the exact map and mode pool for the next clan war match, enable friendly fire, and turn off bot assists so you get the same experience as a real competitive match. You can even set a match timer to mirror official tournament rules.
Don’t be afraid to mess around with weird rule combinations, either. I once ran a friendly battle where we only allowed brawlers with melee attacks and unlimited supers, and it ended up being one of the most fun matches my clan has ever had. The only limit is your creativity, so feel free to test out silly rules that sound fun to your group.
Fun Ways to Use Friendly Battles Beyond Casual Play
Most players only use friendly battles to mess around with friends, but they’re actually one of the most useful tools in the game for improving your skill and connecting with your clan. If you’re only using friendly battles for silly matches, you’re missing out on a ton of value.
One of the best uses for friendly battles is testing new team compositions before you take them into ranked or clan war matches. If you and your clanmates want to try a triple-support comp for a siege match, you can test it 10 times in friendly battles to work out kinks before you risk losing trophies or clan war points. I’ve saved my clan dozens of war losses by testing off-meta comps in friendly battles first to make sure they actually work against real player strategies.
You can also use friendly battles to teach new players how to play the game, without throwing public matches for other random players. If you have a friend who just downloaded the game, you can walk them through how different brawlers work, how to use cover, and how to play different game modes in a low-pressure environment where no one will get mad at them for making mistakes. It’s way better than throwing them into ranked matches where they’ll get crushed by more experienced players and quit before they get a chance to enjoy the game.
Another underrated use is hosting small clan tournaments with prizes, like in-game gift cards or custom clan roles, for the winning team. My clan runs a monthly friendly battle tournament, and it’s become one of the most popular events we host, helping us keep members active and connected even when there are no new in-game events to play. We even let members vote on the rules and maps each month to keep things fresh.
Common Friendly Battle Mistakes to Avoid
Even though friendly battles are low-stakes, there are a few common mistakes that can ruin the fun for everyone playing, or stop you from getting the most out of your matches. I’ve made almost all of these mistakes myself, so I can tell you exactly what to watch out for.
The first mistake is forgetting to adjust your settings before sending invites, especially if you’re hosting a scrim or practice match. If you leave unlimited supers turned on from your last silly casual match, your practice session for clan wars will be completely useless, and you’ll waste 20 minutes of your team’s time. I always double-check my settings before I send any invites, just to make sure everything is set up the way we want it.
Another big mistake is being too competitive in casual friendly matches with friends who just want to mess around. It’s fine to try hard if you’re playing a scrim, but if your friend is trying out a new brawler they just unlocked, don’t spawn camp them and brag about winning every round. The point of casual friendly battles is to have fun, not to prove you’re the best player in the group. I’ve seen a lot of petty arguments start over nothing because someone took a silly match way too seriously.
You also want to avoid leaving your friendly battle room open to the public if you’re playing with a small group of friends. Random players will join constantly, and you’ll have to kick them over and over, which gets annoying really fast. Just tap the lock icon on the room screen once everyone you want has joined, and you won’t have to deal with random interruptions. If you do want to let new people join, you can always unlock it later whenever you want.
At the end of the day, friendly battles are one of the most flexible, fun features Brawl Stars has to offer, whether you’re looking to mess around with friends, practice for competitive play, or teach new players the ropes. Now that you know how to do friendly battles in Brawl Stars, you can stop stressing about losing trophies every time you want to try something new in the game. Next time you’re bored of the regular event rotation, grab a few friends, tweak the settings to whatever you want, and enjoy a match that’s totally tailored to your playstyle. You might even find a new favorite game mode or brawler build you never would have tried in public matches.