If you’ve spent any time scrolling Brawl Stars TikTok clips or browsing community Reddit threads, you’ve probably seen players show off flashy, unusual skins that you’ve never spotted in a random match. Many new players immediately ask what is the rarest Brawl Stars skin, and the answer isn’t as straightforward as you might think. Skins can be rare for dozens of reasons, from limited-time collab runs to tournament-exclusive rewards that were only given to a handful of players globally. I’ve been playing Brawl Stars since its global launch, and I’ve only seen three of the skins on this list in real matches over the last six years.
What Makes a Brawl Stars Skin Rare?
Rarity doesn’t always come down to how old a skin is, though that’s a big factor for many of the hardest-to-find cosmetics. Some skins are rare because they were only available for 48 hours during a special event, or only given to players who placed top 10 in a regional official tournament. Collaboration skins are almost always rare, because Supercell rarely re-runs collab content once the partnership period ends. I remember when the Line Friends collab dropped in 2021, I skipped buying the Brown Bull skin because I thought it would come back, and I still regret it to this day.
Closed beta exclusive skins are some of the hardest to find, because only a small pool of testers had access to the game before global launch. Also, skins that were removed from the shop due to copyright or community feedback will never return, making them ultra rare by default. Some skins are also tied to one-time account features, so if you didn’t complete the required action during the eligibility window, you can never unlock that skin later.
What is the Rarest Brawl Stars Skin? Our Top Pick Explained
If you’ve ever asked what is the rarest Brawl Stars skin in any community forum, this is the answer you’ll get 9 times out of 10. The undisputed rarest skin in the game is Star Shelly, a metallic, star-spangled variant of the starter brawler Shelly. It was only given to players who created a Brawl Stars account during the game’s soft launch period between June 2017 and December 2017, before the global release in 2018. Supercell has confirmed multiple times that this skin will never be re-released, no matter how many players ask for it.
Recent community surveys show that less than 0.1% of active global Brawl Stars players own Star Shelly, which makes it rarer than almost any other cosmetic in any mobile game right now. If you ever see a Star Shelly in a match, you’re almost definitely playing against someone who’s been part of the community since the very beginning. I’ve only ever seen Star Shelly twice in real matches, both times against players who have over 70,000 trophies on their accounts.
Some people try to sell accounts with Star Shelly for hundreds of dollars on third-party marketplaces, but buying or selling Brawl Stars accounts violates Supercell’s terms of service and can lead to a permanent ban, so it’s never worth the risk. Even if you don’t get banned immediately, most account sellers can recover the account after you pay, leaving you out of money and without the rare skin you wanted.
Other Ultra-Rare Brawl Stars Skins You Might Never See
While Star Shelly is the clear top pick for rarest skin, there are a handful of other skins that are almost as hard to find, either because of limited release windows or exclusive eligibility rules. The most coveted of these skins include:
You might notice that all of these skins have one thing in common: they had very clear, limited eligibility windows that most players either missed or didn’t qualify for at the time. Many new players assume that older skins are always rare, but that’s not the case. For example, the original Pirate Colt skin from 2018 has been re-released three times, so it’s not nearly as rare as many players think. The only way to confirm a skin’s real rarity is to check community surveys that track ownership rates across active players.
How to Spot Fake Rare Skin Claims Online
As rare skins have become more coveted in the Brawl Stars community, a lot of scammers have started posting fake videos and listings claiming to have codes for rare skins that don’t actually exist. There are a few easy ways to tell if a rare skin claim is fake. First, Supercell never gives out skin codes for free to random players, so any post claiming you can get Star Shelly for free by clicking a link is 100% a scam. All legitimate skin rewards are distributed directly through the in-game client to eligible players, so you’ll never have to enter your account details on a third-party site to claim one.
Another red flag is if someone claims they have a “limited code” for a collab skin that’s been out of rotation for years. Collab skin codes were only given to a very small number of content creators during the original event window, and all of those codes expired within 6 months of the event ending, so any code being sold today is guaranteed to be invalid. I’ve seen dozens of new players get scammed out of money or their accounts trying to get rare skins, so it’s always better to avoid any third-party offers that sound too good to be true.
If you really want to collect rare skins, the best thing you can do is log in regularly during limited events and grab any collab or event-exclusive skins you like when they first come out, because you never know if they’ll ever come back. Even if a skin seems unremarkable when it first drops, it could become a coveted rare item in a few years if Supercell never re-releases it.
At the end of the day, the question of what is the rarest Brawl Stars skin has a clear answer, but rarity doesn’t make a skin better. Some of my favorite skins in the game are common ones that I picked up for 80 gems during a random shop rotation, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out just because I don’t have Star Shelly. If you’re a collector, focus on grabbing limited skins when they’re available instead of wasting time trying to get skins that are no longer obtainable. And if you ever do see a Star Shelly in a match, make sure to say hi – they’re probably a long-time fan who has a lot of good tips for new players.