If you’re a casual or competitive Brawl Stars fan who missed the jam-packed final weekend of the year’s biggest esports tournament, you’re almost certainly asking one question first: who won Brawl Stars World Finals 2024? Held for the first time in Jönköping, Sweden, this year’s event brought 16 of the best teams from 8 global regions together to compete for a $1 million prize pool, the largest in the tournament’s history up to that point. Over three days of matches, fans saw wild upsets, last-second clutches, and meta-breaking plays that no one saw coming. This recap covers everything you need to know about the winning team, their path to the trophy, the most memorable moments of the weekend, and what this result means for the future of Brawl Stars competitive play.
Who Won Brawl Stars World Finals 2024? The Winning Team’s Unstoppable Run
The 2024 Brawl Stars World Finals trophy went to North American squad Tribe Gaming, who pulled off a near-perfect run through the entire tournament without dropping a single series. The team’s roster, made up of veteran players Chino, Tyrant, and Yoshi, first qualified for the world finals by dominating the North American regional circuit, winning 9 out of 10 seasonal events to lock in their spot as the region’s first seed. Once they arrived in Sweden, they didn’t slow down at all: they finished first in their group with a 3-0 record, dropping only one map across all three group stage matches.
In the knockout stage, they faced off against European fan favorite SK Gaming in the quarterfinals, beating them 3-1 with a surprise Mortis pick that caught SK completely off guard. They moved on to face Japanese squad Crazy Raccoon in the semifinals, where they pulled off a clean 3-0 win to book their spot in the grand final against reigning 2023 champions ZETA DIVISION. Even against the defending champs, Tribe never looked overwhelmed, taking the grand final 3-0 to claim the title, the $400,000 grand prize, and bragging rights as the best Brawl Stars team in the world.
I’ve watched every Brawl Stars World Finals since the first event in 2019, and I can safely say this is the most dominant performance I’ve ever seen from a team at this level. Most teams struggle to keep their momentum going across three days of high-stakes play, but Tribe looked just as sharp in their first group stage match as they did in the final round of the grand final.
Key Moments That Defined the 2024 World Finals Grand Final
The grand final between Tribe Gaming and ZETA DIVISION was easily the most viewed match in Brawl Stars esports history, with 2.8 million concurrent viewers tuning in across all streaming platforms. It was also full of the kind of high-octane, chaotic plays that make competitive Brawl Stars so fun to watch. Even if you don’t follow the pro scene, these moments are worth going out of your way to watch the VOD for.
The three standout plays of the grand final were:
- Tyrant’s last-second Colt triple-kill on Gem Grab (Hard Rock Mine) to secure the first map win, turning a 9-7 ZETA lead into a 10-9 Tribe win with less than 10 seconds left on the clock
- Chino’s back-to-back Mortis Brawl Ball goals on Pinhole Punt, including one where he dodged three enemy abilities and crossed the finish line with 2 seconds left to win the map and put Tribe up 2-0 in the series
- Yoshi’s 12,000 damage Brock performance on Siege (Nuts & Bolts), where he took out ZETA’s entire backline three separate times without dying once, letting Tribe build their own siege bot and push to win the final map in under 4 minutes
What made these plays even more impressive is that ZETA DIVISION came into the grand final as the heavy favorite, with most analysts predicting they’d win their second consecutive world title. Tribe’s ability to catch them off guard with unconventional picks and aggressive play caught ZETA completely flat-footed, and they never managed to adjust their strategy to keep up. Even ZETA’s star player, Ragnar, admitted in a post-match interview that Tribe’s playstyle was nothing like what they’d prepared for in scrims.
What Made Tribe Gaming’s Tournament Strategy So Effective
Most pro teams heading into the 2024 World Finals stuck to the same small pool of S-tier brawlers that dominated ranked play for the previous two months: Pearl, Chuck, Mico, and Angelo were picked in nearly 90% of matches across the group stage. But Tribe Gaming took a completely different approach, mixing in off-meta picks that no other team was using, and it paid off massively.
Their pre-tournament preparation was far more extensive than most other teams, according to their post-win press conference. They spent 6 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 3 months leading up to the tournament scrimming against teams from 6 different regions, including teams that didn’t even qualify for the world finals, to practice countering as many different playstyles as possible. They also tested dozens of off-meta picks in scrims to find ones that could counter the meta brawlers everyone else was using, and they kept those picks secret until the tournament started, so no other teams could prepare counters for them.
Another big part of their success was their near-perfect communication. All three players have been on the same team for over two years, so they know each other’s playstyles inside and out, and they don’t waste time arguing or second-guessing each other during matches. Even when they were down on a map, they stayed calm, stuck to their game plan, and looked for openings to turn the match around. That level of mental toughness is rare in esports, especially when you’re playing for a $400,000 grand prize in front of millions of viewers.
If you’re an aspiring competitive Brawl Stars player, there’s a lot you can learn from Tribe’s strategy. You don’t have to just copy whatever brawlers are at the top of the tier list every season: if you take the time to practice a brawler you’re good with, even if it’s not considered meta, you can catch your opponents off guard and win matches you’d otherwise lose. Just make sure you know how to counter the top meta picks with your chosen brawler first, otherwise you’ll run into trouble against players who stick to the meta.
What This Win Means for the Future of Competitive Brawl Stars
Tribe Gaming’s 2024 World Finals win is a huge milestone for the North American Brawl Stars competitive scene, and for Brawl Stars esports as a whole. They’re the first team ever to win the Brawl Stars World Finals twice, having previously taken home the trophy in 2022, and they’re the first North American team to win the title in three years. This win also proves that regional underdogs can compete with the dominant Asian and European teams that have won most of the major Brawl Stars esports events over the past few years.
We’re already starting to see the impact of this win on the casual Brawl Stars meta too. In the first week after the tournament ended, pick rates for Colt and Mortis in ranked play jumped 78% and 62% respectively, as casual players tried to copy the picks Tribe used to dominate the tournament. If you’ve been playing ranked lately, you’ve almost certainly run into more Mortis and Colt players than usual, and that trend will probably stick around for at least the next few seasons, until Supercell releases balance changes that adjust the meta.
Supercell also announced during the 2024 World Finals broadcast that next year’s event will have a $1.5 million prize pool, a 50% increase from this year’s, and that they’ll be adding 4 more regional slots to the tournament, so 20 teams will compete instead of 16. That means more opportunities for teams from smaller regions to make it to the world finals, and more diverse playstyles and strategies for fans to watch. They also revealed that they’re launching a new global pro circuit next year, with monthly international tournaments leading up to the world finals, so fans will have a lot more high-level competitive Brawl Stars to watch throughout the year.
For casual fans, that means more content, more fun plays to watch, and more opportunities to learn new strategies from pro players that you can use in your own ranked matches. Even if you don’t care about competitive play, the balance changes that will come from the meta shifts after this tournament will make casual matches feel fresh and different, which is always a good thing for a game that’s been around as long as Brawl Stars has.
At the end of the day, knowing who won Brawl Stars World Finals 2024 is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to everything that happened during this year’s tournament. Whether you’re a casual player who wants to try out the new meta picks the pros used, an aspiring pro player who wants to learn from Tribe’s dominant strategy, or just a fan who wants to go back and watch the most exciting plays from the weekend, there’s something for everyone in the 2024 World Finals VODs. I’m already excited to see how the competitive scene grows over the next year, and whether Tribe Gaming can pull off a historic three-peat at next year’s event, or if a new underdog team will rise up to take the crown.