Brawl Stars Balance Changes: Fame Road Replaces Starr Road

Supercell posted the "August 2026 Patch Notes" for Brawl Stars on Tuesday, September 1, 2026 in English, then on Thursday, September 3, 2026 in French. Despite their title, they describe the back-to-school update, and their most structural change comes down to one sentence: "Starr Road is being replaced by Brawler Blast, a new unlock experience inspired by a shooting gallery where Credits move you towards your next Brawler."

One detail missing everywhere: the notes give no rollout date. Unlike the June 2026 notes, they include no maintenance section, and neither the English page nor the French page puts forward a switchover day in-game. We won't invent one: as long as Supercell hasn't published one, we must refer to "the August 2026 update" and nothing else.

Second detail, a matter of vocabulary. All the labels below are those of the French client: Tir aux brawlers (Brawler Blast in English), route Starr (Starr Road), fragments de gemme (Gem Fragments), crédits (Credits), gloire (Fame), buffies (Buffies), pouvoirs star (Star Powers). French-language write-ups published before ours use the English terms; those are not what you will read on screen.

The six Credit costs, and the imposed order

This is the first question a player with a stockpile of Credits will ask: does their value change? No. The notes spell it out in black and white: "Rarity costs remain unchanged." Here is the full scale.

Two things to take away from this. First, one Brawler of each rarity, once each, amounts to 12,715 Credits: that's our own addition, not a figure published by Supercell. Second, you don't choose the order in which you spend: "The order in which rarities are unlocked is fixed," and it's the Brawler Blast section of your Brawler collection that indicates the next rarity. A player who was saving up to aim directly for a specific rarity no longer has that freedom.

Also note the flow shift: "the Rare and Super Rare Brawlers that used to be found on the Trophy Road are now found on Brawler Blast." And Credits don't sit idle: "Once you've accumulated enough Credits, they immediately count towards the next rarity level." On the fate of Credits already committed to Starr Road, the notes say nothing further.

One session: ten targets, one survivor

The mechanic is simple to describe and deserves to be read before you play it. "There are always 10 targets in a Brawler Blast session" — the typo is in the official French text. These ten slots are filled by Brawlers of the current rarity that you don't yet own, drawn at random if there are more than ten. You shoot, the targets fall, and "the last remaining Brawler is the one you unlock."

The case of well-filled collections is addressed: if you're missing fewer than ten Brawlers of that rarity, "the remaining slots are filled with empty targets." Two rules apply here, more favourable than they seem: "Empty targets are eliminated before targets representing a Brawler," and "all targets have the same chance of revealing Gem Fragments."

The seventeen probabilities, and the typo in the French scale

This is the table that nobody publishes. By knocking down the targets, the session reveals a total of gem fragments, and Supercell provides the complete distribution over seventeen lines. The "at least" column is our cumulative figure, not data from the publisher.

Row 5 is incorrect on the French page: it shows "14 03 %", without a decimal comma. We are not quietly correcting it, we are flagging it. The English control page, published two days earlier, writes "14.03%" on the same line: the value to be read is therefore indeed 14.03%, and the mistake is a data-entry error specific to the French version.

What the table tells us, once recalculated on our end. The most frequent value is 4 fragments, at 20.04%. Roughly one session out of two (57.90%) yields at least four, and 76.15% fall between 1 and 5 fragments. Big hauls are rare: a 3.80% chance of reaching 10 fragments or more, 0.40% of hitting the maximum of 17. The expected value comes out to 4.21 fragments per session. These figures are our own calculations based on the official table; Supercell does not publish them.

One detail that betrays the rounding: the seventeen official rows add up to 99.98%, not 100%. The table also includes no row for zero fragments, which suggests that a session always yields at least one — though the notes never state this explicitly anywhere.

What the fragments yield, and the six caps

Fragments are not stored: "Once you've unlocked your new brawler, gem fragments will be converted into progression for that brawler". The published conversion scale fits into four lines.

Here's the gap in the documentation: the conversion scale stops at 4 while the probability table goes up to 17. Supercell never states anywhere how a 12-fragment session is converted. The only consistent reading is that the reveal happens in batches of 1 to 4 — "you can reveal 1 to 4 gem fragments," the text says regarding the targets that fall — and that each batch yields the corresponding row. This is our interpretation, not data from the publisher.

What actually caps the gain are the six ceilings, themselves published unambiguously: 1 gadget, 1 gear, 1 star power, 1 hypercharge, 1 buffie and +10 power levels per unlock. The level cap thus bites well before the theoretical maximum of 17, which incidentally confirms that fragments add up within a single session.

Three rules round out the system. "A brawler can only receive a hypercharge or buffie after its release (i.e. not during early access)." You can, however, receive gear, star powers, gadgets, hypercharges and buffies "before it has the power level required to use them." And above all: "Brawler Shooting is the only source of random gear."

One session out of two lets you choose

The shooting stand isn't completely blind. The notes give four figures: "Probability of getting a choice: 50%," then "Choice of 2 brawlers: 57.14%," "Choice of 3 brawlers: 28.57%," "Choice of 4 brawlers: 14.29%."

These last three lines add up to exactly 100%, which indicates they are conditional: they only apply to sessions where a choice is offered. This is our reading; the publisher doesn't specify it. On this basis, a session with a choice offers 2.57 brawlers on average (our calculation), and the three figures correspond to round fractions — four sevenths, two sevenths, one seventh. One last safeguard: "If you're only missing one brawler of that rarity level, you won't get a choice."

What to remember

Your credits keep the same face value, but not the same freedom of use: the scale is intact, the order of rarities is not. In return, each unlock now carries a second layer of rewards — up to ten power levels, a gadget, a piece of gear, a star power, a hypercharge and a buffie — that the Starr Road did not give.

Three interface changes accompany the switch: access to the Starr Road and to Mastery have been removed from the home screen and now live in the brawler collection, Brawler Shooting on the left and Mastery on the right; a brawler release event gets its button back on the home screen; the brawler list scrolls horizontally and gains a search bar. A naming detail in the same update: "The Ultra Legendary rarity becomes just Ultra."

What remains unanswered is the question Supercell doesn't address: when does all this arrive on your device? The notes from September 1, 2026 contain no rollout schedule, and the French version from September 3, 2026 doesn't add one either. On this point, no one knows more than you do.