Original Steam guide · Historical edition
Brawlhalla: Enlightenment of the Meta
Explore the meta through Coach Cosmic’s original Steam guide.
Coach Cosmic / The One True Coach · Historical Steam guide · archived October 17, 2026
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A guide to help a player understand how to play in a optimal way.This is MY thoughts on the game so please not everyone has to agree. I have things to share. I am open to suggestions on my discord, or twitter if you have any. This has been one of the most fun projects of my Brawlhalla career, and I think it’s important for someone to provide a ranked player’s opinion over everything. This will be updated all the time.
Disclaimer!
Please Read this Guide AFTER reading my previous guide:1. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2280753550
Acknowledgement
Advantage, Disadvantage, and NeutralIf you ever look into the world of competitive brawlhalla, people will throw out terms such as “neutral,” “advantage” and “disadvantage,” all of which are key terms to understanding the game on a deeper, fundamental level. Often their meanings can come across as obtuse and rather abstract, and what exacerbates this confusion is that people make the mistake of trying to explain neutral before explaining advantage/disadvantage. This is why I’ve written this guide of sorts. Advantage/disadvantage are much easier ideas to understand compared to neutral, and once you get those two down, the concept of “neutral” follows along more naturally.
The person with the disadvantage position will have fewer options available to them. Such as: Jump , Dodge , Dash or/and Recover.
Footsies
You’ll often find characters who are considered to be great at neutral, and these are generally characters that have more or better weapons at their disposal when trying to gain an advantage. In this respect, you might see people throw out another common but also confusing fighting game term: footsies.
If one character tries to punch another, but he misses, his arm is now extended forward, and his opponent can “punch his punch” back. Or, if he anticipates a punch is coming, he can hit more quickly, preventing the attack from happening in the first place.
Neutral and Psychological Damage
You’ll often see people say a character in a game is “bad at neutral,” and sometimes they’re right, but take the statement with a grain of salt because a lot of people don’t understand what neutral really is. They think it’s just about who can more reliably get the first hit in, and then whose attacks can lead to more combos, but neutral is just as much about potential damage as it is about actual damage.Let’s use a example with two people fighting. They’re both in “neutral,” standing at the center of their fighting area. However, both want the opponent to be at the edge of the platform, because as great as it can be to do 30+ strings on someone, it’s even better to do one string that knocks them off the edge and leads to a kill. The potential for greater advantage, and the fear of getting hit, become tools just as important as who actually successfully connects. Scythe, Katars and Sword all have ridiculously abusable strengths and very little weaknesses. However, I don’t think that those weapons are necessarily the best three, just the most well rounded. Bow and Spear easily outshine Scythe and Katars in my eyes, they just aren’t really comparable in frames and priority. Axe, Gauntlets, and Hammer are all middle of the road weapons, which is illustrated through these numbers. I don’t think that these three weapons are unviable, they just require more effort than Katars and Sword to win tournaments with. But in my opinion Gauntlets have the best offense and safest approaches. Guns are definitely the highest skill floor weapon, and they don’t have very good frame priority, but honestly they have more potential than most players showcase other than Boomie , Fizz , iLLu and LDZ to name just a few players. The baseline kits of Lance and Cannon are pretty much awful and don’t accomplish nearly as much as any of the other weapons, however, this should not dissuade you from picking them up, as sigs and playstyle can make them viable.
Understanding
These concepts might not be new to you, but I believe categorizing them like this is the best way to think during actual matches to quickly get results. It helps if you avoid thinking of the game as a series of mechanics, and instead think about the mechanics as extensions of these concepts. Being able to shift gears between our two core fundamentals in high-pressure situations can get you out of a lot of nasty situations.These fundamentals are also why good players will suggest playing multiple legends and weapons by learning more than just one weapon, you learn to compartmentalize better. You learn to separate these skills internally, and can more quickly transition between them. At the end of the day this will only come with practice, but thinking about your fundamentals like this should help to cut down on how long that takes you. If you've ever taken a course in psychology, then you've likely heard of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The hierarchy is often portrayed in a pyramid that depicts the different tiers of basic human needs that one must satisfy to essentially progress through life. The base of the pyramid includes physiological needs (air, water, food, sex) that one needs simply to physically survive. A step up from there and you get safety and security, then love and belonging, then esteem and finally self actualization at the very top. I strongly believe that a person's ability to learn and excel in not only brawlhalla but all fighting games follows a similar pattern. I call this the Enlightenment of the M.E.T.A. The idea here is that as you master different levels of the pyramid, your in-game focus and adaptability can progress to a higher tier. You'll naturally see a plateau if you don't master the tier where your focus is currently at. At the most basic level, you need to understand your movement during a high stress-level moment to see how well you reach to certain moves and to see where you put yourself in comparison to the opponent. Once you have observed how you reach with your movement, you must than see how well your execution is towards punishes and optimal strings. Reaching the very top of the pyramid means your focus will ultimately no longer be on your own play, but instead your opponent's. To get here, it means that movement, string execution and punishing take none of your active focus. Those things all happen automatically for you at this point. "So if I find myself focused on what my opponent is doing, then I'm already at the top of the pyramid?" Well, sort of, but unless you're seeing flawless results, you've probably got some lower levels that need to be further worked on. Find a facet of gameplay you have problems with and work backwards from there. You'll find the little holes in your play, patch them, and move on. Eventually, everything will become second nature, and all you'll have to worry about is your opponent's thought process. While it is possible to try to work on different levels of the focus pyramid at the same time, the lowest level you have yet to master is going to affect any levels above it. For example, if you haven't quite gotten string execution down, you obviously won't be able to master punish execution if you drop optimal strings all the time. Thus far I've been discussing pretty basic facets of play for the sake of easy explanation, but concepts like zoning, counter-picks, footsies, and dodge reads can get a little more complicated. Instead of trying to make a visual or list that represents an exhaustive list of all the things you need to learn to become a better player, I'd rather give you direction in how to create your own list. Having a hard time anti airing against players who jump a lot? You're probably not comfortable with footsies. Why aren't you comfortable with footises? You probably aren't confident in your understanding of the ranges of your pokes, string confirms and/or movement speed to execute certain moves. The takeaway here is that if you want to get better, you ultimately have to identify the lowest point on the pyramid that you haven't mastered. To do this, you watch your matches and you see where things aren't going your way.Space Management
In the vast majority of fighting games, the only thing separating you from your opponent is empty space. While there isn’t anything tangible in between, it’s imperative that you control that empty space. At this point, it’s fair to ask, “How do you control empty space?” and, “What does this have anything to do with Brawlhalla.What is Footsies all about? Footsies is a game of spacing control between you and the opponent. The idea of the game is to force your opponent’s mistake so that you will have the advantage to punish them. Simple mechanics such as pokes, whiff punishment, and hit confirms are the basis for this game. Space management is the act of controlling the distance between you and your opponent. The reason you want to control this is because depending on the character you choose and your particular play style, you will generally fight better in certain distances and worse in others. Your opponent will also have certain distances that they’re better or worse. If you can keep yourself at a distance that’s in your favour, you will have an easier time winning the match. Regardless what distance you are from your opponent, you should always have a general plan for how to operate when you are in that zone. Know what moves work best in certain ranges, what moves don’t work in others, and how to get into your comfort zone when you’re currently not there. This plan will vary depending on your own play style, the character you choose, the character your opponent chooses, and your opponent’s play style. While you can’t always prepare for your opponent’s specific behaviours, you can have a plan ready based on your own play style, the character you’ve chosen, and the character you’re fighting against. While you may operate in certain zones better than others, it’s imperative that you have a game plan for every range, because the likelihood of you spending time in every range during the natural flow of the fight is extremely high. If you enter a match understanding how to operate in any given zone, you’ll have a much easier time maintaining control.
Chunking
Believe it or not, the human brain actually has a RAM limit. It can think about approximately seven things at once (give or take depending on the person.) However, what a “thing” is, is pretty amorphous, so the human brain saves mental RAM by clustering several objects together as one “thing.” This is called Chunking what does this all have to do with Brawlhalla? Conditioning, Combos, Reads and Strings. Even the most basic reads with scythe (nlight → cd up and forward → nair active input → dair → gp → dair) breaks the brain’s RAM limit. However, to compensate we use chunking to group series of inputs together as individual items to remember. In psychology, Chunks in motor learning are defined as everything that takes place between pauses in successive action. The super jump cancel in this case is the pause, and so we think of nlight → cd up forward and nair to dair → gp as two separate chunks. So how can we use this to our advantage? Well first of all, never try to learn a read that breaks the brain’s RAM limit all at once. Instead, identify where the pauses are in a combo string. Jump cancels, slow and easy links, wall and ground bounces, and other cinematic actions like command hits/active inputs are all areas where you experience a pause in your inputs, and these are the areas the brain is most likely to develop chunks. Practice these areas individually, and your brain will develop muscle memory far quicker than if you were trying to learn them all at once. Secondly, identify areas that aren’t chunks and treat them as such. When the brain attempts to recall an input that it doesn’t actually have in working memory, the result is panicked mashing because the brain doesn’t actually have a muscle memory queued up to recall. So no matter how perfect your string execution is normally, you’ll still screw it up a few times when you integrate it into a combo.Engaging
How do you engage your opponent?Allow me to take the initiative here and define engagement as “positioning oneself in a way that gains advantage, or threatens to gain advantage over the opponent”. The first core fundamental is much clearer: understanding how to gain an advantage through positioning. This concept is much more manageable than attacking and much more universal in practice. Engaging means being able to force your opponent into a situation where they are at a tangible disadvantage, or are threatened into making a choice that could cost them something valuable (dodge, jump, recovery , ect.) A big part of being able to successfully engage is actually attacking in order to back up your positional threats, but even when you aren’t attacking you can still be on the offensive.
The ability to position ourselves will inform our range of possible engages, but attacking limits that range. This understanding means that one of our viable engages comes from not attacking, and that I can threaten my opponent without even moving. This is the concept of engagement taken to its logical conclusion; any position we can attack from can be considered an engage, and being aware of what the opponent expects to happen will let us engage effectively.
Now, of course, you aren’t going to be winning BCX by standing still and not attacking, but defining our first fundamental like this is useful. A lot of traditional FGC concepts fall neatly into the “engage” umbrella, things like punishes, movement, pokes, commitment, safe jumps, etc. So the term helps us categorize a lot of exchanges internally. With this fundamental established, we can also define any fighting game character’s offense as “their range of engages combined with the advantages they get from successfully engaging.”
Escaping
Like with engagement, let’s define the word to best suit our purposes. From here on, I want you to think of escaping as "denying the opponent their attempt at gaining positional advantage".If you have a solid grasp of the first fundamental, this next one comes a bit easier. They both rely on understanding the game space and the possible attack points, but escaping is a little like looking at it backwards.The ability to disrupt the opponent without taking any action against them essentially making them trip over themselves trying to catch you.
In Brawlhalla, let’s say I have my opponent’s rhythm down. They are escaping most of my engages, but are a little too eager to engage themselves. So, instead of feverishly trying to hit them first, I’ll instead focus on always dodging behind or over them while spacing my jumps. My goal here is to ensure that our paths never cross. Because my opponent WANTS to engage me, they keep putting themselves into more and more awkward positions. Eventually, their desire to hit me will overcome their ability to stay safe and in that moment I’ll be able to engage much more effectively.
This is the equivalent of our “standing still” tactic. Being able to escape is a strong tool to keep us safe, but the true strength lies in creating openings. By understanding and manipulating the opponent’s desire to win, we can make their victory impossible.
Applying
In the heat of the moment, it can be really hard to avoid putting yourself in a dangerous position, especially if you don’t have a game plan already in place. What you must do is know your hit confirm moves and sequences in advance to optimize all your chances of winning. Before you go into a game, you should already have an idea of which moves or sequences give you enough time to recognize when you should finish the string or when you should stop. What you are looking for in a hit confirm attack or sequence is something that can lead to a full string on hit but also doesn’t leave you at a frame disadvantage if it’s dodged or whiffed. You should also know which moves leave you in a bad spot if they miss or are dodged. Generally speaking, signatures will leave you at a frame disadvantage, as they are specifically designed to be high-risk-high-reward moves that are best used to extend, end a string or punish a whiffed attack. Once you find your hit confirm moves or sequences, practice them in training mode. With your dummy set to random dodge, run through your hit confirm sequences repeatedly. Each time they successfully dodge or jump out of the full string, end the sequence with the "safe" action. If they get hit, finish it off with a full punish. It is imperative that you’re comfortable in these situations, so practice them until you have it down. Game theorists use the Nash equilibrium concept to analyze the outcome of the strategic interaction of several decision makers. In other words, it provides a way of predicting what will happen if several people or several institutions are making decisions at the same time, and if the outcome for each of them depends on the decisions of the others. The simple insight underlying John Nash's idea is that one cannot predict the result of the choices of multiple decision makers if one analyzes those decisions in isolation. Instead, one must ask what each player would do, taking into account the decision-making of the others. It can be reduced down to something like this:If X = to Engage
If Y = to Escape
If Z = to Optimize
then always think of a match like an equation.
If X is successful then this will happen
X - Z - Y
but
If X is not successful then this will happen Y - X - Z
If Y is successful and a punish is open then this will happen: Y - Z - Y - Z - X
How to play "Safe"
There are a few ways of doing this. One, you can look up the frame data to your moves and see which ones have a negative value if whiffed. Not all negatives give your opponent enough time to punish, but generally speaking, a move that leaves you at negative frame advantage is not one you want to hit confirm with.You can also figure this out manually. In training mode, set your training dummy to jump up immediately after dodge. Then, you hit the training dummy with your hit confirm move or sequence and jump as soon as it’s over. If you jump first, you’re at frame advantage and you’re fine. If you jump at the same time, you’re frame neutral and you’re fine. If the dummy jumps first, then they’re in frame advantage and you have a problem.The most labor intensive but effective approach is to set the dummy to respond with its fastest attack after dodge, dash, or jump. From there, you can see if the dummy can hit you after your hit confirm. If they can, then it’s a bad hit confirm. If they can’t, then it’s a good one.Fulfil the Meta
Meta is fueled by certain aspects of the human brain cultivating how the game can be played. At maximum potential certain things can be observed and executed. Such as a descriptive measure of an attack's tendency to strike the opponent when that opponent is also attacking. In general, higher priority attacks always interrupt lower priority attacks. It is important to note that "priority" is usually simply a term of convenience very few games actually have an internal mechanism that governs the resolution of attacks via priority. Instead, priority arises as a consequence of the characters hit box properties during a move. Typically, hit box properties can lead to priority in two ways. First, during the move, the character's attacking hit box can extends far beyond their target hit box such that they can hit the opponent without being hit themselves. Second, priority can arise when a move allows the character to attack another character while being invincible for a certain duration of the move (where such invincibility is usually the consequence of the complete absence of a target hit box). In brawlhalla characters can’t perform push blocks nor counter hits to effect the frame advantage of movements. When players infouse Plinking a fundamental technique in which two or more buttons are pressed in rapid succession, allowing for easier input commands and overall better execution and Parrying a technique that is achieved by timing a toward or down controller motion (when on the ground) at the exact moment an opponent's attack is about to hit. A successful combination of the two generally leaves the opponent vulnerable to a counterattack that can give the winner of neutral time to condition their opponent. While conditioning is an advanced tactic that describes the act of making the opponent become familiar and habitual in response a certain course of action by means of repeated exposure to the same situation a lot of players do not adapt in time to incorporate it into their matches.Thank you!
Thank you for viewing my guide so far!I hope it helps a player that is feeling stuck.
Please follow me on twitter @CosmicBH
I also Coach players all links will be below if interested.
Again thank you for reading this guide and have a great time improving in BRAWLHALLA!
Links:
Coaching- https://brawlshops.com/collections/frontpage/products/cosmic
Twitter- https://twitter.com/CosmicBH
Coaching Server- https://discord.gg/zqzrYTN