Brawl for Newbies: How To Get Good Quick
Written by Adelaide Spence
For the first time since September 4, 2018, Multiplex is introducing an entirely new competitive division; Blockbuster Brawl, the brain child of Kaleb Koho, Cody Newberry, Brittani Tapley, and Tyler Burch. Speaking personally, I am so incredibly excited to see how this develops and am heavily invested in the future of this league. If you are too, this is the perfect place to start. “But Adelaide,” I hear you ask, “there’s so many movies and I have no idea where to start! How could I possibly try to master the division to be the first ever singles champ?” Well lovely reader, this is the article just for you. If you don’t know which categories you want to prep or prioritize, hopefully this list will help you break down where to start based on your priorities.Â
I think unsurprisingly to many players, the largest categories are all the cape shit. DC and Marvel reign supreme as always with the absolute gluttony of films the studios have produced. DC has nearly double the number of films what most of the other categories have within them. Personally, that sounds like hell to try and master, but it serves very effectively as a backpocket nuke if a player tries to study it all prior to one match. Koho’s success a couple years ago in Melee is testament to that, a large category can be very helpful if you can master it and others have little to no starting point. The majority of your categories have between 25-30 films. Second to last is Wands, Wardrobes, and Rings with 21 with that number seeming to not be expanding too much any time soon. However, those films are DENSE as I’m sure we all know. We Are Family stands above all at a scant 20 films. Those 20 films are also all very short, leading us to…
Let’s look at category length! You’ve already committed yourself to prepping a category, but how much of a time commitment does that actually look like? We Are Family easily has the shortest runtime. The correlation between category size and total length is pretty linear, but if we break it down by average length, a much different perspective appears. 2 clear patterns emerge: animation and horror is gonna be fast and quick. Even if the categories all vary in size, the average will generally get you out of there in about 100 minutes. Yeah you gotta suffer through some Ice Age or Minions, hell maybe you’re really hyped for Resident Evil (hi Tyler). If you wanna cram the most movies into your prep possible, going for the scaries or drawings will be your best bet. On the other hand, if density is your friend, high fantasy is definitely your friend. WWR having an average runtime of 2 ½ hours is diabolical but makes a lot of sense. Even the auteur-driven directors category at second place can’t overcome the behemoths of those aforementioned franchises. The presence of Star Wars, Avatar, and Pirates of the Caribbean definitely make worthy threats rounding out the top slots, but nothing can match the fantasy behemoths.
Who cares about how long a movie is if it’s good though right? It’s not about the size of the ship, it’s about the motion of the ocean. There are 3 tabs for this because I see very valid ways to approach quality-based decisions here. We have average rating, how good you think the overall experience should be; top 5%, the cream of the crop; and the bottom 5%, let’s get the garbage out of the way as soon as possible. Cape shit loves their garbage, taking over nearly a third of the bottom 5%. Everything else has a couple pop ups here and there, but it’s hard to beat a double header like Morbius and Madame Web. Similarly expected, Directors and Ghibli are also a dominant force in the top 5%. We also see just how much y’all love consistent franchises, with LOTR, Spider-Verse, and the Before Trilogy making extremely strong fights to the top of the heap. Looking at those two sets, average rating shouldn’t be too far off from the peaks and valleys. However, Hell Bound is the special exception, beating Marvel Legacy to be the worst category in the division by .09 stars. The franchises may start strong, with incredible additions to the horror genre with The Exorcist and The Omen, but the money grubbing sequels TANK the average rating, making for a struggle of a 25 film category.
Think of this article as a call to action. Pretty soon, the inaugural teams champions will be crowned. Next season, you could be the first singles champion, forever known in the record books. Here is all the information you need to tackle completing the list. The clues are in your hand, and it’s up to you to show to us all what the first master of Brawl can look like.Â