The $475 Scam: How Buffies Secretly Killed Free-to-Play
By December 2025, Brawl Stars wasn't just dying. It was committing economic warfare against its own players. Update 65 introduced "Buffies"—cute little pet keychains that Supercell marketed as a fun collectible feature. But forensic analysis of the numbers reveals something far more sinister. Buffies aren't collectibles. They're Power Level 12 hidden behind a gacha slot machine.
Part 1: The Claw Machine Trap
The primary way to get Buffies is through the "Claw Machine" minigame. Sounds innocent, right? Wrong. Each pull costs 1,000 Coins plus 2,000 Power Points. Or you can skip the grind and pay around 10 to 15 dollars USD per Buffie.
The Power Point Crisis
Let's put that 2,000 Power Point cost in perspective. Maxing out a Brawler from Level 1 to Level 11 takes about 3,740 Power Points total. A single Buffie pull eats up over half of that. And you need three Buffies per Brawler to stay competitive—one for the Gadget, one for the Star Power, and one for the Hypercharge.
The Real Cost
So what does it actually cost? To max one Brawler with all three Buffies, you're paying roughly $37 USD. Now multiply that across the roster. Update 65 launched with 18 Buffies for characters like:
- Colt
- Shelly
- Spike
- Mortis
- Frank
- Emz
To max just this initial wave costs approximately $475 USD.
Here's the insult: those 108,000 Power Points you'd need? That's enough to max out 28 entire Brawlers under the old system. Supercell basically devalued your entire account overnight and called it "content."
The Bottleneck Shift
And it gets worse. Historically, Coins were the bottleneck in Brawl Stars. Update 65 flipped the script entirely, shifting the bottleneck to Power Points—a resource that was previously abundant. Veteran players who had been hoarding Power Points for years were bankrupted within minutes of the update dropping.
The randomness makes it even more predatory. You might be grinding for Shelly's Hyper Buffie to stay competitive in Ranked, but the Claw Machine keeps spitting out cosmetic Bling Buffies for Brawlers you don't even play. It's a gacha trap disguised as progression.
Part 2: The Pay-to-Win Mechanics
But the economy is only half the problem. The real betrayal is mechanical. Buffies don't just add stats. They introduce interactions that fundamentally remove counterplay for free-to-play players. Let me walk you through the most broken examples.
Shelly's Invulnerability Dash
Shelly's "Fast Forward" Gadget Buffie makes her dash aimable and grants 0.5 seconds of invulnerability during the animation. In high-level play, half a second of immunity is enough to negate a Dynamike Super or dodge a Bea charged shot at point-blank range. A paid player can survive lethal damage that a free player simply cannot. This isn't skill expression. It's a paid advantage.
Colt's Ammo Steal
Colt's "Speedloader" Gadget Buffie introduces an Ammo Steal mechanic. If his enhanced bullets hit an enemy, Colt reloads 1 ammo and the target loses 1 ammo. This is crowd control disguised as damage. In a one-versus-one duel, if Colt lands both shots, the opponent enters the fight with zero to one ammo. They literally cannot fight back. Ammo management, one of the core skill elements of Brawl Stars, is deleted by a $15 purchase.
Mandy's Sniper Stun
Mandy's "Sugar for All" Hyper Buffie grants her the Focused state permanently and adds a 0.2-second stun to her basic attacks. A long-range sniper with a stun breaks the fundamental range-versus-control balance of the game. That micro-stun is enough to interrupt channeled Supers like Frank, Carl, or Meg from across the map. Mandy's hard counters become favorable matchups, but only if you paid for the Buffie.
Emz's Death Cloud
Emz's Hyper Buffie creates a lingering poison cloud for 2 seconds after she dies. This punishes assassins like Mortis and Edgar for successfully doing their job. Even if the assassin outplays Emz and secures the kill, they die to unavoidable post-mortem damage. A clean win becomes a forced trade. The skill ceiling collapses, and dying becomes a valid strategy.
Frank's Projectile Destroyer
Frank's Gadget Buffie emits a shockwave that destroys enemy projectiles in front of him. This negates Frank's primary weakness: being out-ranged and kited. He can delete incoming fire while advancing, forcing close-range engagements where he dominates. Free-to-play players lose their counterplay option entirely.
These aren't minor tweaks. These are fundamental mechanical advantages locked behind a paywall. Supercell created a distinct Buffie Tier of gameplay where non-paying players lack invulnerability, ammo control, stuns, and defensive mechanics that paying players have access to.
Part 3: The Chaos Drop Distraction
So how did Supercell get away with this? Distraction. Update 65 also introduced "Chaos Drops," a new reward system with flashy animations and a splitting mechanic. One drop has a 20 percent chance to split into 2 drops, then 4, up to a maximum of 8 drops. The update also introduced an "Ultra Legendary" rarity with visually stunning effects.
Gambling Psychology
This is textbook gambling psychology. The visual spectacle of a drop splitting multiple times triggers a high-dopamine response. It's the same Near Miss psychology used in slot machines. Your brain sees the drop almost split, or split once, and interprets it as "I almost won big." This creates an addiction loop that masks the actual quality of the rewards, which are often small amounts of Bling or experience points, not the Power Points you desperately need to afford Buffies.
Chaos Drops are the candy used to lure players into the van of the Buffie economy. They keep you engaged with the system despite the mathematical impossibility of free-to-play progression. Supercell buried the $475 paywall under shiny animations and Ultra Legendary drops so the community would argue about drop rates instead of economic inflation.
Part 4: The Pattern
This isn't an accident. Supercell has a documented history of aggressive monetization. In 2021, Clash Royale introduced Level 14, invalidating years of player progression overnight. Then in 2022, they added Level 15 just one year later. Content creators like B-rad made videos titled "The Disgusting Monetization of Clash Royale." The subreddit erupted with threads calculating how maxed accounts lost 40 to 50 percent of their value.
Brawl Stars' Turn
Brawl Stars avoided this for years. But in 2024, they removed Masteries and replaced them with Records—a grind requiring 300 wins per Brawler for minimal rewards. Players were furious, but that was just the setup. Update 65 is the payoff.
Buffies inflated the economy by roughly 50 percent. They segregated competitive gameplay into a Buffie Tier that free-to-play players can't access. And they hid the $37 per Brawler cost behind gacha mechanics. Supercell didn't just raise prices—they restructured the game to make free-to-play players second-class citizens.
The Marketing Deception
And the worst part? They marketed it as "fun." The Brawl Talk showed developers laughing as cute Buffies popped out of the Claw Machine. No mention of the 108,000 Power Point cost. No mention of the mechanical advantages locked behind the paywall. No mention that Ranked would become unplayable without spending hundreds of dollars.
Conclusion
Update 65 is the breaking point for Brawl Stars. The game isn't dying because of bad updates. It's dying because Supercell chose profit over players. The data doesn't lie. Buffies are Power Level 12 hidden behind a slot machine. And Supercell is betting you won't do the math.
Key Takeaways
- Each Buffie costs 1,000 Coins + 2,000 Power Points or $10-15 USD
- Maxing one Brawler costs approximately $37 USD
- The initial 18 Buffies cost $475 USD total
- Broken mechanics include invulnerability, ammo steal, and post-death damage
- Chaos Drops use gambling psychology to distract from predatory costs
- Pattern matches Clash Royale's Level 14/15 controversies
Published: January 25, 2026