[NEWS] BSC announces "PRESEASON ICEBREAKER"

BSC has confirmed a new version of the pre-season invitational, marketed as a more fan-friendly "BSC Preseason Icebreaker" to kick off 2026. The event will take place over two days of competition, with four top teams from each region being invited to compete for their share of a $5,000 prizepool. 

New Formats Tested

As announced in the pre-season teaser, BSC will be testing new formats for the season including global match bans and Map Draft.

Global match bans have existed in BSC before, prior to the introduction of the draft system, when all matches were played in a blind pick format with duplicate brawlers allowed. Since then, the growing number of brawlers has influenced draft, opening the door for global bans to be reintroduced to control the playing field and negate high-impact brawlers, regardless of first or last pick.

Additionally, BSC will be testing five new game modes that have been seen in-game and in some early ranked seasons to potentially implement in the future:

• Brawl Hockey: similar to Brawl Ball, but first to 3 scores wins, and the ball is replaced with a high velocity hockey puck

• Basketbrawl: similar to Brawl Ball, but played on a horizontal map with the basketball acting as a throwable projectile into the moving target hoop

• Present Plunder: also known as Trophy Thieves; fan favorite event that serves as a capture the flag style event–first to two points wins

• Treasure Hunt: this activation based game mode plays similar to Gem Grab, where players activate buttons that spawn a treasure after a timer has elapsed; the team to collect 10 first, or more at the end of the timer, wins

• Hot Zone: not a new mode, but it is less popular than other competitive game modes in the pool

Map draft is a new feature to BSC that will allow teams to select their favorite maps for each mode played. Here is an example of how a Map Draft could play out:

1. Team A selects map Super Center. Brawl Hockey is now set 1 and is no longer selectable. 

2. Team B selects map Ball Hog. Basketbrawl is now set 2 and is no longer selectable. 

3. Team A selects map Thin Walls. Present Plunder is now set 3 and is no longer selectable. 

4. Team B selects map Ancient Treasure. Treasure Hunt is now set 4 and is no longer selectable. 

5. By process of elimination, Hot Zone will be the fifth and final set. Parallel Plays is automatically selected as the designated tiebreaker map. 

Team A will be the “lower seed” in matches as listed. Decider maps will automatically be selected based on the game mode, as listed below: 

Brawl Hockey	Basketbrawl	Present Plunder	Hot Zone	Treasure Hunt
Starr Garden	Pocket Pass	Thin Walls	Parallel Plays	Excellent Excavations

Competing Teams

Each region has selected four top teams as invited contenders for the event, as listed below. 

Note: these teams are not final and may be reflected differently in the event itself. 

East Asia

Crazy Raccoon - Tensai, Moya, Milkreo

ACCEPT (2025 team: REJECT) - Shu, Melty, Levi

LEGEND KEN-G (2025 team: Rival Esports) - I See, Achapi, Ken-G

NAI GHOS (2025 team: NAVI) - Kuru, Naipishu, Ghost T

EMEA

HMBLE - Symantec, Lukii, BosS

SK Gaming - Yoshi, OPE, Nowy297

Team Heretics - iKaoss, Marco, Subeme

Reply Totem - Joker, Maury, Maru

North America

Tribe Gaming - RBM, Lxffy, Diegogamer

Vatic - Ezlivi, Belal, Rafiki

STMN Esports - tacos, Juan Carlos, Pain

F/A BOBBY (2025 team: Spacestation) - bobby, Patchy, sans

South America

LOUD - KaioDog, Firecrow, Edinho

SKCalalas - Rhz, Mohtep, Pekka

Eternal - Kristian, CaueBR, Jubileu

F/A KaioPerro - Derrp, Doritos, Loko

How to Watch 

The event will be casted and streamed by ReddySet, on both Twitch and Youtube, joined by co-caster Wigglyspoo. 

Twitch: @ReddySet 

Youtube: @ReddySet 

Schedule: 

East Asia: Saturday, January 24th 11am CET

EMEA: Saturday, January 24th 3pm CET

North America: Sunday, January 25th 8pm CET

South America: Sunday, January 25th 12am CET