This may not be the kind of soccer game you’re used to, if you’re the type who enjoys managing real-life teams and real-life players. But if arcade fun is your idea of mobile gaming fun, while not necessarily being on the super-casual level that game makers like Ketchapp provide without fail, you’ll like Rumble Stars Soccer, the latest iOS game from Frogmind, the same company that brought you the Badland series, including the highly addictive Badland Brawl. Like that latter game, this new title shares a lot of the same mechanics, only transferring the action onto the football field as you match wits with friends and players from around the world, and collect new Rumblers — soccer-playing animals with their own strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities. You can move up from league to league as you win more matches, join Clubs, string together some impressive combos, and even take advantage of the Rumble Stars TV feature so you can see some of the best and most exciting plays pulled off by some of the world’s better players of the game.
While it’s all well and good to learn from the masters via Rumble Stars TV, we think it might be better if you learn the game from us if you’re a first-time player wanting to score some goals and move up the rankings. Read on, as our first Rumble Stars Soccer strategy guide was created just for you — the newbie looking to make some good time in their first few days playing the game.
1. Learning The Basics
If you thought Rumble Stars Soccer plays in an awfully familiar way, with a soccer field and teams of animal players replacing the anthropomorphic bombs and jungle setting, then you would be absolutely right. As we mentioned above, this game is made by Frogmind, the same company that brought you Badland Brawl, and that’s why the mechanics between both games are quite similar. In the new game, you have a team of up to eight players facing human opponents of a similar level as you are, with the same number of players, and as you go along, you will be able to open chests that contain new, more powerful players, and cards that allow you to upgrade the ones you currently have. Likewise, scoring three points automatically wins the game for you (or your opponent), and if you go into overtime, whomever has the higher score wins the game once the 30 seconds are up.
Physics, once again, plays a key part in the game’s mechanics, as you’ll have to properly aim your shots and angle them in the right way to ensure yourself of the best chances of scoring a goal. Then you’ve got the opposing manager’s players to deal with — not everyone on either of your teams will be offensive or defensive in terms of specialization! You’ll need to think quick and on the fly, as you choose which players to counter your opponent’s attack, and take into account the fact that each player has a specific cool-down time, in which you wouldn’t be able to field them. (Likewise, you’ll only have four players to choose from at a time, as all eight won’t be available for selection at the same time.)
To sum it all up, this game shouldn’t be too hard for you to pick up if you’ve played Badland Brawl. Just replace the jungle with the pitch, and weapons of destruction with animals, and all the other basics are the same.
2. Know Your Basic Stats
All in all, there are 19 players whom you can unlock in the game, and by the end of the tutorial, you’ll have eight at your disposal. But first, let’s discuss the different stats in the game, and what they mean.
Stamina appears to work in a similar way to hit points in Rumble Stars Soccer, as it refers to how long a given player could last before getting taken out. Size and Speed are both self-explanatory; smaller players usually have the advantage of being quicker, while larger ones tend to last longer and could push the smaller, squishier players around. Speed, of course, determines how fast a given player can move around the pitch. Shot Power pertains to the power they exert when making a goal attempt, Field Time is the maximum time in which they can remain on the field, Mass is similar to a player’s weight, working in conjunction with Size to determine how hard (or how easy) it is to push them around, and arguably playing a bigger role in doing so. Targets refers to the item they aim for — are they trying to kick the ball or attack an enemy, or opposing player? Hit Damage is the amount of damage they deal out when they bump into another player.
Some players have stats that are unique to them, such as Spawn Speed for Bomber Hen — this determines how quickly she can spawn bomb chicks to attack your opponents. Likewise, Mr. Fire has an Explosion Damage of 21 and Explosion Radius of large, but does not have any other truly relevant stats. There are also players, such as Loyal Dog, who target the ball but never shoot. We shall discuss this in further depth as we talk about the first eight players you will unlock in the game.
3. Who Are Your Eight Starting Rumblers?
Now that we’re done talking about stats, let’s now take a look at the eight basic players, or Rumblers, you’ll start out with, and examine what they can do and can’t do.
Striker Tiger can be best described as your team’s all-rounder as an offensive player. He has average Stamina, fast Speed, and decent Shot Power, and can shoot from anywhere on the field. Loyal Dog, as mentioned above, does not shoot for the goal, but specializes in making quick passes to teammates. His Stamina isn’t too high, and neither is his Shot Power but he makes up for that by being one of the faster players in the game. Lazy Panda’s strength is his Shot Power, which is over the 100 mark at level 1, and he’s a rather big and massive player. However, he’s also average in terms of stamina, and also extremely slow — you need to aim him properly so he could get close enough to the enemy goal to score!
The first defensive player you’ll get to know is Bomber Hen, whom you can launch anywhere on the field as a massive, stationary player with high stamina and the ability to hit opposing players with Bomb Chicks. Watch out, though, as her Field Time is a rather unimpressive 12 seconds. Raging Bull is responsible for tackling nearby enemies, and he’s your classic tank-type player, except for the low stamina and mass— he won’t score, he won’t fire off anything, but he’ll make sure that he gets his share of tackles in. Mr. Fire, whom we mentioned above, deals out high damage against enemies once launched, and Magnetman draws an opposing player away from a distance; you want to use the latter player, or Rumbler, against the enemy goalie in particular.
All those seven Rumblers are of Core rarity, meaning the commonest of the common, the bare essentials you need when playing Rumble Stars Soccer. You will, however, get a Superstar-rarity Rumbler during the tutorial, and that’s Fast Monkey, who will initially excel as your top goal scorer due to his good Speed, Shot Power, Mass, and Stamina. He also deals out 8 Hit Damage, which is quite notable as almost everyone has a Hit Damage of 6 at level 1, but the catch here is that he can only be on the field for 10 seconds.
4. Open Chests To Upgrade Existing Players And Acquire New Ones
Eggs are used in Badland Brawl to give you cards that either allow you to upgrade characters you already have or unlock new ones. Likewise, you’ve got soccer ball-shaped chests in Rumble Stars Soccer, which you can earn each time you win a game. You can only store a maximum of four chests in your Chest Stands, and while you can use the gems, which are the game’s premium currency, to open them up faster, we don’t recommend this, for obvious reasons — it’s seldom ever a good idea to spend premium currency to instantly unlock something you can wait for to open. These chests contain coins (the common currency), gems, and cards, so they’re a great way to earn currency and get the resources you need to upgrade the Rumblers you currently have.
Sponsor Chests can be found on the top left of your screen, and automatically unlock every four hours — generally, these come with more coins and gems than the regular ones you receive after winning a game. On the upper right, you’ll find your Goal Chests, which are available to open for each tenth goal you score. The rewards here are usually the best in terms of currency, and also give you the best chance of winning a new Rumbler card.
5. Should You Buy New Chests Just Yet?
You also have the option to go to the Shop and buy chests with gems — this is what we would recommend you save up your gems for. Currently, the Golden Chest sells for 60 gems, the Super Chest for 330 gems, and King’s Chest for 1,600 gems — you can also win them while playing in Greenfield Division III (the lowest tier league), though they can be rather rare. If you’re able to win one of these chests in regular gameplay, you’ll be better off hanging on to your gems, but if you’ve been playing a while and have saved up enough premium currency, you might as well save for the Super Chest, which comes with at least 30 Core Rumbler cards and 150 to 210 gold, with at least 10 cards of Pro rarity and one of Superstar rarity. King’s Chest comes with 180 Rumbler cards, 900 to 1,260 gold, and a guaranteed 60 Pro and six Superstar card. Lastly, Golden gets you 10 Rumbler cards, 60 gold, and at least two Pro cards.
6. Upgrade Your Rumblers
This probably goes without saying, but it’s important that you make sure your Rumblers are upgraded whenever possible. This will allow you to remain sharp against your human opponents, because after all, it won’t be uncommon for the game’s matchmaking system to pair you up against players who have a higher rated lineup than yours, with more Trophies. Each Rumbler earns Trophies after a win, and loses some Trophies after a defeat, with the amount of Trophies won or lost depending on your opponent’s Trophy count — lose to a higher-rated opponent and you lose a few Trophies, defeat a lower-rated one and you win a few, and vice versa. Upgrading players, more importantly, gives them some much needed statistical improvements, and you’ll want to have as much of a statistical edge as possible, even if your chances of winning largely hinge on how good your strategy is.
7. Use The Training Feature
As we mentioned earlier, you can only have so many chests queued up to be opened, and that means you won’t be able to win any more chests if all four stands are filled up. There’s also the possibility that you may be on a bad losing streak, and in dire need of a regroup. What better way to pass the time and practice, or clear your head with in a setting where the stakes are nonexistent, than to switch to Training mode? In Training, you will be matched up against an AI opponent, and regardless whether you win or lose a Training match, your Trophies total will not be affected in any way. (Again, zero stakes!) Best of all, this is a good feature that could allow you to get the hang of using newly unlocked Rumblers. Make sure to test them on your lineup in Training before you actually use them in a game against a human opponent!
8. Basic Strategies 101 — How To Win Games In Rumble Stars Soccer
The first thing to remember when trying to win games in Rumble Stars Soccer is to act quickly. You’ll have precious little time to think of which player to launch before the others, and you’ll need to take several things into account — how do you counter the opponent’s attack? How can you balance the usage of each Rumbler based on their cool-down time? What angle do you aim this player with? These are all among the things you need to consider before choosing a Rumbler to launch, and it may take some practice and getting used to. Still, it’s important to learn how to think and act quickly in this game.
Typically, the best attack strategy would be to start out with Striker Tiger to push the ball forward (5 Energy) and Raging Bull (4 Energy) to push any enemy Rumblers away. Loyal Dog (2 Energy) takes a little getting used to, and isn’t the easiest Rumbler to use, but he does help a lot when it comes to ball movement. Lazy Panda (2 Energy) can be used in conjunction with Loyal Dog as a low-energy combo — fling him far away in hopes of Loyal Dog lobbing the ball to him for a powerful, and easy goal.
We tend to use Fast Monkey sparingly, and it’s not only because he costs a lot of Energy (6 Energy) to use — it’s best to use him as part of your mid- or late-game strategy, as he’s quite hard to stop, especially if your opponent has been playing it fast and furious and using more Rumblers than you have in the early goings. Bomber Hen (5 Energy) is also good for crowd control as a mid-game player, but if you need someone to bail you out quickly regardless of what point in the game you’re in, Magnetman costs 4 Energy to deploy, and could neutralize any enemy Rumbler, provided you aim him properly. We tend to be less enthusiastic about Mr. Fire (3 Energy) — he costs even less as a crowd control defensive Rumbler, but can be trickier to use. Still, if you’re familiar enough with Mr. Fire, his explosions might actually end up pushing your Rumblers and the ball forward, giving you a better shot at the goal, while taking out an enemy Rumbler or two.
We won’t talk much about this, as this is just a beginner’s guide to the game, but you’ll need to be on the lookout for own goals — in Badland Brawl, there may not be such a thing as friendly fire in the truest sense, but this game has some players with interference-like qualities that could force your own Rumblers to score those dreaded own goals. Believe us — they’re more common in this kind of soccer than they are in real-life games.