As a Solo Showdown main (~21k max trophies, a couple rank 26 brawlers strictly from showdown), I have learnt quite a bit climbing from Silver II to Diamond I.

TL;DR: Don't die, maintain/take advantage of map/zone control, be good at meta brawlers.

Surprisingly, a lot of skills you learn from Solo Showdown (assuming you don't team) translates over to 3v3 game modes. These are just general rules/observations, and there are obvious exceptions, but in general they're pretty good rules to follow.

1. Don't Die

For the most part, staying alive is more important than that one bolt, or gem. Even if your team manages to recover that bolt, or gem after your death, playing a 2v3 is difficult, and your team is probably going to lose a lot more than that one bolt/gem while you're dead.

Some exceptions to this could be:

• You need that one objective to start the gem countdown, and you're up by more than 2 or 3 gems.
• Your team needs the bolt for the last bot
• Your team gains zone control (more on this later) by killing 1 or more enemy players, or taking them down extremely low that they can't contribute to the game (have to heal)

Also, try to avoid 50/50 plays. To increase your chances of a play succeeding, try to have:

• Ammo/damage advantage
• Health advantage
• Zone control (more on this in the next section)/back-up from your team

2. Pressure/zone control is more important than kills

Regardless of game mode, the most important thing is zone control/pressure. Zone control gives your team more of the map to play with; the more room your team has, the more room you have to dodge enemy shots/abilities, safely grab bolts/gems, etc.

The best (and subsequently, worst if you're on the receiving end) feeling in the game is spawn trapping the enemy.

The simplest form of zone control is killing an enemy player and taking control of that area of the map. This is when the enemy isn't able to leave spawn, or if they do they're already at half health, and your team is free to grab all the gems/bolts, rack up hot zone control, and even heal up.

There are ways to gain zone control/apply pressure without having to kill someone outright. A great example of this, especially given his popularity, is Tick. Tick can't outright 100 to 0 many brawlers, but the ability to chip away at anyone's health who approaches a large area is extremely important. Coupled with the fact that he does this from an extremely long distance (amongst other things), make him nearly 100% pick/ban.

Make sure you translate your zone control/pressure into actual control of the map. There's no point in controlling a zone if your team isn't taking advantage of it.

Continuing on the Tick example, your team gets limited value if your Tick is just spamming the middle of the Gem Grab map over, and over again. This doesn't make it any safer for your team to go up and grab the gems.

Instead, what you want to do is slowly inch up when you're gaining zone control. Give that Tick's bombs linger for some time, it gives you time to move up a bit, and place your bombs even further. Your goal is to take these small advantages and take incrementally larger chunks of the map.

My favourite brawlers that provide zone control are different based on the map. Good generalists are: Tick, Mr. P, and to a lesser extent, Colonel Ruffs.

For maps with large/wide open spaces (eg. Backyard Bowl, Ice Fort) are:

• Amber (especially with her star power to lay down two puddles)
• Emz.

Maps with smaller areas (eg. Super Stadium):

• Sandy
• Tara
• Barley (if you have a lot of terrain to dance around, needs a higher level of execution).

Maps with long corridors (eg. Bot Drop, Shooting Star):

• Sprout
• Mr. P
• Byron.

3. Don't be greedy

If going for a bolt/gem/a kill causes you to die or lose zone control, don't do it.

If you're up 1:0 in Brawl Ball, you have the enemy team pushed to their spawn, but it's not a guaranteed score, you're probably better off holding the spawn trap than maybe scoring, and losing map control.

Unless the enemy brawler has a couple more stars than you in Bounty, it's probably not worth trading your death for theirs, unless your team gets noticably more zone control. Remember, if both brawlers are at the same star bounty (eg. 2 stars), if you kill an enemy brawler but you die right afterwards, the enemy gains a net score of 1 (your team gets 2 stars, but the enemy gets 3).

4. Be mindful of your team composition

If your team already has two throwers, and the enemy team has a team of tanks, mobile brawlers, or Mr. P, don't pick another thrower. Pick someone who can protect/make space for the throwers, consistent/high damage, and/or be able to challenge for the objective.

5. Be good at meta/versitile brawlers

Be good at meta brawlers (Mr.P, Colonel Ruffs, Tick, etc), or at least know how to play their counters.

Have a brawler pool with good versatility, and limit your pool to a few brawlers. This allows you to play brawlers in different roles, and prevents you from getting banned out/having your brawlers picked before you. For this season, my main brawler pool is:

• Mr. P (my most played/default choice, most versatile brawler IMO, can be picked for support, map control, decent damage, anti-thrower, long-range (Handle with care star power)
• Colonel Ruffs (Support, map control (super gadget), decent damage/quick burst)
• Tick (Support, map control, long-range damage)
• Emz (Map control, mid-range damage)
• Barley (Support, map control, decent damage)
• Sandy (map control, short/mid-range damage)
• Sprout (map control, long-range damage)

As you can see, I put a high priority on brawlers that have a supportive/zone control type play style.

Some brawlers I play based on the map/composition. I wouldn't say I'm great with these picks, but they are either simple to play, or similar to a brawler I do play:

• Poco (Simple to play, I usually play to support tanks we already have good damage)
• Frank (Strictly play into Dueling Beetles if we have a high-damage, squishy/thrower comp)
• Amber (I feel that she has a very similar role/play style to Emz)
• Dynamike (If a thrower is needed, other throwers are picked/banned/not viable, high damage)
• Tara (my old main)

I've dabbled with Stu, and I would eventually like to add him to my pool.

Out of all the brawlers in my main pool, the only ones I was comfortable playing were Tick, and Emz. As you can imagine, the early stages were extremely rough as it took some time to learn how to play the other brawlers.

TL;DR: Don't die, maintain/take advantage of map/zone control, be good at meta brawlers.

I can go into specifics if people are interested. Thanks!