What is Auto Chess? A beginners guide to DOTA Auto Chess, DOTA Underlords and Teamfight Tactics

Auto Chess guide beginners
(Image credit: 烧焦的鼠标)

You may have recently asked yourself what is Auto Chess, as it's quite the gaming break out recently. If you hop on Steam right now you'll see almost 90,000 players currently enjoying DOTA Underlords, almost 80,000 people are watching people play Teamfight Tactics on Twitch, and more than 9 million players are following the DOTA Auto Chess mod on Steam. If you're wondering 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:how to play Auto Chess then you should know that it has little to do with real chess, ⭕outside the game taking place on an eight by eight checkerboard. A better description for ♌the genre would be a turn based strategy game all about team composition and unit placement. 

If you're not uওp to date on what is Auto Chess and how it works, then here's a handy guide to get you up to speed.

What is Auto Chess?

What is Auto Chess?

(Image credit: riot)

Auto Chess, or auto battlers as the genre has been known to be called, is a mixture of team building and hero placement. Games consist of eight players fighting each other in randomized one vs one matches. Players place heroes on the boa🍃rd at the start of each round and the heroes battle automatically. Simple, right?

page for the game. You'll need to have the base version of in your Steam library as Auto Chess is not a standalone game. Both are free to play so there is no monetary barrier to jump over before playing. is Riot's League of Legends version of the game while and is Valve's 'official' version.

What are the different versions of Auto Chess?

After the original DOTA 2 A💫uto Chess mod blew up in popularity both Valve and Riot jumped on the gravy train with their own versions. T🐟eamfight Tactics uses Riot's League of Legends to create a version of the game, while Valve has made an official version of the game as DOTA Underlords.

Teamfight Tactics

(Image credit: riot)

Teamfight Tactics is a standalone mode in League of Legends, so you don't need to downlo⛎ad anything else. It's very similar to Auto Chess, only with all of the heroes being part of the League of Legends universe instead of DOTA.

While both games are multiplayer focused, Teamfight Tactics puts an emphasis on the shared experience. Fights against other players in Auto Chess are actually against a clone version of that players team due to technical limitations (so each player will see something slightly different, even if they are playing each other). The game simulates the fight rather than actually pitting two players against each other. Teamfight Tactics is different in that it actua𓂃lly has players battling against one another in real time, giving player the ability to trash talk and collaborate in the early stages of a game. 

Teamfight Tactics also has a Shar🌟ed Draft at the beginning of every match, and after every few rounds, where players come together on a neutral board and draft units from a wheel. It's a little something to up the competitive nature of Riot's auto battler. 

DOTA Underlords

(Image credit: epic)

DOTA Underlords, on the other hand, is a more direct take on the Auto Chess mod. It's developed by Valve so it's more complet꧙e and bug-free. It's got a streamlined UI that's a tad easier to use. It's available on PC, Android, and iPhone. 

The main difference between Auto Chess and Underlords, which entered Early Access on Steam on June 20, is the amount of randomn♑ess in the rewards you receive as you play. While the rewards are random in Auto Chess, the amount of rewards you get in Underlords is set per amount of round. What you pick is still random but you know when and how much loot you'll be able to get.

What's next for Auto Chess?

Unlike MOBAs or battle royales, which rose to infamy over the course of a few years, Auto Chess is brand new. The DOTA 2 mod only launched at thﷺe beginning of the year and we're already seeꦗing tons of success come to the fast-growing subgenre. 

We're bound to see more takes on Auto Chess with different skins, user interfaces, economies, and gameplay mechanics in the coming months and years. If one of these games doesn't fit yo♔ur fancy, a new one could bring in some new mechanics that fit your fancy. 

Aron Garst is a journalisไt and writer exploring the future of games and interactivity. Follow him on X at @꧟GarstProduction.