Every few years, a new style of game comes along that gets everyone excited. Several years ago, it was the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), then it was the battle royale. This year, it is the Auto Battler. The idea kicked off with a mod to Defence of the Ancients 2 (DoTA2 for short) called Auto Chess. A lot of people started playing it and those people liked it. News spread fast and a phenomenon was born.
Now the Auto Battler is big news. The biggest MOBA, League of Legends, has its own mode, Teamfight Tactics, while Valve, the brains behind DoTA2 has an Auto Battler called DoTA: Underlords. Even the creators of the original mod have made a new Auto Chess that works on its own.
DoTA: Underlords and Teamfight Tactics have been hugely successful on Twitch and other streaming services, and while Underlords seems to be having a dip right now, Teamfight Tactics is the fifth most streamed game.
How Do They Work?
The original Auto Chess name is misleading. There is a board onto which you place heroes and monsters, but at no point do you move them like chess pieces.
Instead, each game is made up of dozens of mini-matches, which include two basic phases that you repeat until the game ends. In the first phase, you buy new heroes from the shop and decide which ones you will play on that turn, arranging the ones you choose in your area on the board. You can also assign magic items to your heroes to boost their offensive and defensive powers.
Each turn has a maximum number of heroes you can drop onto the board, with the rest just waiting on the side-lines. Here, you have got a maximum number, too. Keep adding more heroes to your line-up and you will have to start getting rid of some old ones.
In the second phase, the heroes of a rival player appear, and the two forces fight it out. You cannot actually do anything during this phase. You just watch as the heroes move, battle, cast spells and pull off any special attacks.
The loser is the first player to lose all their heroes. The reward for the winner? Money they can use to buy more heroes at the beginning of the next phase.
Auto Battlers sometimes interrupt the PvP action with occasional loot or minion missions, where your troops fight computer-controlled enemies to earn more magic items. Again, you can dish out these to your heroes at the start of the next round.
Every time you lose a match, you lose health points according to the power of the heroes that died in that match. Lose the lot and you are out of the game. The winner is the last player standing when everyone else hits zero health.
Which Auto Battler Should You Play?
DoTA: Underlords is a great one to start with. It has easy tutorials that take you through the basics, and you can play against bots while you find your feet. Best of all, you can play it on PC or on android phones and tablets, or an iPhone or iPad. Just head to your app store and pick it up.
Teamfight Tactics is just as good, if not better, but it is PC only at the moment. Also, because it is in beta testing, it isn’t always available to new players. Riot is still building up the game, but it is one to watch.
Nobody has announced a console Auto Battler yet, but it is only a matter of time. We wouldn’t be surprised to see DoTA: Underlords or Teamfight Tactics grace the PlayStation or Xbox later this year, and it is the sort of game where other clones could soon appear.
You can find discounted Nintendo gift cards over at our online store here, PlayStation gift cards here, Xbox gift cards here, and a wide variety of other gift cards here.
Keywords: Auto Battler, Strategy, Gaming, Tips, Videogames.
