League of Legends reveals Teamfight Tactics, its new Auto Chess mode

Riot has announced a new autobattler mode for League of Legends, called Teamfight Tactics, and it's going to be available to all players from 25th June (and on the public beta environment later this month).

This is Riot's take on Auto Chess, the Dota 2 mod phenomenon - the mod Valve tried to collaborate with on it didn't work out, so now Valve is making its own.

Teamfight Tactics pits eight players, one-on-one, against each other until only one remains. Battles are turn-based, like chess, and based around the League of Legends champions, and they fight, as you might have guessed, automatically.

Therefore, there is no actual twitch-skill in playing. Instead, the skill comes from strategy, in your choosing which heroes to deploy and in which formation, and in earning resources and upgrading your army. Autobattlers could be the next big thing after battle royale - hence the big guns throwing in their lots.

Specifically, in Teamfight Tactics, there's a hex-grid battlefield, a bench, where your champions wait for deployment, and shop where you can spend your gold to buy champions, reroll your champion pool, buy XP to level up quicker, and unlock extra bench slots.

Gold is earned at the end of each round for selling champions, for win-streaks or losing streaks, and as interest on gold in your bank. Characters start at level one and can reach level 10, and levels control how many champs you can have on the board and which champs you can access.

The game plays in phases. You will fight AI monsters for three rounds before you match with other people. There's a 30-second shopping phase to buy and equip and level up, and position, and then there's combat. In combat, your army teleports to your opponent's board, or vice versa, and fights.