TeamFight Tactics. Auto Chess. Dota Underlords. You may have played either one of them and they have their own variations, tilesets, and rules. However, they all go under the same class of competitive games that dominated mobile games and PCs earlier in 2019.

The premise is easy: buy “chess” pieces, put them on the board, let them fight it out between 8 teams, and ensure you’re the last team standing. To win, you need to manage your resources, your pieces’ synergy, and pay attention to what compositions your enemies are using.

You’ll also get some respite via mobs to gain extra gold for better pieces, but at the end of the day, it’s still a pure PvP experience through and through.

Each auto chess session is about 20 minutes or more. It seems long, but they’re incredibly engrossing and addictive in the long run.

Part puzzler, part turn-based strategy, all fun; don’t act too shocked if you started an 8pm session with your pals and stop to realize you’ve been playing until 3am.

This year definitely goes to this bold new genre of gaming. As such, it deserves an exclusive slot on our Best of 2019 picks just because of its significance and appeal to both the casual and hardcore crowd.

And all it took were a bunch of Dota 2 assets and a brilliant mind or two. That’s the power of limited resources but unbridled creativity, eh?