From competitive inventory rearranging with cheese-eating slimes to roguelike Pokémon combat, the autobattler genre is more alive than ever—and there's never been a better time to jump in

Back in the mists of 2019, just before the world ended, autobattlers erupted out of a seemingly exponentially popular Dota 2 custom game mode. Fuelled by fast-paced development from teams eager to grab a slice of Hot New Emerging Genre pie, we saw a wave of high-profile games about building up armies then sitting back and watching them do battle with those of other players. 

They were neat! I and millions of others played a ton of Auto Chess, Dota Underlords, and Team Fight Tactics. But despite Valve...