Credit: Drodo Studio/ImbaTV
Mentioned in this article
- Drodo Studio, ImbaTV, and Long Mobile will host the first official Auto Chess mobile esports competition in Shanghai this October, with a $1M USD total prize pool.
- The Auto Chess Invitational will feature both direct invites and regional qualifiers, to be held in August.
- Auto Chess is available on the Apple App Store and Android, and the PC version will be exclusively listed on the Epic Games Store.
The first official Auto Chess competition has been announced; the Auto Chess Invitational. Organized by the game’s co-developers Drodo Studio and Long Mobile, as well as esports company ImbaTV, the tournament will be hosted in the Chinese city of Shanghai with a $1M total prize pool, this October.
According to the announcement, Drodo Studio will directly invite “famous” Auto Chess professional players into the main event of the tournament. The rest of the player spots will be selected via qualifiers, held worldwide. Each region’s qualifiers will be held in early August. More details of the competition will be released soon, according to ImbaTV.
Several esports organizations have already set up their own Auto Chess divisions. On April 29, North American esports organization Team Liquid 
signed former Origen League of Legends player Erik “Tabbz” van and former Artifact player George “Hyped” Maganzini to its Auto Chess division.
Related Article: ImbaTV Partners With Drodo Studio for Auto Chess Mobile Game, League Coming Soon
On March 15, Drodo Studio partnered with ImbaTV and Long Mobile to independently develop a mobile game version of Auto Chess. Long Mobile has been providing technical support, while ImbaTV will manage Auto Chess’ global esports endeavors and tournament promotion. Previous reports by several outlets stated that an esports tournament for Auto Chess would feature a ¥10M ($1.49M) prize pool.
Dota Auto Chess was originally a modification created using Dota 2. On May 22, Dota 2’s publisher Valve Corporation announced that it and Drodo Studio were unable to reach an agreement that would have them directly partner together on an Auto Chess title. Instead, each company would develop a standalone version. It should be noted that the amount of prize pool money for the Auto Chess Invitational is the same as the original prize pool money for Valve’s planned tournament for its card game Artifact , which was supposed to be held alongside Dota 2’s The International in Shanghai this year.
During the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles last week, Drodo Studio announced a standalone version of Auto Chess for PC that will be exclusively available via the Epic Games Store. At the time of writing, Auto Chess has also been listed on the Apple App Store and on Android.
Alongside Drodo Studio and Valve, League of Legends publisher Riot Games has also released its own auto battler game, Teamfight Tactics, on its Public Beta Environment (PBE).
Valve’s auto battler game, Dota Underlords, was officially listed on its Steam platform (Windows, Mac, Linux), Apple App Store, and Android system for free. As of June 21, the Dota Underlords concurrent players have broken 100K through Steam alone, according to Valve. It should be noted that Dota Underlords still cannot be found on the Apple App Store in China at the time of writing.
