Valve stopped developing Dota Underlords. The last patch arrived on 8 December 2021 and its headline note extended the Season 1 end date to 2031, which in practice means no further content or balance work. Servers stay online and matchmaking still fills, with SteamDB tracking roughly 1,000 to 1,300 concurrent players in August 2026 against an all-time peak of 202,334 on 23 June 2019, so what you are playing is a frozen 2021 auto-battler rather than a supported competitive game.
This guide covers everything you need: core mechanics, the best builds, equipment worth investing in, location progression, and the tips that actually make a difference.
Core Mechanics
8x8 board placement
You arrange purchased heroes on an 8x8 grid during a preparation phase, then the round resolves automatically with no further input. Where a unit stands decides who it walks into first, which matters more than most new players expect.
three-copy hero upgrades
Three copies of the same hero merge into a two-star version, and three two-stars merge again into a three-star. Chasing a three-star costs nine copies of a unit that other players are also buying from a shared pool.
alliance bonuses
Fielding several heroes from the same alliance grants a shared bonus that scales in steps, so three Warriors give the whole team armor. The Warrior alliance is widely rated the strongest defensive package in the game precisely because a three-stack is cheap.
gold interest and streaks
You bank interest of one gold per ten held, capped at five per round, and win or loss streaks pay their own bonus on top. Deciding whether to spend on rerolls or hold for interest is the entire economic layer.
Underlord pick at round 10
At round 10 you choose one of four Underlords, Anessix, Hobgen, Jull or Enno, and each is offered in one of two randomly selected builds. The Underlord fights on your board for the rest of the match, so the pick changes both your damage profile and your alliance count.
For a deeper dive into how these systems interact, see our Dota Underlords combat guide.
Builds Overview
| Build | Tier | Playstyle | Key Stats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warrior Frontline | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Assassin Burst | A | Spread your own units into corners so enemy Assassins land badly, then let yours dive. If your opening jump fails twice in a row, pivot rather than reroll deeper into the same board. | Critical damage and attack speed first, survivability last |
| Mage Magic Damage | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Knight Defense | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Hunter Scaling | B | Sit Hunters on the back two rows behind a real frontline and never let them be the closest target. Add Vladmir's Offering as soon as it appears in an item pick. | Attack speed, then attack damage, then any health at all on the back row |
Assassin Burst (A-Tier): Assassins jump the enemy back line at the start of combat and try to delete the carry before it acts. The comp wins or loses in the first two seconds of the round, which makes it high variance and very punishing against a spread board.
Hunter Scaling (B-Tier): Hunters convert a long round into steady ranged damage, so the comp beats anything that fails to kill quickly. It is the natural pair for a Warrior or Knight front rank because it needs somebody else to hold the line.
For full build breakdowns with gear and stat priorities, see our Dota Underlords builds guide. For rankings, check the tier list.
Equipment Guide
| Equipment | Why It Matters | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Aegis of the Immortal | A tier five item that brings a unit back after it dies, buying an extra window of frontline time in the round that decides your health bar. | Your single most important frontline body in a Warrior or Knight board |
| Vladmir's Offering | Tier five aura item that raises damage across your team rather than one unit. | Hunter and Warrior boards with five or more attacking units |
| Blade Mail | Defensive item that reflects 30 percent of damage taken back at the attacker. | The unit the enemy Assassins are going to jump first |
| Refresher Orb | Refreshes all cooldowns and restores 50 mana once per battle after an ability is cast. | Your highest-impact ability user in Mage or Warlock comps |
| Vitality Booster | A flat 250 health, which is unexciting and quietly one of the most reliable picks in the early item rounds. | Early item picks when you do not yet know which comp you are building |
Aegis of the Immortal: A tier five item that brings a unit back after it dies, buying an extra window of frontline time in the round that decides your health bar. Tier five items only start appearing in late item picks, so plan around it rather than for it.
Vladmir's Offering: Tier five aura item that raises damage across your team rather than one unit. In a board built on many small attackers it outperforms any single-target damage item.
Blade Mail: Defensive item that reflects 30 percent of damage taken back at the attacker. It is one of the few items that scales with how hard the enemy hits you, which makes it strongest against high-damage carries.
Refresher Orb: Refreshes all cooldowns and restores 50 mana once per battle after an ability is cast. Two casts of a strong ability in one round is often the entire reason a Mage board wins.
Vitality Booster: A flat 250 health, which is unexciting and quietly one of the most reliable picks in the early item rounds. Extra health on a frontline unit buys the seconds your back row needs to cast.
Full breakdowns in our Dota Underlords weapons guide.
Location Progression
| Location | Level Range | Key Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Full match, roughly 30 to 45 minutes | Item picks after rounds 1, 2, 3, 10 and then every fifth round. Season 1 progression rewards are frozen: Valve pushed the season end to 2031 and nothing new is being added. |
| Knockout | Short match, roughly 15 to 20 minutes | Same item pick structure at an accelerated pace. No mode-specific unlocks are being issued any more. |
| Duos | Full match, needs a partner | Shared health and experience. With roughly a thousand concurrent players worldwide, expect long waits or bring your own second player. |
| City Crawl | Solo, play at your own pace | Campaign challenges and cosmetic unlocks that were finished before development stopped. Nothing new has been added since 2021. |
| Ranked matchmaking | Requires completing placement matches | Ladder placement only. Seasonal rewards stopped being meaningful the moment Valve extended Season 1 to 2031, so treat rank as a personal score. |
Standard: The main eight-player mode, where everyone starts at 100 health and the last player standing wins. Rounds alternate between player-versus-player fights and creep rounds that hand out item picks.
Knockout: A shortened format that compresses the same eight-player structure into a faster match. Economy matters less because there are fewer rounds to compound interest across.
Duos: Two players share a health pool and experience while running separate boards, so a partner who feeds losses drags you down directly. Queue times are the worst of any mode given the current population.
City Crawl: The single-player campaign layer built around White Spire, offering scripted challenges and puzzle boards rather than ladder matches. It is the part of the game least affected by the end of development because it never depended on a live population.
Ranked matchmaking: The competitive ladder still runs and still places you against opponents, but the pool it draws from is four figures rather than six. Match quality varies wildly as a result, with strong veterans sitting in the same queue as returning players.
See our maps & locations guide for detailed area breakdowns and our walkthrough for the optimal progression path.
Tips That Actually Matter
- Know what you are signing up for before you install. The 8 December 2021 patch pushed Season 1 to 2031 and no balance changes have followed, so every comp you read about in a 2020 guide is still exactly as strong or weak as it was then. That stability is genuinely useful for learning, but there is no meta to keep up with.
- Bank to ten gold as fast as you can. Interest pays one gold per ten held up to a five gold cap, so the difference between sitting at nine and sitting at fifty compounds over a 30-round match into more heroes than any single lucky reroll gives you.
- Three Warriors is the cheapest stable opening in the game because the alliance grants armor to the entire team, not just to the Warriors. Even if you intend to finish on Mages, Warriors buy you the early rounds without spending on rerolls.
- Positioning beats board strength against Assassins. They jump the back line at combat start, so putting your carry in a corner surrounded by two bodies means the jump lands into your frontline instead of onto your damage dealer.
- Take the Underlord that patches a hole rather than the one with the best animation. Anessix summons an extra Demon that counts toward that alliance, Jull is a melee tank, Hobgen sets targets on fire for a percentage of maximum health per second, and Enno leaps around poisoning the back line. Each appears in one of two builds chosen at random, so read the offered build, not just the name.
- Do not chase a three-star hero unless you already hold six copies. Nine copies come out of a pool every other player is drawing from, and the gold you burn rerolling for the last three usually buys a stronger two-star board instead.
- Break your economy deliberately, not accidentally. If you are on a losing streak and below roughly 40 health, spend down to buy survivability now, because interest you never live to collect is worth nothing.
- Blade Mail on the unit the enemy focuses first turns their carry into a liability, since it reflects 30 percent of incoming damage. It is one of the few defensive picks that punishes a stronger opponent rather than merely delaying them.
- Play City Crawl if the queue is empty. It is offline campaign content built before development stopped, so it plays exactly as designed regardless of how many people are online, and it teaches board reading better than losing eighth place repeatedly.
- Expect no cross-platform rescue. The game shipped on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS in February 2020 and the mobile clients are as unmaintained as the PC one, so the combined pool is still small.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Following a 2019 or 2020 tier list without checking it predates the final December 2021 balance state.
- Rerolling the shop every round and arriving at round 20 with no interest and a two-star board.
- Stacking every damage unit in one corner where a single area ability hits all of them.
- Picking an Underlord for its ability description without checking which of its two builds was offered.
- Queuing Duos solo during off-peak hours and blaming the game for a wait that a four-figure population cannot fix.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Dota Underlords still playable in 2026?
Yes, though it is unsupported. Servers are up and matches fill, with SteamDB showing roughly 1,000 to 1,300 concurrent players in August 2026. Valve last patched it on 8 December 2021 and that patch extended Season 1 to 2031, which is how the studio signalled that content work had ended.
Did Valve officially cancel it?
There was no formal cancellation announcement. Development simply stopped after 2021, and coverage at the time read the Season 1 extension as the end of updates. The game remains free on Steam and has never been delisted.
How is it different from Dota 2?
It is an auto-battler, not a MOBA. You buy heroes into an 8x8 board during a preparation phase and rounds resolve without direct control. It grew out of the Dota Auto Chess mod, which reached seven million players by April 2019, and it was the first mobile game built on Valve's Source 2 engine.
Is Teamfight Tactics just a better version of this?
That is roughly what the market decided. Riot's competing auto-battler kept shipping seasons and sets while Underlords stopped, and commentary at the time pointed to it as the main reason the player base left. If you want an actively balanced auto-battler, Underlords is not it.
Can I still learn the game solo?
Yes. City Crawl provides offline campaign challenges that do not need other players, and a frozen balance state means anything you learn stays true. Ranked still functions, but the small pool makes match quality inconsistent.
More Dota Underlords Guides
- Dota Underlords Best Builds
- Dota Underlords Tier List
- Dota Underlords Walkthrough
- Dota Underlords Beginner's Guide
- Dota Underlords Tips & Tricks
- Dota Underlords Weapons Guide
- Dota Underlords Combat Guide
- Dota Underlords Boss Guide
- Dota Underlords Maps & Locations
- Dota Underlords Crafting Guide
- Dota Underlords Classes & Characters
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