Global items in Underlords make a big difference compared to Auto Chess, but they are quite intuitive to include in your strat so I won’t focus on them here (we’ll discuss them in-depth in another article).

Having only one item per hero, however, also makes a big difference but less obviously so.

In Auto Chess, some strategies have an easily identifiable “main carry”. This would be the Dragon Knight in the (6) Knights + (3) Dragons strat, or e.g. a three-star Phantom Assassin in (6) Assassin + (3) Elf strats, Terrorblade in Demon strats, etc.

These units are your main damage dealers, so you would often put most of your high-value items on them. Having Madness, Battlefury and ideally a survivability item like BKB on your Phantom Assassin is the dream (not easy to achieve, but still something you strive towards).

In Underlords, however, you can only put one item on a unit. Battle Fury is great on PA, but it gives only splash, no bonus damage. Putting it on her means you wouldn’t have space for a damage or attack speed item, etc.

Similarly, if Bloodseeker is your main damage dealer, you would have a choice to make. BKB is amazing on him, but so are DPS items – you have to make a choice.