Grail Review: The Stacklands Devs Built the Autobattler I Can't Quit

While the whole industry stares at the big September releases, the most addictive game of the month quietly slipped out on September 1 for under ten euros. Grail, the new deckbuilding autobattler from Sokpop Collective - the folks behind Stacklands - has eaten more of my week than games thirty times its price.

What it is

Grail flips the deckbuilder formula on its head: your deck plays itself. You never cast a single card in battle. Instead, all your decisions happen between fights - which cards to draft, which to upgrade, which to enchant, and where to slap stickers that add extra effects. Then you press go and watch your little engine either shred a monster or embarrass itself. Runs take 15-45 minutes, there are over 250 cards and 100+ traits, several playable characters, and an asynchronous PvP mode in the Super Auto Pets mold where your deck duels other players' creations.

The highs

The genius is in the cascading effects. A card triggers a trait, the trait triggers an enchantment, the enchantment triggers another card, and suddenly your screen is a Rube Goldberg machine of damage numbers you built with your own hands. That "one more run to test this combo" pull is as strong here as in any roguelite I've played this year. The trait system rewards actual planning, not just picking the shiniest card, and the PvP fights against real players' decks keep the meta honest - a build that farms monsters can get dismantled by a human-tuned deck. Sokpop's chunky, hand-made art style does a lot with a little, and the Steam launch bundle even throws in Stacklands.

The lows

It's still an autobattler, which means when a fight goes sideways, you sit there watching it go sideways. If you need moment-to-moment control, this will drive you up the wall. Some runs also snowball too predictably once a strong synergy comes online, and the mid-run tension can sag. On the tech side it's Windows and macOS only for now - and the Mac build is listed for Intel machines, which is an odd limitation in 2026. Console and Steam Deck-couch players will have to improvise.

Who it's for

If Stacklands, Super Auto Pets or Balatro ever cost you a weekend, Grail is aimed squarely at you. It's a lunch-break game that pretends to respect your time with short runs, then steals your evening anyway. At €9.75 - with a 20% launch discount running - it's priced like an impulse buy here, and it delivers far more than that.

Verdict

Grail won't convert people who find autobattlers too passive, and it lacks the layers of a premium roguelite. But as a cheap, smart, endlessly replayable combo machine with real PvP bite, it's the hidden gem of a very loud September. The 90% positive Steam rating is not an accident.

Score: 8/10

Image: ÅñtóñSûsî (Ð) / CC BY 3.0 de, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UCB_Playing_Cards.png