Valve released Solomon on Friday, October 9, 2026 at 2pm PT. He won the third round of the City Never Sleeps hero vote, after Rat King and Baba, and he is the most unusual kit of the batch so far: almost all of his damage and control comes from chess pieces he places and moves around the map.
Solomon at a glance
- Setup Bishop leaves a bishop on the map that stays until you recall it. Sliding it damages and slows enemies, and the squares on its diagonals hurt anyone who stands on them.
- Kingside Knight turns an ally into a knight with a barrier and an extra dash, then jumps them to safety (they can’t be hurt during the jump). Cast on himself, Solomon becomes the king instead.
- Rook Battery fires two rooks that root enemies for a second and bounce off walls. Recast to split them sideways.
- Develop Queen, his ultimate, drops a queen that damages the area, then fires lines of squares that stun. Upgraded, she executes heroes under 200 health.
His gun is slow and fires explosive shots, and right click moves his pieces instead of zooming. Our early Solomon guide has his full kit with every upgrade, a skill order and a starting build taken from his first 150,000 matches.
Everything else in the update
- New traversal: Valve added ropes, bridges and hallways “in some map locations” without saying where. Expect a few new shortcuts between familiar spots. We’ll add them to the map guides once they’re pinned down.
- Viscous received a voice-over pass. Most lines are remastered, and a few are new.
- No balance changes. The last balance patch is still October 5.
What’s next
Three City Never Sleeps heroes are left: Deadman Danny, Nurse Harrow and Violet. They release on October 13, 16 and 20 at 2pm PT, in the order the community votes for in the pre-game lobby. See how the hero vote works.