Things We Need to Know About Artifact Gameplay

Ever since the release of arguably the most popular card game at the moment Hearthstone saw the day of light back in 2014, the digital card game market literally exploded. And four years later, Steam is trying to take a piece of the cake thanks to all the hype that’s been building around the Artifact Gameplay.

While some say that they’re definitely late to the party, most fans and critics actually think that this brand new title can even shake things up at the top, where Blizzard’s product currently sits. That might not be far-fetched at all, because, with a number of intriguing game mechanics, the game that’s based on DotA definitely sounds like a lot of fun.

And since the guys from Steam have decided to partner with none other than Richard Garfield who’s the mastermind behind the legendary game Magic: The Gathering, this project starts to appear even more fascinating. That’s why in today’s post, we’ll take a closer look at what we know about its gameplay right now and what you can expect from it.

What is Artifact and how do I play it?

As previously mentioned, this is a card game and its gameplay revolves around a classic 1 versus 1 scenario. Players have to build a deck of items, heroes, and spells as battle it out across three unique boards or lanes. Each player has a tower on each lane that has 40 health and a starting mana pool of 3 – the mana in that mana pool is spent on cards on that particular lane.

There are 4 different hero and card colors in the game – Blue, Green, Black, and Red. You can use any color combination you prefer, but you can only play cards of specific colors, only if there’s a hero of the same color on that board. Also, here are some basic gameplay stats concerning Steam’s very own card game:

Gameplay Stats

• There are over 280 cards in the launch version of Artifact
• Every deck includes 40 cards and 5 heroes
• The total number of heroes in the game is 44

Now, the action across the three different lanes takes place pretty much simultaneously and there’s a rotation cycle of the three boards that are repeated continuously – starting from the top, moving to the middle one and lastly moving to the bottom board. And even though every board has its unique battle arena, there are some particular effects that can be used between different boards.

As for the actual combat mechanics, they are fully automated -all the heroes and minions fight each other via several distinguishable attack patterns:

Attack Patterns

• Frontal – attacks an enemy in front of it
• Left – attacks an enemy that’s located diagonally left of it
• Right – attacks an enemy that’s located diagonally right of it
• Random – attacks a randomly-designated enemy target

However, if one of your cards has nothing no attack (e.g. no enemy cards) it will start attacking the opposing tower instead. Subsequently, hero cards that are defeated go out of play for one turn and then they’re returned back to the game, while destroyed creeps are taken out of the game immediately, although their place is taken by a larger number of creeps at a later point.

An interesting fact is that in Artifact, there are no limits regarding the number of cards in your hand, how many units there might be in a single lane (board). This means that there’s a very captivating gameplay with basically unlimited potential because you and your opponent can have dozens of units, making for a real skirmish out there.

For more Artifact, check this out: The Artifact Card Game: Hearthstone’s Upcoming Rival

How do I win in Artifact?

The win in this game is achieved either by destroying two enemy towers or by destroying an Ancient, before they can do the same to you, obviously. Ancients are a sort of an elite version of the regular towers as they have 80 health (twice more than towers) and they pop up after a tower has been destroyed.

What this means is that even if you lose a tower on one of your boards, the board will continue to stay active, including all the cards and everything that’s in it. The only difference is that now one of your Ancients is exposed and you’re that much closer to losing the entire game.

When can we expect Steams’ brand new card game to hit the market?

Back in early August 2018, it was confirmed that the official release date of Artifact would be November 28, 2018. Then, you’ll be able to purchase this game for exactly $19.99 and apart from getting 228 cards for that price (280 unique ones will be available at the official launch of Artifact), boosters packs will be available for purchase at $2 each.

Note that the release date mentioned above is for the PC version of Artifact. With that being said, there is going to be a mobile version that’ll most likely see the day of light in 2019, it’ll be available for both iOS and Android users and above all – this is going to be the first game with the Source 2 engine that’ll be playable on iOS devices.

Conclusion

There’s no denying that the Artifact Gameplay sounds pretty exciting and it seems like Steam really know what they’re doing here. Not only did they recruit the services of Richard Garfield for this project, but they’ve also used one of the most recognizable and most successful MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arena) as the foundation for this game and that, of course, is Dota 2.

By integrating all the beloved Dota characters with all the specific abilities, spells and even sound effects, they’ve managed to capture the attention of the Dota 2 community. At first glance, it seems like Artifact might turn out to be a real competitor for the digital card game crown that currently belongs to Hearthstone.

Do you think that Artifact can overthrow Hearthstone and become more successful though? Let us know in the comment section below!