Artifact, the first original game title since the
Portal series for
Valve Corp., is looking to revolutionize the deck-building card collecting genre. Based off the world and characters of their popular MOBA (Multiplayer online battle arena),
Dota 2,
Artifact looks to blend elements from this genre with already popular card games such as Blizzard's
Hearthstone and their forefather,
Magic: The Gathering. Anybody who's a fan of these games should also be pleased to know that the creator of
Magic: The Gathering,
Richard Garfield, was also the lead designer for this game as well.
There are some glaring differences and similarities between this title and the ones previously mentioned, each match pits one player versus another, but their field of play supports three seperate boards; most certainly to represent the three seperate lanes from
Dota 2. Players alternate their turns on each board, each with their own life pools, and players must beat their opponent on two of the three lanes to win.
Much like other card games, players can only place cards if they have enough Mana, which replenishes and increases by one every turn (starts at 3), and there are four different card types: Red, Blue, Black, and Green. Depending on the type of hero card you have in a lane, players will only be able to play spells of that same type. The game also borrows creeps from the main game, which are randomly distributed at the start of the game and act as minions with low attack and life.
It is currently in its Beta process and one guaranteed invite is through grabbing a key from PAX West, otherwise it seems they've been sent to various players via e-mail (or to popular Twitch and Youtube streamers/personalities).
As with other Valve titles, it will utilize the
Steam Marketplace as players will need to collect cards to build their decks, but they do hope to make sure prices don't get to ridiculous as they don't want the game to be pay-to-win. Players can either buy individual cards from their Marketplace, or buy full packs, both which require real money. One full card pack includes 12 cards with a guaranteed rare and currently has a price tag of
$1.99 USD.
Artifact will be released on
November 28th, 2018, and will retail for
$19.99 USD and will include two (2) full decks, ten (10) card packs, and five tickets which will be used to play in various competitive game modes.
More info will be released as the game inches closer to its official release date!