Esports
Three lanes. Hero cards. Gold and equipment. Valve have finally unveiled their upcoming Dota card game Artifact, so here’s everything you need to know following the debut.
Valve say they want Artifact to do for the card game what Half-Life 2 did for the first-person shooter. Now there’s a claim for you.
We’ve been sat here speculating for a good seven months about the game since Valve first announced Artifact. Quite how they planned to translate the vastness and complexity of a Dota 2 match into a card game left our heads spinning, but it also left us cautiously optimistic for what they might achieve. Well, now we have a clearer idea of what to expect, the level of detail and ambition astounds.
First off, the basics. A game of Artifact is played across three lanes, or three game boards. Each player takes a deck of 40 cards into a match which includes five heroes, similar to a team composition you’d draft before a game of proper Dota. Then, three of those heroes are deployed evenly across each lane along with some randomly spawned melee creeps. Each lane has a tower with 40 health that you must defend. If you lose two towers, the game is over. But, added to that, upon destroying a tower, an Ancient with 80 health spawns in its place. Destroy that and you also win the game.
Phew, still with us so far? That’s just the most basic breakdown of the blueprint for the game’s set-up and the actual moment-to-moment turns of each player is a far more complex back-and-forth. Each takes it in turn to play cards on a lane using their available mana pool and once both have ended their turn the action commences.
Minions battle it out against each other, fighting against whoever or whatever is standing opposite them: be that a hero, creep or structure. Once the dust has settled, any defeated heroes are removed from the game for one turn. The action then moves to the second lane, and then the third lane, where the same process is repeated.
But, like Dota, there’s more to the game than just endlessly fighting in lane. What are you going to do with all that gold you’ve accrued taking out creeps and enemy heroes? Artifact replicates the return to the Fountain with a Shopping Phase at the end of each round. During this brief pause, you draw two cards from your deck and can buy equipment cards to take with you into the next round, ranging from fairly bland and basic buffs to more powerful and expensive items.
What’s important to consider is that only heroes can use equipment items and there are three available slots – weapon, armor and accessory – which can be filled. Any equipment given to heroes persists through death, however, so there’s no need to fret about losing something like an Apotheosis Dagger if they’re defeated.
It’s a kind of magic
So, now that’s all laid out, let’s get into the real nitty-gritty of the game. That begins with who Valve are working with on the project, and if there’s one name that’ll turn the heads of CCG fans, it’s Richard Garfield. He’s an iconic figure in the genre, best known for the creation of Magic: the Gathering, the game many would consider the first major modern CCG. Garfield’s involvement surely bodes well for Artifact considering how well he has been entrenched in the world of card games and tabletop gaming over the last 20-plus years.
His fingerprints on the game can perhaps be best seen in the colours assigned to cards and heroes. Red, Green, Black and Blue cards each have their own identities, which affects their specialities. In Magic, for example, red cards are known for their speed and direct damage potential, white cards are more divine with angels and healing effects, while blue cards are full of pain in the neck interrupt and bounce mechanics which can most certainly get in the bin.
Essentially, they give you a general idea of the style of play you can expect from a deck containing cards of that colour and a similar function is intended for Artifact. Red cards are the big and bulky bruisers, Green heroes and spells offer utility and support, Black are most similar to assassins and can deal damage in a variety of ways, and Blue cards lean towards mages.
Colour us intrigued
What’s so important about this colour distinction as well is that in order to play a card you need a hero of the corresponding colour in the lane you intend to play it. Therefore, the hero or heroes you have committed to a lane will somewhat define the strategies you’re able to implement. Still, there are a few examples where the effects on some cards can actually affect different lanes. It’s also worth noting, however, that decks are made up of two different colours, so you shouldn’t find yourself spread too thin on the board with few potential plays.
There’s no limit to hand size either, so with the double card draw at the start of each new cycle, plus all the items you can purchase during the Shopping Phase, you should have a lot of options when it comes round to your turns. Not to mention trying to follow the action across three separate game boards!
And that’s about it. Based on those initial impressions, Artifact sounds like one enormous and complicated beast. Then again, would you expect anything else from a card game that tries to capture the spirit of Dota on a digital tabletop? Hearthstone this is not.
Another point that separates Artifact from Blizzard’s all-consuming card game is that it’s not free-to-play. You’ll be able to pick up something similar to a ‘Starter Edition’ to get you going and then you’ll also be able to buy boosters, or buy and trade individual cards. Valve stress that it won’t be a ‘pay-to-win’ situation, but give you the freedom to collect cards of your own choosing, rather than hoping for a lucky pull from booster packs. Valve has said that cards will never be defunct or rotated out of play too, so your library will always have use and value. Given the infrastructure already in place on the Steam Marketplace there’s hope that this system will work.
Overall, it’s all wildly intriguing and Artifact looks like a card game that promises an almighty skill ceiling. There’s RNG, but it can be mitigated by skill. The board is a screen-stretching mess of information, but all of it is important to understand the state of a game. You can even have up to 100 units in a lane at once and that just seems… ridiculous.
With all that said, it’s exactly why Artifact should appeal to genre veterans looking for an all-new challenge, or the Dota players after a new way to experience their favourite MOBA and the esports pros seeking a new level of competitive play. On that final point, a tournament with a US$1m prize pool is already scheduled for early 2019. The rest of us will get our first shot at Artifact when it releases later this year.
