Preview: Artifact (Steam)

A  collaboration between legendary game designer Richard Garfield and Valve, Artifact offers the deepest gameplay and the highest-fidelity experience ever seen in a trading card game.

Pros:

• Fantastic graphics.
• 3980GB Download size.
• Graphics- Resolution, Display mode, V-Sync, V-Sync, AA, AO, Texture/lighting/shadow quality presets. Max FPS allowed slider and screen render quality slider.
• Audio- Sound in desktop, Skip startup movies, Subtitles and anonymous mode.
• Dota 2 UI.
• Reassign hotkeys all though, the whole game can be played with just a mouse.
• Opening training matches. You play 2 games using a combo of two colored decks.
• To win you must destroy two of three towers or take out one Ancient. (Ancients appear after a tower has been taken out and has a much higher health bar)
• Card battler gameplay.
• Game board- You play across 3 lanes (boards).
• Earn gold from killing creeps and heroes.
• Slick animations from cards being played to the little Imp looking things flying around the screen.
• Double click any card for a full pop up with description.
• Can review last played card.
• Improvement cards- Once played these do their action for the entirety of the game.
• Shop- Appears between rounds and you can buy cards (random from your deck) or hold a card if you don’t quite have enough money.
• Mana- Increases by one every round, This number dictates what cards you can play.
• Defeated Heroes come back next round and you choose what lane to deploy them on.
• oversaw
• Starter Bundle- Two full decks, 10 unopened packs and 5 tickets.
• Four modes- Solo play, Social play, Casual play, and expert play.
• Solo play- Against AI bots and you choose your deck and the bots deck.
• Social play- Open game (create/join), Challenge (private friend) and tournament setup.
• Casual play- Global, Constructed, Phantom and keeper draft.
• Expert play- Constructed, Phantom and keeper draft.
• Modes work on a win 5 before losing 2 model.
• Collection- View your cards, Marketplace to buy and sell cards on the Steam market.
• Awesome card art.
• Hero cards are voiced and shout out as you play.
• Deck builder- Filters, Rename deck, See a detailed breakdown of heroes, main deck and items.
• Four colors- Red, Black, Blue, and Green. Colour dictates play style like Blue is all about magic tactics and flooding the opposition whereas Red has more tanky assault based cards.
• A lot of help/guidance with handy pop-ups and feedback from your Imp.
• You play each lane in turn in one round and once both players have passed the round ends and the shop pops up and can be used.
• Card playing- You can only play cards that match the color of the Hero in the lane so a Blue hero means only Blue cards can be played.
• Contains Dota 2 items, heroes and creeps that veterans will notice.
• The game is presented that you need no Dota 2 knowledge in order to play.
• Good pack opening animation. You only have to hover over the cards to flip them unless they are rare cards and even then it is just a button click.
• Card rarity from Bronze to Gold.
• Approachable thanks to the staggered flow and well-presented training matches. (Can be replayed whenever)

Cons:

• Very basic game board offering no interactions or animations.
• A lot to take in regardless of presentation and help.
• No in-game deck building help except for deck card count.
• You don’t get rewards/progress in bot matches.
• No Steam trading cards yet.
• No Steam achievements yet.
• Games can last a while.
• Only the one card back.
• No difficulty option for AI.
• You have to use tickets to pay for entry into some modes.
• Only one game board at present.