Artifact: A strategy gamer's dream game (if you only play phantom draft)
Artifact is Valve's latest game - a trading card game that anybody who appreciates complex strategy will appreciate. While it is based on Dota2, you do not need to be a Dota2 player to enjoy this game. This is a very polished trading card game, as polished as other well established games like Heartstone and Shadowverse.
At first glance, the most notable difference between Artifact and other card games is that Artifact has 3 different lanes. In order to win a game, you either need to kill two of the three towers or kill one tower and its ancient. Each tower has two health pools - after the first health pool falls to 0 (starts at 40), the second health pool appears (starts at 80). Moreover, any damage you do to the first health pool does not overflow onto the second health pool. For example, if a tower is at 5 health and you do 20 damage to it, the remaining 15 damage are not removed from the second health pool. While this may seem like no big deal, this creates a ton of strategy while playing the game.
And strategy is what this game is all about. You will always be making difficult strategic choices. A common strategy is to focus your firepower on two lanes and devote minimal (if any) resources to the third lane. Good players will be able to quickly learn which lanes to focus. Even better players will know when to move heroes between lanes. In addition to strategizing between lanes, you also need to think about what items to purchase for your heroes. Every time you kill a creep or hero, you get gold. You can then spend that gold on items that you can equip on heroes or otherwise use to help you in the game. After each round, you will see 3 items that you can purchase. These items rotate (unless you pay 1 gold to hold an item) so you don't always know what you will get. As a result, there is tremendous strategy in determining what you should do after each round - should you save your gold and hope the item you want appears after the next round or should you buy a cheaper item now to give your hero an early advantage.
Another strategic element in the game is card color. You can only play cards that correspond with the hero's color in that lane. There are 4 colors: red, green, blue, and black. If you only have a red hero in the first lane, you cannot play any green cards in that lane. One consequence to this rule is that if you do not have any heroes in a lane, you cannot play any cards in that lane. This makes preserving heroes especially important - when a hero dies, it does not spawn again for 2 rounds. This also makes hero placement important - if you overload one lane with heroes and your opponent is able to eliminate the heroes in the other lanes, you're going to lose rather quickly. Fortunately, there are items and cards in the game that allow you to move your heroes between lanes but such items/cards are not plentiful.
There is no question, this is a game for those who enjoy deep strategy. The downside to this level of strategy, however, is that the games can feel exhausting. I don't mean this in a bad way - there is simply no other game on the market that can provide me with this much fun in nice short bursts. But whereas I can easily play 3-5 games of Hearthstone in one sitting, I find myself needing to take a break after 2 games (sometimes 1 if it was particularly long). Also, your first few games might feel like they take a long time but once you understand the cards the turns go by faster (presumably games will continue to be shorter as more people improve their understanding of the game). With that said, however, I usually allow for 30 minutes to play a game but typically a game lasts closer to 25 minutes.
No review of Artifact would be complete without addressing Artifact's well-documented monetization business model. Artifact costs $19.99 and with that purchase you will get 200+ cards (not all will be unique). You can buy additional booster packs for $2 each. You can also buy additional event tickets for about $1 each (they are only sold in packs of 5, which cost $4.95). A lot of people are upset about the fact that unlike other games, the only way to get cards is to buy them. There is no in game currency like Hearthstone that you can earn by playing. Yes, you can earn booster packs by playing in "expert" mode, but that requires an event ticket. As a result, if you never want to spend another dime on Artifact, you will not get any more cards once your free event tickets run out. I knew that going into the game and I'm fine with it. A game mode called Phantom Draft (think Hearthstone's Arena) is probably the most popular game mode. You can play this game mode for free and you will be on an equal playing field as someone else who may have spent $100+ on cards. In Phantom Draft, you draft cards in rounds based on randomized decks. The cards that you can choose from are random - there is no correlation between them and what cards you actually own.
I knew that when I bought Artifact, I would primarily play Phantom Draft mode. As a result, I sold some of my higher value cards on the Steam market and ended up earning about $25. If I wanted to go a step further, I could sell my remaining 200+ cards and probably earn another $5-6, for a net profit of $10. I am perfectly content with playing the free version of Phantom Draft - the competition is good and the games feel fair. And although no formal progression system exists in the game yet (this is as feature that Valve has stated is a priority), I am very pleased to see my own progression as I play Phantom Draft.
If, however, you want to play constructed, this game is not worth it. That's a real shame because for many people (myself included) the constructed format for card games is a lot of fun. I like the feeling that my cards helped me win. And I like collecting the cards and utilizing the best strategy with the cards I collect. I also enjoy experimenting with cards to find fund combinations. The only way to enjoy constructed mode is to pay for cards. Those who prefer the ability to buy individual cards will argue that it is cheaper to simply buy the card you are missing than it is to buy boosters and hope to get the card you want (like in Hearthstone). While true, it is cheaper to just spend the $18 for Axe versus gambling on a bunch of booster cards, I have always enjoyed the feeling of earning cards from playing games. For me, buying Axe (or any other card I want) ruins the sense of progression I get from card games - it would be like paying someone real life money to gear your WoW character in all end-game gear; getting the gear is supposed to be part of the progression system.
Another problem with the constructed format is that once you go down the path of buying cards to compete with others, it becomes a slippery slope. Let's say you buy about $10 worth of cards to help build the constructed deck you want. Inevitably there will be an expansion and then you'll need to spend even more money to modify your deck again. Moreover, once you spend money for your cards, you'll probably want to play expert mode exclusively, in hopes that you'll be able to win booster packs. You'll need an event ticket to do that, which costs $1. And even if you have the greatest deck in the game, there's enough RNG out there that you may not win the requisite 3 games to get your ticket back.
In sum, if you are on the fence about this game, go buy it. Almost all reviewers are unanimous that the gameplay is very fun and it would be a shame to miss out on this brilliant game. The reason you want to buy this game now is because the card values will probably decrease. The most expensive card in the game at the moment - a red hero named Axe - was worth about $21 last Saturday. Now, he is worth $17.80. If you (like me) plan to only play phantom draft, the cards you get from buying the game will not matter and you can sell as many as you want if you feel the need to further justify your purchase.
At first glance, the most notable difference between Artifact and other card games is that Artifact has 3 different lanes. In order to win a game, you either need to kill two of the three towers or kill one tower and its ancient. Each tower has two health pools - after the first health pool falls to 0 (starts at 40), the second health pool appears (starts at 80). Moreover, any damage you do to the first health pool does not overflow onto the second health pool. For example, if a tower is at 5 health and you do 20 damage to it, the remaining 15 damage are not removed from the second health pool. While this may seem like no big deal, this creates a ton of strategy while playing the game.
And strategy is what this game is all about. You will always be making difficult strategic choices. A common strategy is to focus your firepower on two lanes and devote minimal (if any) resources to the third lane. Good players will be able to quickly learn which lanes to focus. Even better players will know when to move heroes between lanes. In addition to strategizing between lanes, you also need to think about what items to purchase for your heroes. Every time you kill a creep or hero, you get gold. You can then spend that gold on items that you can equip on heroes or otherwise use to help you in the game. After each round, you will see 3 items that you can purchase. These items rotate (unless you pay 1 gold to hold an item) so you don't always know what you will get. As a result, there is tremendous strategy in determining what you should do after each round - should you save your gold and hope the item you want appears after the next round or should you buy a cheaper item now to give your hero an early advantage.
Another strategic element in the game is card color. You can only play cards that correspond with the hero's color in that lane. There are 4 colors: red, green, blue, and black. If you only have a red hero in the first lane, you cannot play any green cards in that lane. One consequence to this rule is that if you do not have any heroes in a lane, you cannot play any cards in that lane. This makes preserving heroes especially important - when a hero dies, it does not spawn again for 2 rounds. This also makes hero placement important - if you overload one lane with heroes and your opponent is able to eliminate the heroes in the other lanes, you're going to lose rather quickly. Fortunately, there are items and cards in the game that allow you to move your heroes between lanes but such items/cards are not plentiful.
There is no question, this is a game for those who enjoy deep strategy. The downside to this level of strategy, however, is that the games can feel exhausting. I don't mean this in a bad way - there is simply no other game on the market that can provide me with this much fun in nice short bursts. But whereas I can easily play 3-5 games of Hearthstone in one sitting, I find myself needing to take a break after 2 games (sometimes 1 if it was particularly long). Also, your first few games might feel like they take a long time but once you understand the cards the turns go by faster (presumably games will continue to be shorter as more people improve their understanding of the game). With that said, however, I usually allow for 30 minutes to play a game but typically a game lasts closer to 25 minutes.
No review of Artifact would be complete without addressing Artifact's well-documented monetization business model. Artifact costs $19.99 and with that purchase you will get 200+ cards (not all will be unique). You can buy additional booster packs for $2 each. You can also buy additional event tickets for about $1 each (they are only sold in packs of 5, which cost $4.95). A lot of people are upset about the fact that unlike other games, the only way to get cards is to buy them. There is no in game currency like Hearthstone that you can earn by playing. Yes, you can earn booster packs by playing in "expert" mode, but that requires an event ticket. As a result, if you never want to spend another dime on Artifact, you will not get any more cards once your free event tickets run out. I knew that going into the game and I'm fine with it. A game mode called Phantom Draft (think Hearthstone's Arena) is probably the most popular game mode. You can play this game mode for free and you will be on an equal playing field as someone else who may have spent $100+ on cards. In Phantom Draft, you draft cards in rounds based on randomized decks. The cards that you can choose from are random - there is no correlation between them and what cards you actually own.
I knew that when I bought Artifact, I would primarily play Phantom Draft mode. As a result, I sold some of my higher value cards on the Steam market and ended up earning about $25. If I wanted to go a step further, I could sell my remaining 200+ cards and probably earn another $5-6, for a net profit of $10. I am perfectly content with playing the free version of Phantom Draft - the competition is good and the games feel fair. And although no formal progression system exists in the game yet (this is as feature that Valve has stated is a priority), I am very pleased to see my own progression as I play Phantom Draft.
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| Snapshot of the market as of 12/5/18 |
If, however, you want to play constructed, this game is not worth it. That's a real shame because for many people (myself included) the constructed format for card games is a lot of fun. I like the feeling that my cards helped me win. And I like collecting the cards and utilizing the best strategy with the cards I collect. I also enjoy experimenting with cards to find fund combinations. The only way to enjoy constructed mode is to pay for cards. Those who prefer the ability to buy individual cards will argue that it is cheaper to simply buy the card you are missing than it is to buy boosters and hope to get the card you want (like in Hearthstone). While true, it is cheaper to just spend the $18 for Axe versus gambling on a bunch of booster cards, I have always enjoyed the feeling of earning cards from playing games. For me, buying Axe (or any other card I want) ruins the sense of progression I get from card games - it would be like paying someone real life money to gear your WoW character in all end-game gear; getting the gear is supposed to be part of the progression system.
Another problem with the constructed format is that once you go down the path of buying cards to compete with others, it becomes a slippery slope. Let's say you buy about $10 worth of cards to help build the constructed deck you want. Inevitably there will be an expansion and then you'll need to spend even more money to modify your deck again. Moreover, once you spend money for your cards, you'll probably want to play expert mode exclusively, in hopes that you'll be able to win booster packs. You'll need an event ticket to do that, which costs $1. And even if you have the greatest deck in the game, there's enough RNG out there that you may not win the requisite 3 games to get your ticket back.
In sum, if you are on the fence about this game, go buy it. Almost all reviewers are unanimous that the gameplay is very fun and it would be a shame to miss out on this brilliant game. The reason you want to buy this game now is because the card values will probably decrease. The most expensive card in the game at the moment - a red hero named Axe - was worth about $21 last Saturday. Now, he is worth $17.80. If you (like me) plan to only play phantom draft, the cards you get from buying the game will not matter and you can sell as many as you want if you feel the need to further justify your purchase.
