Although we made Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry free alongside our announcements about those games last week and put them both on the same store page, the button to install or play Artifact Foundry didn't work (it incorrectly installed or launched Classic).This has been remedied and now anyone should be able to install either or both versions, and a final patch for Artifact Foundry has been released. Read more

Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry are two versions of the digital card game originally named Artifact, developed through a collaboration between Valve and renowned designer Richard Garfield. Artifact was designed as a deeply strategic card game, but without the limits of a conventional physical board. After a highly polarizing and ultimately disappointing initial release in November, 2018, a small team at Valve reworked the game into what would become Artifact Foundry, and the original game was renamed to Artifact Classic. Artifact Foundry was designed to address as many complaints about the original game as possible, while maintaining its strategic depth. Economy Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry are both free, and every player has access to every card in both games. Neither game features in-app purchases.When Artifact Classic was released, cards were sold in card packs and could be exchanged between players on the Steam marketplace. When the game was made free and every playe... Read more

Artifact, the Dota 2 card game, shipped in November of 2018. Despite good initial sales, our player count fell off pretty dramatically. This warranted a shift from the service/update development model we'd planned to a full reevaluation of the game's mechanics and economy.It's now been about a year and a half since the current Artifact team began work on a reboot in earnest. While we're reasonably satisfied we accomplished most of our game-side goals, we haven't managed to get the active player numbers to a level that justifies further development at this time. As such, we've made the tough decision to stop development on the Artifact 2.0 Beta.However, we recognize that both versions of Artifact still have players and still have value to the community. For this reason, we're opening both games up to make them available for free to everyone. Final releases of both Artifact Classic and Artifact 2.0 Beta (renamed Artifact Foundry) are now available. Technically Artifact Foundry remains an... Read more

This patch is a part of a larger update to both Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry (formerly Artifact Beta 2.0). See the full announcement here and an explanation of Artifact Classic vs Artifact Foundry here.Economy

• All players now have access to all cards without the need to collect them.
  
• Cards that players have already collected have been converted into gold Collector's Edition cards.
  
• Card packs and tickets are no longer for sale.
  
• Prized with entry fees events have been removed.
  
• Players who were registered in prized events have received Collector's Edition packs equal to the first place payout.
  
• Players with unused tickets have received 1 Collector's Edition pack for each unused ticket.
  
• If you recycle excess Collector's Edition cards, you now receive 1 Collector's Edition pack rather than a ticket.
  
• Packs and tickets have been removed from the reward track for new players. New players do not receive or earn any Collector's Edition cards.
  
• Existing players who had not yet completed th...

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We’ve sent out the first round of invites! All invited players should immediately see Artifact Beta 2.0 on their accounts. We will keep you updated on additional invites (no timeline yet!), and will continue to work to support more people.Our localization team is hard at work and non-English languages will become available over the course of the Beta.Our first two areas of focus are Usability and Bugs. Feedback on other topics is welcome, but fixing these types of issues will let us grow the beta more quickly. There is an in-game tool to report any issues, and you can use the feedback email for anything that requires a discussion.Have Fun! Read more

We are happy to announce that we are moving to the next phase of the Beta!The Beta for the original game started too late and was too short. We’ve decided to approach things a bit differently this time around by gradually inviting people to join us while we are still “Under Construction”. Here’s the updated road-map:

1. Test boring stuff
   
2. Trickle out invites, starting with players of the original release <- We are here
   
3. Work on the Beta, eventually transitioning to an open beta
   
4. Leave Beta

We will be sending an email to all players with the original game on their Steam Account (it doesn’t need to be installed). Emails will appear by NEXT WEEK. Follow the instructions in the email to sign up for the Beta.We will use a lottery system to invite people who have opted in. Access to the Beta will remain closed until we’ve worked though the signups from players of the original. Communication about the game will remain open for the duration of the Beta. FAQ: What are we testing?
Gameplay, Balance, H... Read more

Welcome back to another round of shop talk! After our last blog post we received a lot of email which made it clear that people still had questions about the specific functioning of the new shop. A lack of clarity in our previous discussion also caused some confusion. Let's start by trying to clear up some misconceptions, then we'll give some more details on the new shop's current implementation, and finally show some updated cards. Clarifying The UI Our tasteful placeholder art muddied the waters a bit. The title "Secret Shop" in the new shop interface implied that it was somehow separate from the old shop in Artifact or a replacement for the Secret Shop slot, when really it is just a reimagining of the old shop.People also found the "Invest" option confusing, because it created the expectation of giving money in the future, rather than right away. In response, we've renamed the options from "Purchase" and "Invest" to "Shop" and "Earn" to make them more specific. The reroll button has... Read more

Before we get into the blog, we wanted to share the results of last week’s poll. Arc Warden was the front-runner right out of the gate – his lead seemed insurmountable. Slow and steady, though, Nyx started to creep up. Then, right before were going to close the poll, he almost overtook the front spot. In the end it was close enough that we figured why not add both!Now on to the shop!Feedback about the shop has been a bit more scattered compared to other parts of the game and the suggestions have ranged far, from tiny tweaks to a huge Dota-scale item shop with item recipes. We've found we also have a mixed mind about the shop. We liked some parts and had other parts we thought needed improvement. There are some side effects of the original implementation that pushed optimal item-deck building into a narrow space.It's a topic that we think would be good to delve into together. Let's break down what we did and didn't like, the goals we should have for the new version, and talk about the d... Read more

This week we wanted to talk a bit more about the heroes in Artifact. These have been viewed as one of the strengths in the original game, but also as one of the missed opportunities. The most common concerns we hear are about underwhelming signature cards, lack of abilities, or heroes that fictionally don’t fit with their kit.Our philosophy this time around is different, so we’d like to go over some of the factors we use when evaluating hero designs.

• All heroes should have at least one ability.
  
• You should be excited to draw a hero’s signature cards.
  
• Signature cards should avoid being situational.
  
• Signature cards should generally be at their best when their corresponding hero uses them.
  
• Bonus if a hero has a small self-synergy.
  
• It’s fine to have two abilities on a hero if at least one of them is a passive.
  
• It’s fine to have strong active and passive abilities on the board. They create interesting threats to play around.

Let’s take a look at the basic heroes and see how they’ve changed.
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This one came in hot so please forgive any gram badder, who would have guessed that doing all this remotely would be so hard? Anyway, let’s get to it!Initiative
The initiative rules haven't changed much, but the implications are different due to the round being shared across lanes. Players still take turns performing actions until both players pass in a row, and then you go to combat. This sequence continues across rounds, so while you can't control initiative across lanes you can still do so across rounds. There are more rounds per game, although each round is shorter. And "Get Initiative" spells still exist, although they have been renamed to "Quick."Mana
There is now a single Mana pool that starts at 3 and increases by 1 per turn. Some cards and abilities are crosslane, but in general cards only affect the lane that they’re being cast from and you need a hero in lane to cast a card of their color.Mana costs have been reduced for low-end and mid-tier cards, but high-end cards remain ex... Read more

I have some good news, some more good news, and some bad news. The good news is that after our previous post, we received a deluge of emails. More good news - it’s high quality feedback that people have clearly spent a lot of time thinking about. The bad news? We’re slow readers, so it’s taking us a bit more time than we thought to thoroughly comb through all of your emails. But we are a determined bunch! Now enough chit-chat, let’s dive in:One of the first heavy RNG components that players faced was the initial board setup. “The Flop”, as it used to be called, would randomly deploy the first set of heroes and lane creeps. Let’s take an in-depth look at how deployment has changed.Board Layout
The board still has 3 lanes, but each lane is exactly 5 slots. The slots also have a fixed position, so adding units on either end of the lane doesn’t shift the positions of any units. There are some rules for deploying on top of units if the lane gets too full or if there’s just something in your ... Read more

When the members of the team decided to reboot Artifact we all did it for different reasons. Some of us loved the original game and wanted to see it thrive. Some of us liked the freeing sense of creativity you can have with a card game. Some of us love trying to figure out how something is broken and see it fixed. There was one unifying reason for all of us - we thought that there was something special in the game, and with hard work we could bring it to light. Thanks for the feedback over the last two weeks, it's been great seeing how many of you share those feelings. There is one class of concerns raised that we wanted to address specifically. Those from the founding players of Artifact - the people who played extensively and built a collection in the original game. There are some great ideas floating around for things we could add, and they mesh well with our own. We want to make sure that there are some incredibly cool and special things that we deliver to our founders, but we aren... Read more

This week we wanted to talk about the Artifact Beta 2.0, what it will include, and when it will happen.We’ve been focusing on gameplay changes first. The biggest change is zooming out to allow players access to all three lanes at once. The majority of effects still work on individual lanes so they still maintain their identity, but it’s less likely that a player will get shut out in the same way they used to.We’ve also focused on making the game easier to pick up. We aren’t selling cards, so you won’t face an opponent with a stacked deck. We’ve also added a new draft mode, Hero Draft, that gives you a taste of constructing decks without all the pressure. The beta will exist as a new executable and access will be granted to individual accounts. When we are ready to send out invites we will let you know the process.Here’s the current road-map:

1. Test boring stuff <- We are here
   
2. Trickle out invites, starting with players of the original release (ramping up similar to Dota 2)
   
3. Work on the Beta, ...

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First off, we wanted to say thanks for all of your tweets, emails and posts. The continued interest in Artifact has been encouraging, and we sincerely appreciate all of the feedback! You might notice some changes soon – we are starting tests on our systems and infrastructure. This shouldn’t impact live Artifact but we wanted to give you a heads up.Expect more news after the launch of Half-Life: Alyx! Read more

When we launched Artifact, we expected it would be the beginning of a long journey, that it would lay the foundation for years to come. Our plan was to immediately dive into our normal strategy of shipping a series of updates driven by the dialogue community members were having with each other and with us.Obviously, things didn't turn out how we hoped. Artifact represents the largest discrepancy between our expectations for how one of our games would be received and the actual outcome. But we don't think that players misunderstand our game, or that they're playing it wrong. Artifact now represents an opportunity for us to improve our craft and use that knowledge to build better games.Since launch, we've been looking carefully at how players interact with the game as well as gathering feedback. It has become clear that there are deep-rooted issues with the game and that our original update strategy of releasing new features and cards would be insufficient to address them. Instead, we be... Read more

Item Card Changes:

• Blade of the Vigil: Cleave increased from +2 to +4
  
• Keenfolk Plate: Added "Equipped hero's attackers have -1 Armor"
  
• Stonehall Pike cost reduced from 6 gold to 5 gold
  
• Stonehall Plate cost reduced from 6 gold to 5 gold
  
• Barbed Mail cost reduced from 6 gold to 5 gold
  
• Assassin's Veil cost reduced from 6 gold to 4 gold
  
• Phase Boots cost reduced from 6 gold to 5 gold
  
• Broadsword cost reduced from 7 gold to 6 gold
  
• Keenfolk Musket cost reduced from 7 gold to 6 gold
  
• Chainmail cost reduced from 7 gold to 6 gold
  
• Fur-lined Mantle cost reduced from 7 gold to 6 gold
  
• Red Mist Maul cost reduced from 10 gold to 9 gold
  
• Obliterating Orb cost reduced from 10 gold to 9 gold
  
• Ring of Tarrasque cost reduced from 12 gold to 10 gold
  
• Cloak of Endless Carnage cost reduced from 13 gold to 10 gold
  
• Claymore cost reduced from 15 gold to 14 gold
  
• Platemail cost reduced from 15 gold to 12 gold
  
• Hero's Cape cost reduced from 15 gold to 12 gold

Private Lobby & Tournament Changes:

• Added Random Two Color de...

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• Fixed the game engine pausing when bringing up the Steam Overlay.
  
• Added buttons to the HUD for viewing decklists.
  
• Fixed not being able to inspect heroes in Minimap.
  
• Fixed Marrowfell Brawler dialog not working.
  
• Fixed being able to get the Fought Well bonus in tied games.
  
• Visual improvements for Keenfolk Musket, Sow Venom, Fury Swipes, Corrosive Skin, and Hellbear Crippler.
  
• Fixed visual bugs with heroes sometimes overlapping during deployment.
  
• Thundergod's Wrath now shows its played card after the animation.
  
• Various stability improvements.

Reduced length of various animations and effects:

• Card draw
  
• Entering and exiting shopping
  
• When opponent plays an Improvement the camera no longer scrolls to the target lane
  
• Dimensional Portal, Defensive Bloom, Sow Venom
  
• Eclipse, Thundergod's Wrath, Poof

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- Fix Mac clients not being able to connect to Artifact network.
- Removed 60 seconds to surrender notification.
- Fixed AI taking a few extra seconds to play when you pass.

• Added a bindable key for typing a custom message on your tower in the active lane.
  
• Increased maximum custom message length.
  
• Increased visibility of chat wheel mute button.
  
• Replaced "Chat with Opponent" button on the end game screen with an "Add Friend" button if you are not friends with your opponent.
  
• Last action is shown as a mini card on the HUD.
  
• Fixed many cases of last action details not listing the targeted cards.
  
• Fixed glossary keywords not working when inspecting active ability actions.
  
• Fixed some cases where the last used AI deck was not saved.
  
• Added the ability to send and receive friend requests on the end game screen or using the steam icon in-game.
  
• Fixed various Call to Arms leaderboard UI bugs.

Game clock:

• After you receive the coin, the game clock now waits an additional 5 seconds before it begins ticking.
  
• The tournament timer now grants 30 seconds per round, down from 1 minute, and starts at 2:30, down from 3:00.
  
• The standard timer now grants 1 minute per round, down f...

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Today's Build Your Legend Update focuses on skill rating, account leveling, and card balance. Skill Rating and Account Leveling
This update introduces independent skill ratings for constructed and draft games. It also includes an account leveling system that tracks your overall experience with the game and allows you to unlock level icons and a set number of tickets and packs. More information on both systems is available on the update page and the patch notes below. Card Balance
A common pattern in physical card games is to design around the goal of never changing cards, and to only make card changes or bans in extremely rare cases. Our initial approach to the game was to follow this type of methodology and keep balancing changes as a last resort, in large part because we thought players valued immutability very highly.Since the release of Artifact, there have been a lot of discussions surrounding this topic. Input came in many forms, some from online discussions, some from direct fee... Read more