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.

• Starting Gold increased from 10 to 15.
  
• Revealed cards now show it in the revealed card's text.

Heroes

• Bristleback's Health increased from 4 to 5.
  
• Centaur Warrunner's Double Edge can target any color hero instead of just red heroes.
  
• Replaced Treant Protector's Leech Seed with Living Armor.
  Mana cost increased from 2 to 3.
  Attack buff increased from +1 to +2.

Spells

• A Thousand Cuts renamed to Greevil Shenanigans.
  
• Better Late Than Never's Terrapin Channeler renamed to Acolyte of the Radiant.
  
• Ironwood Heart renamed to Nature's Fury.
  
• Leading From Behind renamed to Creep Reinforcements.
  
• Lying in Bait renamed to Vhoul Ambush. Commando Pack renamed to Canid Commando.
  
• Punch it! renamed to Slash It!
  
• Removed Body Modifications.
  
• Removed Sonic Bubble.

Creeps

• Claddish Archivist renamed to Sapphire Archivist.
  
• Defenestrating Ogre renamed to Defenestrating Kobold.
  
• Fungal Horror renamed to Ozkavosh Horror.
  
• Gold-Plated Golem renamed to Gold Elemental.
  
• Roseleaf Villagers renamed to Doomed Villager. Angry Mob renamed to Vengeful Vhoul.
  
• Screeching Harpy renamed to Screeching Wildwing.
  
• Snarling Harpy renamed to Crafty Kobold.
  
• Shattered Terrapin renamed to Spirit of St. Crella. Terrapin Greatshell renamed to Presence of St. Crella.
  
• Vhoul Elder renamed to Vhoul Ringleader.
  
  
• Added Red Mist Siegemaster
  Creep - 3/1
  Black 3
  Allied Red Mist units have +2 Siege and -2 Attack.
  Faction: Red Mist
  
  
• Removed Acolyte of the Forbidden Gate.
  
• Removed Hellbear Smasher.
  
• Removed Moonglade Fusilier.
  
• Removed Overgrowther.
  
• Removed Resonant Construct.
  
• Removed Wild Boar.

Tower Enchantments

• Archer's Parapet renamed to Arcane Citadel.
  
  
• Removed Summoning Circle.

Items

• Demagicking Maul price increased from 10 to 15.
  
• Guardian Greaves renamed to Shield of St. Crella.
  
• Root Boots renamed to Noxious Talisman.
  
• Vanguard renamed to Seraphim Shield.

• Hero demos added for Arc Warden, Earthshaker, Meepo, Ogre Magi, Pierpont, Prellex, Rix, Oathbound, Rubick, Skywrath Mage, Vanessa, Venomancer, and Zeus.
  
• Treant Protector's demo has been reworked.

Added a Puzzle Maker UI for saving and loading text files that represent board states like those used in the hero demos.

• Axe's Culling Blade no longer stuns its dead target.
  
• Hero demo re-added for Outworld Destroyer.
  
• Phantom Lancer's Illusion Confusion now produce color-swapped Lancer Illusions as appropriate.
  
• Fix situations when Winter Wyvern is rooted and uses ArcticBurn to target a combat position in another lane incorrectly giving Decay to all enemy units in the targeted lane.
  
• Acolyte of the Radiant (previously Terrapin Channeler) can cast Illusion Confusion.
  
• Fixed a bug where players reconnecting to a game are forced to pass.
  
• Fixed a bug where there were more than two and less than four copies of some glossary entries, instead of just one.

We've been working on a new tutorial that can teach the game's basics to players who never played Artifact 1 (or any other card game, for that matter). We're shipping an early version of this tutorial out to our existing players so you can try it over the holidays. Like everything else in Artifact 2.0 Beta, we approached the tutorial's gameplay before anything else, so the visuals and fictionalization are rough and unfinished. This set of missions don't need to teach everything; just the basics. Other topics will be covered by standalone advanced tutorials, which function more like the Hero Card Demos.

We'd love you to give the new tutorial a spin and send us feedback at ArtifactBetaFeedback@valvesoftware.com.

We’re experimenting with item-equipping rules that are somewhat simplified, and in some ways more open and in other ways more restrictive. We’d like to figure out how much the 3 different types of item slots are really buying us, so we’re trying out a system that gets rid of them. Instead, heroes can equip any two (unique) items, no worrying about if it’s a weapon or accessory or armor. If you already have two items equipped and want to equip a new one, you get to choose which one to bounce by dragging directly onto that item.

Along with this experiment you’ll get a partial sneak-peek at where we’re going with the visual design of the cards themselves, getting rid of the battle sleeve on top. It’s a franken-card right now, but a bit simpler visually already, with status effects no longer blocking much of the card art, and without empty item slots taking up a lot of visual space.


Heroes

• Lycan's Pack Leadership does not count disarmed creeps.
  
• Kanna's Diabolic Conclusion no longer disarms creeps that cast it (i.e. Terrapin Channeler). It also only draws Attack from units that are not disarmed.

When a card’s faction is changed, it now changes many faction-related effects the card has to match the new faction. This brings it in line with how color-changing cards work (e.g. if you change a Rebel Rabble Rouser to blue, it starts creating blue Roused Rabbles – now if you change its faction to Bronze Legion it starts creating Bronze Legion Roused Rabbles.)

Creeps

• Greevil Bronco applies its effects to its faction allies if you change its faction.
  
• Greevil Eggtender still adds in 3 random Greevils, but changes the one you draw to the Eggtender’s faction.
  
• Imperial Herald gives faction allies +1 Attack and +1 Armor if you change its faction before playing it.
  
• Legion Scouting Party adds a Bronze Legionnaire of the Legion Scouting Party's color and faction, but draws a faction allied creep if it changes factions.
  
• Oglodi Vandal's Play Effect changed to: Each Red Mist ally deals 1 damage to the enemy tower. This also changes relative to its faction.
  
• Rebel Rabble Rouser changes Roused Rabble to Rebel Rabble Rouser’s color and faction.
  
• Roused Rabble gains buffs based on its current faction allies.
  
• Rebel Recruiter now checks if its faction allies take damage, then draws and reveals a creep from the opponent’s deck. It changes to Rebel Recruiter’s faction and color.
  
• Spirited Greevil applies its effects to its faction allies if you change its faction.
  
• Spitting Greevil applies its effects to its faction allies if you change its faction.
  
• Thieving Greevil applies its effects to its faction allies if you change its faction.
  
• Vhoul Elder now checks if its faction allies take damage, then reduces costs and buffs creeps.
  
• The following creeps also join the Red Mist: Horde Stryder, Oglodi Catapult, Red Mist Pillager, and Untested Grunt.

Spells

• Better Late than Never summons a Terrapin Channeler of the caster's color.
  
• Shifting Loyalties now swaps factions of the creeps it swaps control of.

UI

• Items now show up on the face of the card rather than in item slots on the battle sleeve. When you equip an item, if you have an empty slot you can still drag it to the hero, but you can also drag it directly onto a slot (which will show up when you start to drag).
  
• When equipping items, heroes now come forward from the board, closer to the camera, to assist in directly targeting item slots.

• Hero demos got their own end game screen that lets you retry the demo. It will later be filled out with a flavorful description of the hero and the demo.
  
• Added hero demos for Lina, Luna, J'Muy, and Imperia.

• Fixed damage tooltip summary not applying Decay values.
  
• Fixed unexpected results of Decay. Previously, Decay could kill a unit during battle despite the effects of Regeneration. The results should now match the combat preview.
  
• Fixed Greevil Eggtender only adding one color of Greevil added to the deck. Now you can get up to three differently colored Greevils.
  
• Fixed Volatile Fog leaving Earthshaker's Rocks around after the combat phase ends.
  
• Fixed Relentless Pursuit causing a crash when striking a unit with retaliate.

We've been trying a ton of different things with game design over the past year or so, and have been developing and testing the game in public since April. Everything has been in flux. As the design has begun to settle down some, we're ready to enter the tightening phase: teaching the game, polishing the game, and completing game features, eventually all leading up to a push to grow the game. And since it’s the end of the calendar year, we thought it’d be a good time to do a quick recap of where we’ve been and where we are, and to lay out our plans for where we’re going.

• Started developing and testing the game in public in April.
  
• Invited player waves and iterated on the biggest pain points discovered with each wave.
  
• Iterated on hero design and item design in conjunction with waves and community discussion.
  
• Increased the strength and impact of heroes across the board.
  
• Made several passes on card design to make more cards relevant and improve gameplay.
  
• Added ranked play.
  
• Added hero demo puzzles.
  
• Added various UI components to better convey the game state (status effect icons, glossary fly-outs).
  
• Experimented with shop rules and simplified shop UI.
  
• Experimented with multicolor cards.
  
• Experimented with factions.
  
• Experimented with multicolor casting rules.

There are still quite a few things we feel need to be in place before we’re ready to enter a major growth phase of the game. We will need to invite new players before then to test whenever we add something new, but the aim will still be testing things, rather than inviting players with the goal of growing the player base just yet.

We don’t want to enter any major growth push until the game is ready for a wide range of players to consume without bouncing off of it. Additionally, we want to be in a place internally where we no longer have catch-up work to do on the main game experience and can shift our focus more towards new content as soon as open beta starts.

Players should have a clear way to learn to play the game.

• In-game tutorial to teach the basics.
  
• Hero card demo puzzles to teach individual cards.
  
• Informative UI and effects.

Learning game strategy should be fun and players should have a long runway available before being thrown in the shark tank.

• Improved bot play to make playing against bots more meaningful.
  
• More single player missions and a system for regularly adding more missions.
  
• Progression for playing with friends, incentives to invite friends and play with friends.
  
• Progression for playing vs bots, not just ranked.
  
• Clearer unlocking progression for hero draft.

 

Gameplay should be relatively stable and not constantly changing as players are trying to learn the game.

• We should largely be done with large game-changing rules experiments.
  
• This doesn’t mean we’d ever stop changing cards, but that we should get to a point where it’s less frequent, and more often bundled together in larger patches.

More game modes to bridge the gap between the relatively lighter experience of hero draft and the heavier experience of constructed.

• Advanced hero draft is the most likely candidate.
  
• Ephemeral events so that we can add temporary game modes to focus the player base.
  
• Focused playtest events.

The game should be both functional and fun to look at.

• Final card art.
  
• Beautiful animations and effects.
  
• Beautiful board.
  
• Effects that serve a functional purpose, conveying what the cards are doing and the resulting game state.

We’re getting ready to ship Tutorial Beta 2.0 to existing players early next week. We’d like to test it with the current player base first for a few weeks before trying with new players. Once we’ve got our first round of feedback we’d like to start inviting small waves of new players who signed up for the beta but hadn't played 1.0 while we iterate on teaching the game.

Sometime in mid-to-late January we’d like to start letting players invite their friends as our main way of inviting new players while we continue to iterate on all the above goals. We expect we are a few months away from slowing down constant changes to cards, game rules, and balance. At that point we expect to spend more of our effort on UI, UX, and all the many features listed above on the road to open beta and eventual release.

We expect release (with open beta and a growth push happening shortly before then) is far enough away that it would be a disservice to try to pin down a date right now. We know what we need to do before then, but for now it’s still one foot in front of the other until the game is ready for it.


A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a thousand twenty pictures looking to the future, some concept art and some card art hot off the presses.


CONCEPT ART: An updated vision for the Hero and Creep cards placed into the playfield; with the goal for a cleaner, more readable card presentation with regards to typography and active/passive ability recognition. (Click for full-size image.)


CONCEPT ART: An informational and actionable hover state for cards on the board—a work-in-progress implementation of this is in beta at the moment. In the background, concept art for the board, towers, timers, a siege engine, and Riki. (Click for full-size image.)





(Click for full size image.)

• Arc Warden's Spark Wraith now triggers before your turn.
  
• Drow Ranger's Gust may target an empty slot.
  
• Rix's Act of Defiance now silences an enemy hero for two rounds and the other enemy heroes of that color for one round. Counts as a Vhoul Rebellion spell.

• Abyssm Flesh Render gains Devour.
  
• Acolyte of the Forbidden Gate cost decreased from 3 to 2.
  
• Arclight Elemental and Arc Remnant stats from 2/1 to 3/1.
  
• Assassin's Apprentice stats from 2/2 to 3/2.
  
• Assassin's Shadow stats from 6/5 to 6/4 and cost decreased from 6 to 5.
  
• Birds of Paradox stats from 0/1 to 0/2.
  
• Committed Rebel stats from from 2/1 to 3/1 and accepted into the Vhoul Rebellion against Rix's wishes.
  
• Disciple of Nevermore stats from 3/-1/3 to 4/-1/3.
  
• Emissary of the Quorum goes from 1/7 to 2/8.
  
• Fey Wayfinder stats from 3/5 to 3/3, cost decreased from 4 to 3, and now provides itself and its neighbors Trample.
  
• Fungal Horror stats from 3/2 to 3/3.
  
• Gold-Plated Golem stats from 1/4 to 2/4.
  
• Hellbear Crippler stats from 2/3 to 2/4.
  
• Lashvine Creeper stats from 4/6 to 4/7.
  
• Legion Scouting Party stats from 2/1/2 to 3/1/2.
  
• Moonglade Fusilier cost decreased from 4 to 3.
  
• Ogre Corpse Tosser stats from 1/4 to 1/5.
  
• Overgrowther stats from 2/1 to 2/3 and cost reduced from 3 to 2.
  
• Ozkavosh Horror gains Trample.
  
• Pit Fighter of Quoidge gains Devour.
  
• Possessed Blade cost decreased from 2 to 1.
  
• Rampaging Hellbear stats from 1/2 to 1/3.
  
• Resonant Construct gives +2 Attack per spell or enchantment cast instead of +1 Attack.
  
• Revtel Convoy moves to the next lane after combat.
  
• Rumusque Choir stats from 1/1 to 2/2.
  
• Rumusque Redeemer cost decreased from 4 to 3.
  
• Sister of the Void cost decreased from 3 to 2.
  
• Stonehall Elite stats from 3/1/2 to 3/2/2.
  
• Stonehall Paragon stats from 7/1/4 to 7/2/4.
  
• Smeevil Armsmaster stats from 2/2 to 3/2.
  
• Spirit of Desolation stats from 1/1 to 2/2.
  
• Thunderhide Alpha stats from 18/18 to 20/20.
  
• Troll Soothsayer stats from 1/6 to 2/6.
  
• Tyler Estate Censor stats from 1/6 to 2/6.
  
• Wild Boar stats from 2/2 to 3/2.

• Arm the Rebellion counts for the Vhoul Rebellion.
  
• Destroyed from Within cost decreased from 4 to 1.
  
• Insidious Plot now puts two Destroyed from Within cards in opponent's hand.
  
• Restoration Effort counts for the Vhoul Rebellion.

• Homefield Advantage counts for the Vhoul Rebellion.

Lying in Bait
Spell
Black 2
Vhoul Rebellion
Bounce a non-rooted ally and summon a Commando Pack into its slot.

Commando Pack
Creep - 4/2
Vhoul Rebellion
Quickstrike

Canid Bushwacker
Creep - 3/1
Black 3
Vhoul Rebellion
Play Effect: Canid Bushwacker strikes the unit blocking it.

Rebel Recruiter
Creep - 2/4
Green 3
Vhoul Rebellion
When a Vhoul Rebellion ally takes damage: Steal, draw, and reveal a creep from your opponent's deck as a Vhoul Rebellion green creep. 1 round cooldown.

Roseleaf Villagers
Creep - 0/2
Green 2
Feeble
Death Effect: Summon an Angry Mob.

Angry Mob
Creep - 4/4
Vhoul Rebellion
Trample

Vhoul Elder
Creep - 2/6
Green 4
Vhoul Rebellion
Whenever an allied Vhoul Rebellion unit takes damage, reduce the cost of a random Vhoul Rebellion card in your hand by 1. If it's a creep, give it +1/+1 permanently.

• Added card demos for black heroes that didn't have them (Bloodseeker, Bounty Hunter, Debbi the Cunning, Death Prophet, Lich, Mirana, Necrophos, Nyx Assassin, Phantom Assassin, Pugna, Shadow Fiend, Sniper, Sorla Khan, Tinker, and Winter Wyvern). But Not Rix, Oathbound.

• Fixed a bug where status effect icons with different durations showed the same tooltips.
  
• Interactable regions for buttons on the campaign map now more closely match their visuals.

• Treant Protector now includes Leech Seed instead of Roseleaf Druid.
  
• Treant Protector's Branches of Iron gives regeneration instead of armor.

• Mjollnir only triggers once per player action, rather than for every strike individually.

• Rebel Rabble Rouser has been moved from red to green and lost its armor.
  
• Red Mist Pillager has been moved from red to black, 4/3, no longer replicates.
  
• Roseleaf Druid mana cost reduced from 2 to 1.
  
• Roused Rabble has been moved from red to green. It has +1/+1 for each Vhoul Rebellion unit in lane.

Imperial Herald
Creep 2/1/2
Red 4
Play Effect: Give allied Bronze Legion units everywhere +1 Attack and +1 Armor permanently.

Legion Scouting Party
Creep 2/1/2
Red 5
Round Start: Shuffle a Bronze Legionnaire into your deck and draw a Bronze Legion creep.

• Faction names are now visible on cards and the inspect view.

• Meepo's United We Fall works again.
  
• Axe's Culling Blade and Earthshaker's Aftershock timing unified (Aftershock no longer lasts an extra action.)
  
• Repeated spells now correctly copy the color of the original spell, rather than the color of their caster.
  
• When automatically selecting a caster for a spell, casters of the spell's color are favored over other possible casters.
  
• Ventriloquy now correctly plays a taunt animation on the target, rather than the caster.

• Added card demos for the remaining red heroes that didn't have them (Phantom Lancer, Tidehunter, Timbersaw, Troll Warlord, Tusk, and Ursa)
  
• Added card demos for the remaining green heroes that didn't have them (Dazzle, Dragon Knight, Drow Ranger, Enchantress, Farvhan the Dreamer, Omniknight, Sand King and Treant Protector)