Artifact: Mechanics and Cards

Artifact is one of the most hyped game right now. As the tournament was announced and game mechanics explained, we think it is time to talk about the cards.

Artifact card packs and features can be characterized by its colour. There are 4 different from each other card colours in the game. Black - assassins, Red - aggressive fighters, Green - Supports, Blue - control and mages.

Cards can be stronger or weaker and have their rarity. 

• Basic - starter pack

• Common

• Uncommon

• Rare

When you buy a booster pack, you will get at least one Rare card.

There is a huge variety of playable-cards, but they can be divided into 4 categories: 

Heroes

Heroes - most powerful cards a player can possess. A player can only have 5 in his deck. Each hero has his own ability and is a massive gamechanger. It is like golden cards in Gwent or Planeswalker in Magic the Gathering.  

If you take a look at the Sorla Khan hero card, you will see empty slots on top of the card. Those slots are for equipment, weapon, armour and accessory. In the middle of the card, there is an ability “Warmonger”. This ability is a passive one. The abilities could be:

• Passive or Reaction - they will trigger when the condition is met

• Active - Will be activated when the player wants to, but those abilities have cooldowns.

• Continuous - long-lasting ability, can be a passive buff as well.

Below that there is an attack modifier of the card (8) and health of our hero (6). Some cards also have armour like Legion Commander (1)

Spells

Spells are being played during Action Phase. There are a lot of different kinds of spells, they can summon creeps, apply effects, deal damage, move units or counter spells. Each spell costs mana. You can only cast a spell if you have a hero with matching colour on the lane.

There is also a subgenre of spells, called Improvements. They can boost the whole lane and there can be multiple Improvements for a single lane. 

Items

As mentioned above, heroes can wear equipment, such as weapon, armour and accessory. Items can be consumables as well. They can boost your attack, armour, health points, draw a card or provide a character with additional skill. 

To buy an item from the Shop you need to pay with gold. These items are shuffled in a separate card deck with a capacity of 9 cards.

Creatures

It is a non-hero units that can be summoned. They cannot equip any items or respawn after death. When a hero dies, he will spawn on a fountain, if a creep die - he dies.

Here is a complete list of cards, sorted in alphabetical order