The goal in Artifact is to destroy two enemy towers, whether that be in the same lane or two different lanes. To fight your way to victory, each deck in Artifact has several hero cards. These cards are powerful characters that allow you to cast spells corresponding to their color from the lane that they are in. Each hero strongly dictates the flow of battle for each lane and the placement of your hero cards is crucial to both your short and long-term strategy. As your heroes struggle for control of each lane, each lane is given access to its mana pool allowing for spells to be slung at very frequent intervals. Most interesting to me was the importance that the left-most lane has on the game. In Artifact, combat and spells are resolved one lane at a time, but the game features special spells that can affect creeps and heroes in other lanes. Since the left-most lane always goes first, controlling this lane allows you to affect the lanes on the right before they have a chance to act. Strategy still takes the front seat despite this as overcommitting to it may be your downfall if your opponent musters their forces on the other lanes.

Throughout my playthrough, one common facet of most card games seemed to be missing: a curve. A “curve” in card games refers to the ability to play increasingly powerful cards on queue as the amount of mana (or whatever resource you use to play cards) increases. Artifact somewhat puts the concept of curve in the backseat as the powerful hero cards that you command are always available to play, given they are not on cooldown. That isn’t to say that deck building is useless, but it does relieve a lot of the stress of starting the game with a lousy hand as you always have some powerful heroes to start off with.