Players now take greater command of their heroes! Once per round, a hero may move, or their target may be freely chosen. The hero may only be moved to an unblocked space if the enemy has no unblocked units. Moving a hero to a new position or changing their target passes initiative.

Heroes come to life with new animations! Watch as your heroes traverses the board to slaughter their enemies, dance on their graves, and more. Unlock and unpack new tokens including voice lines, animations, skins, and effects. Every hero card, creep, spell, improvement, and item in existence prior to 2.0 will receive a special token, and and these tokens can be independently equipped, traded, or marketed by the player.

One melee creep is now placed into every lane, and lanes with a hero may select the position of the melee creeps during the planning phase. Melee creeps and placed creeps always automatically target the space directly in front of them. During the action phase, existing units on the board will attack a newly deployed melee creep, then that unit will continue attacking the tower with its remaining attack points which is indicated on the board. Melee creeps will fully block units during the next action phase. Placed creeps will continue to always fully block. Melee creep base stats changed from 2/0/4 to 2/0/3.

Reinforcements have arrived! The battlefield grows with the introduction of archers and mages positioned next to the tower. These units automatically target the nearest enemy and preemptively attack first during the action phase. Archers and mages are not deployed between rounds; only spell, creep, improvement cards, or abilities allow for the placing of these new units. When an enemy hero raids a tower, every archer and mage is automatically slaughtered. If the enemy has no units on the board, the archers and mages cannot reach the enemy tower. Moving a hero to a new position leaves that hero vulnerable to the opponent's archers and mages.

The Healing Salve, Town Portal Scroll, Fountain Flask, and Potion of Knowledge are now purchasable every round at double the original price, but each round offers one of the four items at a 50% discount shared to both players. The Secret Shop is replaced with the Traveling Bazaar which now offers the same item to both players, and the player with initiative gets the first chance to purchase the item. The first player to use a shop deed purchases exclusive use of the Bazaar, so that player receives one free item per round with the opposing player being unable to have access to the Bazaar.

Artifact is now free to try! The Call to Arms event allows new players to check out Artifact using premade decks, and select quests will be available to try.

Artifact now has local pricing for the initial purchase of the game, and any items received from purchase will not be marketable or trade-able. Existing owners of Artifact will receive special rewards. All players have had their level reset, and level progression has been reworked. Daily and weekly quests allow players to gain additional xp, and leveling up unlocks card and token packs which are marketable and now trade-able.

Competitive ranks have arrived! Earn one of fifteen ranks to showcase your talent. Ranked play no longer requires the use of an event ticket (card packs can no longer be earned this way)! All existing event tickets will be converted into a pack. Unused, purchased event tickets may be refunded. New penalties are introduced for abandoning drafts.

The available game modes are:

Call to Arms

Casual Constructed

Ranked Constructed

Ranked Draft

Rotating Mode

Challenge

The first rotating game mode is Cost Building. Each card has a point cost which will be a living number based on the play percentage of that card by top players in Ranked Constructed. Each deck will be initially limited to 100 hero points and 1000 total deck points; your deck may contain as many cards as long as you would like. The deck will be temporarily ineligible for use when the point value rises above 1050. Any future balance changes will reset allowed decks. Keep an eye out for Tri-Color Fantasy Snake Draft game mode!

Challenges. Face a pre-constructed board layout alone or with a friend and fight your way to victory. 60 solo and 20 co-op challenges have been added with more to come, and Artifact's Workshop allows players to submit their own creations. Sort through the workshop by highest rated, most played, and toughest.

Artifact's Workshop supports custom anything in head to head battles and challenge matches! Game modes, rules, and cards can all be customized. Workshop creators may even see their ideas incorporated into the main game!

Artifact now supports replays for saved matches. Look back on previous matches to consider what you could have done differently. All cards can be seen, so you can also analyze your opponents' moves.

The Artifact team has been hard at work retooling the game, so no new expansion be released with Artifact 2.0. We want to make sure that you love the game before we release new cards, events, or make extensive balancing changes, but new cards and events are coming. Card changes are being made to accommodate archers and mages, and some initial balanced changes are described below:

Time of Triumph modifications are less effective when stacked. A hero that receives his second buff will receive +3 to each stat, and a hero with his third buff receives +2 to each stat.

Annihilation no longer gives gold for enemy units condemned by this card.

Kanna's Bringer of Conquest now reads, "Two melee creeps are randomly deployed into Kanna's lane. One melee creep is deployed into another random lane".

Ogre's Multicast changed. Ogre starts with five charges on his ability. Each blue spell played in Ogre's lane removes one charge. When there are no charges left, put a base copy of that card in your inventory and reset the number of charges.

Call the Reserves: changed from "Summon two melee creeps into any lane" to "Summon two mages into any lane".

One total time per phase, if a lane has a green hero, they may choose to deploy one archer instead of a melee creep.

Viper's active ability changed. Active 2: Summon an archer.

Restoration effect may now be cast without a hero in that lane.

Corrosive Mist: changed from "Condemn all equipped items" to "Condemn all items equipped by non-green heroes".

Cleansing Right: adding effect shield. The hero will be shielded from the next effect your opponent places.

Thunderhide Alpha: mana increased to 10, attack reduced to 22, and given Relentless Pursuit. Units with Relentless Pursuit continue attack the tower with their remaining attack points after the unit in front of them is killed.

Verdant Refuge changed to Defend the Walls - green improvement costing five mana: "Before the action phase, if there are charges on Defend the Walls, remove one and summon an archer in the current lane. Charges: 2"

Smeevil Blacksmith: also increases the health of the random hero by 1.

Blood Rage changed to Blood Bond: "Summon one mage into the current lane" at a cost of four mana.

Phase Boots: The hero is not subjected to archer/mage fire when using the active ability.