Hearthstone vs Artifact – Differences And Similarities

The launch of Artifact is just around the corner, and everyone is getting more and more excited to try it out.

A lot of people compare Artifact to Hearthstone and are wondering what is Artifact going to bring to the table that Hearthstone hasn’t and will Hearthstone players switch to Artifact once it’s launched?

They’re both fantasy cards games based on existing video games worlds – Dota 2 and World of Warcraft – but in reality, they’re very different games that will most likely appeal to very different types of players.

1. Initial Cost And Game Economy

Hearthstone’s Free-to-Play vs Artifact’s $20 Initial Cost

Hearthstone is free-to-play and you can improve your card collection by purchasing packs with in-game currency which you acquire through daily quests and winning games.

Artifact, however, will cost $20 to purchase and for that cost you’ll get two pre-made “base decks” of 54 cards each and 10 sealed packs of cards, each including 12 random cards. There are no other ways to get additional free cards or packs, so completing your card collection requires buying packs or cards from the official marketplace (more on that later).

Buying packs and card rarity odds

Hearthstone has 4 different types of cards you can get from packs: Common, Rare, Epics and Legendaries. A card pack costs about $1.3 and contains 5 cards, 1 of which is guaranteed to be of Rare rarity or better. On average, you can expect to get 1 Epic card in 5 packs and 1 Legendary card in 20 card packs.

Artifact packs contain only 3 different types of cards: Common, Uncommon and Rare. A card pack costs $2 and contains 12 cards, 1 of which is guaranteed to be a Rare, the highest rarity in Artifact. So it’s worth noticing that in Artifact, a rare card is the equivalent of a legendary one in Hearthstone, and you get one with each pack you purchase.

Hearthstone’s Crafting System vs Artifact’s Marketplace

Another big influence on the cost of game and economy comes from the different approaches to acquiring individual cards between Hearthstone’s Crafting System and Artifact’s Marketplace.

Hearthstone has a Crafting System, where you can sell or buy new cards directly from the game through an in-game currency called dust. You can sell any card you want for 25% of its value in dust, and you can purchase any card you want, as long as you have enough dust.

In Artifact, you won’t be able to craft the cards you don’t need anymore, but instead, you can trade them with other players in Steam.

However, the trading system will not be available at launch and will be implemented later. This has the potential to be an incredible useful tool for the game’s community, since it means you no longer need to rely solely on opening packs in order to create a deck or complete your collection.

2. The Gameplay

Boards

The main difference between Hearthstone and Artifact is the two-lane difference between the two of them. While in Hearthstone you only focus on the one board that’s in front of you, in Artifact you have 3 boards and you have to consider the others each time you make a move and place a card. You have to think carefully about which card goes where and why, which lane are you going to focus on to, in terms of dealing damage or protecting your tower.

While you will have three different mana pools, one for each lane, you will only have one hand of cards which you have to distribute smartly amongst the three boards.

While this fact might be confusing, especially for those coming from Hearthstone, I think players will adapt easily. After all, more lanes mean more chances for a good comeback, right?

Strategy

In Hearthstone, you choose a hero whom you play with and it’s that hero’s HP you need to defend or you lose the game.

In Artifact, things work differently regarding heroes, and you win the game by destroying two towers out of three, or the Ancient itself.

You’ll have five heroes in your deck and the game starts with three of them already on the board, one in each lane. As the rounds go on, you will be able to add the other two heroes into play and chose in which lane you’ll want them deployed.

While in Hearthstone you win the game by killing the enemy hero, in Artifact, killing an enemy hero means getting that hero out of the game until they respawn and can be deployed again.

Despite the fact that killing enemy heroes won’t win you the game, hero cards are some of the most powerful cards in terms of pure stats, but they’re also really important for another reason – cards have different colors: blue, black, red and green and they can only be played in a lane where a hero with the same color already is.

So, for example, if your opponent has some really good red cards in his hand, but you just killed his red hero, he won’t be able to play the red cards until the hero gets replaced (with another red hero).

This means that killing enemy heroes is not just about stopping their potential damage, it’s also about interrupting what the other player wants to do next.

Attacking

Unlike in Hearthstone, where typically you can select one of your cards and decide whether you want to attack the enemy player’s hero or one of the cards they have on the board, in Artifact cards typically attack which other card is directly standing opposite them.

If there aren’t any cards directly opposite, the game then decides each round whether they’ll attack directly ahead or to the left and right. If there are no cards for them to attack, they’ll hit the enemy tower instead.

Basically, this means that you can block powerful enemy cards with cards that you’re willing to sacrifice in order to protect your tower. You could think of each card as a taunt, like in Hearthstone.

Turns

In Hearthstone, players take in turns to take all of their actions. In Artifact, players take in turns to play one card at a time.

If you run out of mana or cards to play on a particular lane or you just don’t want to play anymore cards, the opponent player can play whatever they have left. But up until that point, you’re alternating – this means players have the opportunity to respond to every single action that the other players take, unlike in Hearthstone where you can find yourself losing the game to a crazy combo the enemy just pulled in one turn.

3. Deck building And Card Collection

In Hearthstone there are only nine classes of heroes and you play by choosing one and creating a specific deck for it.

Making a deck in Hearthstone has some simple rules: you can only add 30 cards and you can’t have more than 2 copies of the same card in your deck (and only one copy if it’s a legendary card).

You can build a specific hero’s deck by using neutral cards, which can be used for every hero and are considered less powerful than the class cards and class-specific cards which are only available for that hero.

In Artifact, things look a bit differently and might seem a little more complicated.

Each deck will consist of a minimum 40 cards. Cards belong to one of four suits in the game: black, blue, green and red. Within each suit is a collection of card types, including hero cards, abilities and spells. You are allowed to use maximum of five unique heroes out of 48 in any given deck. You can also include up to three copies of any other card in your deck.

4. Features & Functionality

When it comes to features and functionality, it’s safe to say that Hearthstone lacks, and although players have complained a lot about it, Hearthstone still doesn’t have a lot of basic features any game should have. This is actually a really negative point about Hearthstone and the fact that Artifact will launch with these features definitely adds to the list.

While Hearthstone does have a few in-game features, such as friends and spectate mode, emotes and deck importing (by code), Artifact brings to the table a lot of other and essential features that everyone wants to see in Hearthstone as well, but with no success so far.

Replays.

Replays are a huge deal for any competitive game, especially card games where every move counts. Being able to watch a replay and see what you should’ve done differently or develop a new strategy it’s a pretty awesome feature. While in Hearthstone replays are supported only by a third party, Artifact will have it at launch.

Stats.

Along with replays, Artifact will also have post-game stats, just like in Dota. Everyone loves watching post-game stats, either it’s a loss or a win and Valve is the first one to add this feature to a card game.

Deck tracker.

There will also be an in-game deck tracker, which again is a very useful tool and a lot of Hearthstone players have to use a third-party program in order to have access to a tracker, which can be inconvenient and it should be included in the game. Considering that some Artifact decks might be over 40+ cards, this feature is definitely going to be super helpful in order to keep tracks of the cards played and remained in the deck.

Chat.

Besides emotes, which Hearthstone have as well, Artifact will also have in-game chat – which can really go both ways: great, or a disaster, considering that flaming is very popular in gaming nowadays.

In-client tournaments.

I dare to say that in-client tournaments is one of the most important and at the same time basic feature every competitive game should have, and Artifact, of course, has it.

So, is Artifact the new Hearthstone?

As a conclusion, I think there are a lot of differences between Hearthstone and Artifact, from features and functionality to game play and strategy. One of the main difference between them could be the fact that Artifact seems less about building a deck that can carefully execute a well thought strategy, but more of a turn by turn battle with the other player’s decisions. For me, one thing is clear: Artifact sure isn’t going to be the new Hearthstone.