This guy.

Richard Garfield designed the ruleset and playstyle of Artifact. This guy. You know Magic, right? The OG TCG that is still in production since 1993? Yeah, he made that. Oh, and the original Netrunner that created the biggest LCG ever Android Netrunner. And Robo Rally & King of Tokyo. And a ton of “Well it’s really fun but it doesn’t have the playerbase of Magic so the community will be fighting with MTG for space” TCGs. That guy.

The effect of this entire project being initially pitched to Valve by him four years ago is a huge one. Before it was an unknown on how well the game would play and how it would mechanically work out as Valve hadn’t done this genre before. With him on board as a lead, you immediately have people from the card game community perking their heads up in interest. The words of Gabe Newell in the small press conference is very important — “Artifact is to Trading Card Games what Half Life was to Single Player Action Games”. If you’re going to take on the Magic and Hearthstone throne, having Richard Garfield as your street cred will be enough to get everyone to take you seriously immediately.