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| Artifact Concepts Explained |
The Valve Dota card game Artifact borrows many concepts from other card games, such as Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone, however, it has a lot of unique features. In fact, these unique concepts broaden the depth of the gameplay, meanwhile confuse new players moving from other games. In this article, we quickly go through the important concepts in Artifact game to help new players to get started. You can navigate to detailed game guides or tutorials about the concept you are interested in by clicking on the inline links.
Basic Concepts
Mana means magical power. It is the capability of casting spells. In Artifact, each board has a mana pool. They have 3 mana each when the game starts. Then the maximum mana is increased by 1 for each turn. Not like other card games such as Hearthstone, Artifact mana pools do not have the upper limit. Some spells can modify the max mana. Each spell consume a certain amount of mana.
Deck is a card set in a certain format. Based on the revealed information, a standard deck in Artifact game allows a maximum of 3 copies of a card, a minimum of 9 item cards, and a minimum of 40 other cards. Heroes are not included as cards. However, their signature cards are. Each hero has 3 copies of their signature cards, so actually.
Lanes are the venues where battles happen. The Artifact game playing involves three lanes. Each lane is a standalone battlefield. It has structures, mana pools. Units can only combat in the lane where they are deployed. However, some spells can take effect to another lane or across the board.
Hand is the cards drawn but not played. Cards are only playable when:
- At least one hero with the same color is present in the lane.
- The tower has enough mana to play the card.
- The player has initiative.
- Cards are not locked.
In Artifact, Initiative means the right of playing. The player who has the turn to play has a golden coin. We call this player active player. The active player can play some cards, or simply "pass" the coin without doing anything. If both players pass the coin, it enters the combat stage. Most of the card games, such as Hearthstone, each player can only have one chance to play cards in a round. Artifact is using a different mechanism, so you will see more counter-actions in the game playing.
A Round is a single cycle of game playing. A round consists of unit deploying, card drawing, action (card playing), combat and shopping phases. Action and combat will happen on each of the three lanes.
Gold is the currency in the game that you can spend to buy items in the shop. Gold can also modify some card's stats. Killing a hero gains you 5 gold while killing a creep only gets you 1 gold. Some spells can increase or reduce the amount of gold from units' death.
Tower and Ancient are two types of structure in Artifact game. The goal of game playing is to bring down either two towers or one ancient of your opponent. Ancient only appears when one tower is destroyed. So literally the winning condition is either breaking two towers or one tower + one ancient. A tower has 40 HP and an ancient has 80. Structures don't have an attack attribute so can't do any damage, but some cards can give them armor to reduce the damage received.
Flop is the card deployment phase of the first round. Each player has three heroes deployed to each lane randomly.
Card Types
In most of the context when we talk about "cards", heroes are not included. Because in gameplay you don't draw heroes like other cards. But since Artifact is basically a "card game", so every game asset is a "card".
Heroes are the major characters in Artifact game. They can be killed but never die! The killed heroes will stay on cooldown area for 2 turns and then come back to the battlefield. All upgrades on them are not reset after they are killed. Players have five heroes. Three of them are deployed to random lanes at the starting of the game, and the other two will be deployed on the second turn by the player. A hero has a color. Players can only cast the same color of spells when a hero is alive in a lane. A hero has attack, armor and health attributes. The hero is destroyed when heath is reduced to equal or below 0. Most of the heroes have one hero skill. Some heroes don't have. Meepo is only one that we know of so far has two hero skills. Every hero has a signature spell. Only heroes can equip items. These items will be retained even they are killed and revived. Five heroes are included in a deck you composed. Only three of them will join the battle at the start, and rest will join later. Under normal rules you can play duplicate heroes in a deck, however, some rules will not allow it.
Spell card sometimes mean creep + spell + improvement cards, but more often we are referring to specifically a spell. Casting a spell consumes a certain amount of mana. Also, it requires a hero of the spell's color.
Creep cards can summon creeps. A creep has attack/armor/health attributes, just like a hero. However, creeps can't be revived after death. Also, creeps are unable to equip any item. Creeps and heroes are combined to be units. Summoning creeps are subject to the same requirements as spells: mana and heroes of their color. Creeps can have skills as well. Normally heroes have much higher stats and stronger abilities than creeps.
Improvement cards are regarded as "add-ons" on the structures. They can't be targeted by units but some spells or items can "condemn" them. Most of the improvements can be played in any lane.
There are four types of items in the game: Weapon, Armor, Accessory and Consumable. Each hero can equip on one Weapon, one Armor and one Accessory. Equipping the second one will overwrite the previous one. As the name indicates, the Consumables can't be equipped but consumed.
Unit skills. A unit (hero or creep) can have an exclusive skill. Skills are classified into four categories. Continuously abilities are constantly taking effect. Reactive and Passive abilities are both triggered by certain events. It is not very clear what is the exact difference between them. Active abilities require cooldown turns to activate again. When it is ready, it does not launch automatically. Players need to click certain buttons to unleash its power.
Advanced Concepts
Death Shield will prevent a unit from dying when it received deadly damage. It keeps the unit under protection alive at 1 health. It even survives a unit from Condemn. The shield is gone after it is triggered.
Piercing Damage is a type of damage that ignoring target unit's armor.
Charge (a.k.a: pulse, redo) means the number of attacks from a spell. Total damage = base damage x charges.
Rapid Deployment is an ability that allows the hero to be deployed the round after it dies instead of waiting at standard one-round respawn time.
Regeneration heals the unit during combat. It is triggered before death check so it offsets the damage that unit receives. It does not work in other battles such as caused by Duel.
A unit with Retaliation deals a mount of damage to the enemy unit attacking it. The retaliation damage is buffed or debuffed by armor separately.
A unit with Siege will deal extra damage to the enemy structure (Tower or Ancient) only when it is blocked by an enemy.
Silence is an effect that disables a hero from casting spells and using abilities.
A Disarmed unit will not deal battle damage before or during the combat phase.
A Stunned unit is both Silenced and Disarmed. They cannot activate abilities and does not contribute their color for playing cards. They also do not deal damage.
Taunt is an effect in the combat phase. The taunting unit is forcing all enemy neighbors to target it in combat.
More Useful Tips
Destroying a Health Item (with cards like Ravenhook or Corrosive Mist) can kill a hero if the item destruction will take the hero below 0 health.
Multicast and And One For Me only creates base copies of cards. For example, an Eclipse created by OgreMagi's Multicast only has 1 charge.
Ancient=core tower. Tower=defensive tower. These terms are exchangeable. So don't be confused when you see them in some other game guides and tutorials.
Each hero has 3 equipment slots for items(attack, armor and health). Equipping an item in a full slot will destroy the previous item.
'Modify' effects change the target permanently. 'Give' effects persist until a unit is killed or returns to the fountain.
If two card effects have the same timing listed, they occur simultaneously.
Players can only purchase 1 secret shop(left) and 1 side shop (right) item per round but can buy as many items as remain in their item deck (middle).
Damage dealt to units remains in subsequent rounds unless healed.
A Disarmed unit will not deal battle damage before or during the combat phase. A card like Frostbite can be a great defense against Duel and Beserker's call.
Each incoming source of damage is reduced by Armor. This includes damage from spells, cleave or retaliate.
Negative Armor amplifies all sources of damage, including piercing damage. Negative armor synergizes well with repeat source of damage such as Ignite or Viper Strike.
Cleave only occurs during the Combat phase. Cleave will trigger the effects of Ursa's Fury Swipe and Apotheosis Blade.
Effect of Condemn will destroy a unit, improvement or equipment. Death Shield can prevent a condemn effect.
If a unit would have died, a unit with a Death Shield instead survives with 1 health and has their death shield removed. A unit may have at most 1 Death Shield.
Lock is an effect that is an effect that is applied to cards in hand and prevents them from being played. For example, a card with "Lock 2" applied to it can't be played until 2 rounds have passed.
Neighbors are the units directly to the left and right of a position. Applies similarly to Enemy neighbors.
Purge removes all stats and ability modifiers such as opponents debuffing your units or opponents buffering their units. This does not affect external modifiers such as Euipments or continuous effects from neighbors or improvements.
A silenced unit cannot use activated abilities. A silenced hero does not contribute its color to mana for playing cards, and will not be able to use activated ability from an equipped item.
Dire/Radiant are concepts borrowed from Dota. In Artifact, the Radiant player goes first.
Damage immune units can still be killed by Condemn effect.
- This Above Content Is Taken From : https://artifact.game/guide/walk-through-artifact-concepts-in-ten-minutes
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