Valve announced the card game last year and audiences were barely intrigued. Today they have released a preview of the game's gameplay system, as well as introduced some of the features that will be added to the game. Still looks meh.
On 08 August 2017, Valve announced they will be releasing Artifact, DOTA 2's little card game brother. It will be fully based on the DOTA 2 universe and will feature 280+ cards on release with 44 heroes. The game is planned for a late-2018 release.
Valve
The concept of a match in the game is similar to the popular MOBA. It is resolved in three different lanes, which you play left to right each turn as your little dragon skips across the board to stand on your card deck and throw cards into your hand.
The objective of the game is to defeat the opposing player's towers. The first player to destroy two of the three towers wins.
Valve
You will see familiar faces in the game as some of the heroes from DOTA 2 are featured as cards, and there are even hints of new heroes as yet unreleased in DOTA 2. That gives us a hint about some of the content Valve will be introducing to DOTA 2 prior to Artifact's release.
Like Hearthstone and Magic: TCG, it is a competitive turn based card game. However unlike the other two's video game counterparts for mobile phones and PC alike, Artifact will not be free-to-play but they stated that it won't be pay-to-win either. Valve hasn't announced the cost of the game yet.
Instead of only the option of buying card packs with randomised chances, players will trade cards with each other through the Steam Marketplace, suggesting that the cards will not be just part of the game, but your Steam Inventory as well.
Valve
The initial announcement of the game back in 2017 was met with rather disappointing sighs. Eight months after the announcement trailer, Gamespot had the honour of playing the game at Valve's Headquarters.
