7 THINGS THAT SHOULD BE ANNOUNCED ABOUT ARTIFACT THIS WEEKEND BUT PROBABLY WON’T BE
Because I can’t contain my hype and my other idea was to rate all the cards we have seen already which would have been outdated this weekend.
1: Pre-orders/Early Access will get the October Closed Beta access. If this doesn’t happen, expect to see the PAX West Artifact keys on eBay for fifty dollars — then drop back to uselessness because they announce this two weeks later for no reason other than to screw people over.
Guessing: Yes, pay $20 and you’ll get Closed Beta access in October.
2: Draft format details. So with 3 boosters you’ll have 36 drafted cards. Of these, let’s say you need 15 spell cards, 5 heroes (with 15 signature cards) and 5 items. That means you have only 11 cards of “junk” space, which is a lot smaller than other games usually have (MTG has around 23 from 45 cards — that’s 22 cards of junk space). In addition, what happens if you don’t draft 5 heroes for a legal deck? Do you get a random hero, are you forced to play with only 4 or 3 heroes, or are you forced to draft hero cards if the system detects you are missing too many heroes?
Guessing: Zero announcement on this as they’ll want to focus only on Constructed.
3: Cosmetics and methods of obtaining them. Let’s be honest, card game players love to show off their cool deck sleeves, playmats and alt-art cards, so Artifact can have a field day with offering cosmetics. Sleeves, Imps, Gold/Premium/Foil cards, Alternative Art cards, Full Art cards, Faction Towers/Ancients, Stat-Track Gems, etc. Will they have a small chance to show up in booster packs, or will you need to buy a separate lootbox to get a roll at these items?
Guessing: Zero announcement on this because they haven’t worked out what they want either.
4: FLGS Integration akin to Hearthstone’s Fireside Gatherings. In all honesty this won’t be a priority until the Android/iOS tablet version is up and running, but it’s good to think of the future. Anything that can have people playing locally is a good idea and helps make the community bigger.
Guessing: Zero announcement on this because they want the Android/iOS version out before that.
5: Will the first set be an evergreen core set akin to Hearthstone, or be eventually rotated out with only reprints in newer sets to carry on cards akin to MtG? It’s a problem that won’t need to come up for at least 2–3 years, but it’s something to keep in mind and helps with how people will sort and play their cards. Of course, everyone will have Legacy/Eternal/Commander formats to play, but Standard is usually where the most focus is for both competitive and casual play. And give us the name of the set already so I can stop calling it “Artifact Core Set”.
Guessing: It’ll be handled as a normal set and rotate out eventually but “don’t worry about it that’s far into the future”.
6: Tournament Play/Ranked Play. Will ranked be free to do with no rewards, or require a fee but with prizes akin to the Battle Cups in Dota 2, or both? I’d also assume that you MUST pay for your boosters in draft tournaments, but could a phantom draft format be possible for ranked play? Will you be required to play an entire tournament for two hours for ranked or be in a 15 minute Bo1?
Guessing: Zero announcement on this and everyone will be mad.
7: It is in the TCG rules that any card game that has a world championship must have the winner design a card in a future set. Will Artifact be following the traditional TCG ruleset for this? It’s kinda required.
Guessing: My current idea for a card is something that lets you drain mana from other lanes into the current lane so you can siphon off other lanes for spells and stuff, that’s unique, right?
