Valve really wants to revive their dead card game, Artifact. The game is continuously getting support from the devs in the form of patches and updates. The most recent of those patches was released today. The August 21 patch made several gameplay and balancing changes. Card text and the in-game glossary were also updated and a few bugs were squashed. The most important change was made to matchmaking.
Currently, 80 percent of matches are found in under 10 seconds. The update aims to improve upon that as well. From now on, the game will matchmake with players that have the same unlock tier, however, if the need arrives, there can be a one-tier difference. This change in the matchmaking should improve the overall quality of the match and also reduce the queue time.
You can read all the tweaks and changes made by today’s update below and on the official site.
Artifact 8/21/2020 Update Patch Notes
Gameplay
- Keefe the Bold’s Stop Hittin’ Yourself now causes enemies to battle themselves with +2 Attack.
- Chen gained the passive Divine Favor: “After Combat: Heal all allied creeps two.”
- Earth Shaker’s Echo Slam’s damage increased to double the number of enemy units.
- Rubick’s Telekinesis now stuns the target and its neighbors after moving it. Cooldown has been increased to three and it no longer has Quickcast.
- J’Muy The Wise’s Wisdom of the Elders cooldown reduced to two. Using the ability no longer reduces its cooldown.
- J’Muy The Wise’s Runic Instigation changed to: “Increase all cooldowns on an enemy unit by two or decrease all cooldowns on a friendly unit by two.”
- Radiance changed to “Before your turn, deal one piercing damage to each enemy.”
- Throw Down and Spriggan Mischief changed to give the bounced items +1 Lock.
- Sniper’s Headshot changed to Cross Lane targeting within range five.
- Sniper’s Assassinate gained the ability “Costs one less for each time you’ve passed this round.”
- Bloodseeker’s Thirst no longer decreases when killing enemy heroes this round.
- Storm Spirit’s Static Remnant deals one piercing damage on death and slays itself after combat.
- Storm Spirit’s Ball Lightning is now one mana, moves range five, repeatable, quickcast.
- Storm Spirit regains the Overload Passive: “Storm Spirit has +1 Attack per charge. After you play a spell or enchantment from any lane, add a charge until Storm Spirit attacks in a battle.”
- Ursa's Overpower now deals two damage twice rather than one damage thrice.
- Farvhan the Dreamer’s Pack Leader renamed to Strength in Numbers.
- Lycan’s Feral impulse no longer affects heroes.
- Lycan gains the passive Pack Leadership: “Pack Leadership has charges equal to the combined Attack of creeps in this lane. If Pack Leadership has 15 or more charges, Lycan has +3 Attack and allied creeps within range two have +1 Attack.”
- Tidehunter’s Anchor Smash now attacks for one battle damage to its targets. This makes the ability more consistent when Tidehunter is stunned or disarmed, where before it could deal damage to its adjacent enemies but not the tower. Now neither will happen.
- Ogre Magi’s Ignite cost reduced to two mana, “Round Start: Deal one damage to the two closest enemies.”
- Arc Warden’s Tempest Clone has different art to differentiate it.
- Pugna changed to a black hero and no longer has Nether Blast.
- Pugna gains the passive Nether Ward: “Whenever your opponent plays a non-item card from this lane, deal one piercing damage to their tower and burn one of their mana. One round cooldown.”
- Nether Ward tower enchantment removed.
- Horde Stryder’s active moves and then attacks its new combat target for two battle damage.
- Meepos slain by United We Fall only grant bounty for one of the Meepos, rather than all of them.
- Blink Scroll cannot target rooted heroes.
Card Text
- Cards that used to say that they "deal" battle damage now say that they "attack" for battle damage to emphasize the damage type.
- Nyx Assassin text no longer says “sneak.”
- United We Fall text clarification.
- Ventriloquy updated to “attack for one damage” wording, which it was already doing.
- Remote Detonation text changed to “Deal five damage to each unopposed enemy.”
Glossary
- Added entry for Unopposed.
Bug Fixes
- An enemy Dark Seer can no longer kill units moving into Storm Spirit's old position by using Storm Spirit's Static Remnant summon. Instead, the Static Remnant will summon into the closest empty position.
- Anchor Smash now plays an animation when it triggers.
