An early appraisal of the best heroes to emerge in the closed beta.
Our Artifact: Best Heroes guide covers the best Red, Black, Green and Blue heroes based on the finalists of the pre-release tournament.
The recent Artifact Preview Tournament has given us our closest indication yet of the meta that’s likely to emerge in the early days of Artifact’s release.
Some of the players involved have had many months to hone their experience with the game, after all, and we’ve already highlighted the final eight decks from the tournament over at our best Artifact decks page (expect many updates to that article during the launch window).
For the purposes of assessing your early card collection, we thought it would be useful to take a look at the hero popularity distribution across those finalists. This should give us a good idea of the cards to watch out for.
It goes without saying that the early meta will be extremely uncertain, regardless of how the pros have been tinkering with it behind closed doors, and in a very limited pool of participants. Be careful what you invest in, in other words, and we’ll be revisiting this guide again shortly after launch.
For help getting started with Artifact, make sure you have a look through our core Artifact guide. It contains everything you need to get started with the game.
Artifact: Best Red Heroes
- 4 x Ursa
- 3 x Sven
- 2 x Beastmaster
- 2 x Bristleback
- 2 x Sorla Khan
- 1 x Keefe the Bold
- 1 x Legion Commander
- 1 x Tidehunter
- 1 x Timbersaw
Red Heroes had a big presence during the finals of November’s Preview Tournament and look like they’re going to be a big part of the early Artifact meta.
Double Ursa featured in one finals deck, but also appeared across three different deck lists in total, suggesting there’s good value to be had from investing in this hero.
Where Sorla Khan appeared in the finals, she was used as a double in a single deck list. This obviously allows for a great deal of aggression when making a final tower push.
It’s a long watch, but Swim’s review of all the Red heroes and cards will give you a fantastic overview of what to expect:
Artifact: Best Black Heroes
- 2 x Debbie the Cunning
- 2 x Bounty Hunter
- 1 x Necrophos
- 1 x Lich
- 1 x Phantom Assassin
Debbie the Cunning appeared in a total of two deck lists during the November final eight, while another single deck made use of a pair of Bounty Hunters to go bigger on the Bounty mechanic.
Here’s Swim’s overview of the Black Heroes and cards that explains what makes this category of cards unique:
Artifact: Best Green Heroes
Here’s how the distribution of Green heroes looked across the finalist’s decks.
- 2 x Lycan
- 2 x Farvhan the Dreamer
- 1 x Abaddon
- 1 x Dark Seer
- 1 x Enchantress
- 1 x Treant Protector
- 1 x Chen
Lycan appeared across two separate deck lists in the finals, as did Farvhan the Dreamer.
To learn more about Green heroes and cards, have a watch of Swim’s video which goes through the entire collection:
Artifact: Best Blue Heroes
- 1 x J’Muy
- 1 x Skywrath Mage
- 1 x Zeus
- 1 x Luna
- 1 x Prellex
- 1 x Ogre Magi
No more than a single Blue hero card made it into any given deck list from the tournament finals.
Finally, here’s Swim’s analysis of the Blue Heroes and cards in Artifact. Give it a watch to learn more about their place in the meta:
