Valve's card game Artifact launched a few weeks ago, though unfortunately it has done so alongside quite a few problems. The in-game features were incredibly barebones, there was no actual ranked mode or serious progression, you couldn't communicate with your opponent in any way, and to top it all off, there were extremely limited ways of earning more cards, and all of those required you to invest some money first.

With all these issues and a rapidly degrading playerbase, things are not exactly looking good for Artifact right now. Thankfully, it does appear that Valve is taking things seriously as they have just released a major update, and they are planning to release another one at some point next week.

As for today's update, it has brought in solutions to a couple of issues I outlined at the very beginning. Not only is there now a chat wheel so you can communicate with your opponent during the match, but there is also a post-game chat if you really want to get insulted on a personal level, or just talk about video games for a while. The update has also added automated tournaments, as well as two additional gauntlet decks to toy around with: "a damage-focused mono blue deck and an all-aggro all-the-time mono black deck."

You can read more about all these changes, and the various bug fixes, by hopping over to the Artifact website.

On the other hand, if you're wondering what exactly the next week's update will bring, I'm afraid Valve hasn't released much in terms of details just yet. All I can tell you is that the update will be focused on skill-based progression systems, most likely as a part of some ranked mode. Once more information becomes available I'll make sure to let you know, but until then I wish you the best of luck with the new tournaments!