Play games
Choose the game that interests you and play itfor free.
Complete the quests
Every game has some quests for which you will receive Soul Gems.
Receive rewards
You can exchange your Soul Gems for Steam Wallet top-ups, game keys, CS:GO Skins and other rewards.
The latest Artifact 2.0 blog post from Valve outlines some changes that are being made to the shopping phase. Previously one of the most underwhelming gameplay elements in the original Artifact, Valve now want to simplify the process and make the item and gold economy less confusing and less random.
How items worked before
With the exception of few very specific, item-focused archetypes like Horn of the Alpha decks, item lists in Artifact decks would be very similar. Players would include a few must-have items like Blink Dagger and maybe one late game item, and use the rest of the slots on the cheapest items possible like Traveler's Cloak or Stonehall Cloak. The goal: buy through our item list as fast as possible until you find your better items.
Add to that the randomness of the shop selection and the three different types of items (consumables, secret shop, and your deck's item list), and the shopping phase really felt underwhelming.
This (and more) is something Valve want to change in Artifact 2.0, although they admit a lot can change still.
"The shop is one of the last things we've worked on, so it might see some dramatic changes still. The details of the implementation may be completely different in the end, but our goals should remain the same."
How the shop works in Artifact 2.0
In Artifact 2.0, the shop will have a few different options. "Hold" has been removed and there's no secret shop anymore. In any given shop phase, you can:
Buy an item
Reroll the selection
Upgrade the shop
Skip shop phase to earn +3 gold
Let's look at each option one by one.
Buying items comes with a normalized gold cost for all: they either cost 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 gold, depending on their tier. The prices are higher, but so is the rate at which you earn gold. The entire pool of items in the shop is made by a random selection of items of each tier plus your own item deck.
Updrading the shop will add the higher tier items to the selection pool. If you never upgrade, for example, you'll only get tier 1 items. The upgrade cost starts at 5 gold, and decreases by 1 each round.
Rerolling costs 2 gold and gives you a new selection of three items to buy, if you don't like what you see.
Investing allows you to skip any other shop action and earn +3 gold. This investment grows with +1 gold each time you upgrade the shop.