Enlarge / Getting one’s Artifact on. (credit: Valve Software)

Editor’s note: This feature’s two videos include transcripts, and many of their details appear in the article’s text and galleries. So however you want to learn about Valve’s latest video game, Ars has your back.

BELLEVUE, Washington—Right as this article goes live, Valve Software is taking the wraps off its next video game, Artifact, in a major way. At this weekend’s PAX West expo in Seattle, lines of eager fans are currently waiting to play the first public demo of Valve’s online trading card game (TCG), and they have good reason to be excited.

I say that not just because of the game’s pedigree—designed in part by the creator of the world’s biggest TCG, Magic: The Gathering, and supercharged by the fantasy world and characters of the Valve smash Dota 2. I say it because Ars already went hands-on with this PAX West demo, thanks to an exclusive invite to Valve’s headquarters ahead of the show. I had a blast. Plus, unlike PAX’s attendees, I had quite the guide sitting over my shoulder: MtG‘s creator and Artifact lead designer Richard Garfield.