It's been a long time since I played the first incarnation of Valve's MOBA-inspired CCG, but having sunk 40 hours into Artifact back when it launched, I never expected to feel this lost during my first match of the 2.0 beta. There are plenty of obvious differences, like a new campaign, ability changes, new cards, and a simplified board - changes you spot before playing your first card - but there are countless, seemingly minor adjustments that altogether transform the pacing and feel of this card battler.
The three boards and lane system remain, but now all lanes are visible at all times, so you don't feel like you're playing three games at once. Before, each board had its own mana reserve, but now they all drink from a common pool. Likewise, all items and hero abilities now cost mana to play, so while you can't stack all your mana buffs into key lanes anymore, you still need to think very carefully about how you spend mana and buff your shared pool over the course of a match. Almost all health, damage, and armour stats have been significantly reduced as well, so any buffs or synergies are less likely to snowball and create unbeatable monster decks.
Deployment and turn order are simpler in 2.0, with creeps now appearing in predictable spots every round and none of the random aggro arrows that would previously scupper carefully planned strategies. Best of all, you now deploy your heroes manually, choosing the exact slot in each lane, which means no more random first-round flops where you lose the majority of your heroes, or getting blocked by a melee creep. The initial deployment of your first three heroes is a crucial part of the match, and the previous system of both sides playing their heroes blindly led to a lot of unfortunate mismatches that simply didn't feel fair. Now, players take it in turns deploying their heroes in each lane, starting in mid, then going to offlane, and ending with the safe lane - 'safe' because by this point you can react to the opponent's offlane placement.
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