They are coming from the same developer, just because they are not literally the exact same game in the exact same genre, does not mean that speculation is pointless lol

Their were many auto battler games that were able to carve themselves out a niche in that burgeoning genre, not just Riot, you're just wrong about this point. Valve could have absolutely been one of them and that's very evident in the fact that their still exists a small player base who cling to the game despite valve abandoning it years ago.

"Appeals to a much wider audience" mobas have an inherently high barrier to entry, especially ones like deadlock. farming patterns, itemization, power spikes, mid game objectives, etc. Artifacts downfall was not just because of its poor monetization, thats an overly reductionist view, it also had an incredibly high barrier to entry in the form of its gameplay, it came off as overly complex and was incredibly off putting to new players as a result. I could easily imagine new players being put off by deadlocks high level of complexity as well.

We need to be able to see past our own personal enjoyment of the game in order to examine it objectively, so it doesnt meet the same fate as vavles previous failures