I think artifacts are an important -- and currently neglected -- part of the game's ecosystem.
In Magic (and most card games), the power level gradually escalates over the course of the game, as decks "ramp up" their mana pools.
Some decks ("ramp" decks) attempt to merely stay alive in the early game while focusing on ramping up their overall power level so they can reach the endgame and stomp their opponent to death. Combo decks do something similar: they try to stay alive, falling behind but not losing, until they can activate a crushing combo that all but assures swift victory.
This is a cool strategic layer that causes the game to evolve over time. It's not something we should emulate because everyone else does it. It's something we should emulate because our game is incredibly long (75 minutes! and that's rushing it!) and we would benefit from having more evolution of the game state as it approaches the close.
Now, Trek does have a gradual power-level "ramp up", as more and more
creatures personnel enter play, making dilemmas and missions faster and easier to clear.
But we have really
nothing that "switches on" in the endgame. You can play Jean-Luc Picard as easily on the first turn as the last turn. So don't have anything like
Apex Devastator, which can't play until the very end but will absolutely wreck you when it does.
...except Artifacts. By preventing artifact acquisition until after a mission is solved, we have an entire card type that can only exist in the mid- to late-game. I'm convinced that's why Decipher created the card type. Artifacts are where we can create some differentiation between different parts of the game, so that the endgame is not just "same as the early game, only faster." Artifacts can enable true ramp decks and true combo decks -- something we are sorely lacking in our current longstanding "solver, aggro, or midrange" meta.
I'd go as far as suggesting that we should create a few artifacts that require you to solve
two missions before they can be used, so they are truly endgame cards and can't be accessed on Turn 3 by a speedster / used to power a two-mission win.
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