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Hi all,

coming back again with some kind of maybe naiv question. I am always struggling when it comes to choose from all the artifacts, sites, curses, covenants etc.
Above all I always pick too many artifacts since I consider all of them necessary for me, like HSR, HHI, Golden Cherubim, Confusion of mind (as artifact), Chariot of Fire and sometimes more. In order to use at least 2 I also put Solomon's Temple into deck. Regarding sites and fortresses it is more easy for me to choose.
I know one should choose things which support the own concept resp. the own cards - but things like HSR are always only targetting opponents.
So besides thinking of own cards and strategy what advice can you give for the choice of artifacts (like for example HSR and Confusion of mind).

Thanks in advance for your opinions and tips!

Bye

Artifacts fall into a few categories: silver bullets, theme enhancement, jammers and supplemental. There is also the floating Keystone category.

Silver bullets are Artifacts that cover weaknesses. For example, Brown absolutely murders lone heroes but struggles against heavy banding, so a Household Idols would be a silver bullet for brown. They can be reflexive, too: Clay struggles with speed, so Four-drachma Coin would be a silver bullet there.

Theme Enhancement are cards like I Am Holy or Denarius with hand control or Holy Grail with an offense that uses converted Evil Characters. It doesn't have to be that specific, though; fast decks are well-served by You Will Remain, for example.

Jammers are cards that negatively impact a broad spectrum of opponent's cards. Cards such as HSR, CoM, RBD, Golden Cherubim and HHI fall into this category. The ones that cut both ways should probably be included only if your deck is not hurt too badly by them (lots of CBN/P characters or little reliance on character SA's and TC enhancements suggests the use of CoM, while little reliance on banding suggests HHI). This category is strongly related to keystone.

Supplemental are artifacts that typically free up slots on offense or defense by filling the role from the artifact pile. This includes cards like Covenant with Noah freeing up a negate slot on offense, Captured Ark freeing up a dom slot from DoN, Holy Grail freeing up pressure slots, and Samaritan Water Jar freeing up soulgen opportunity cost.

The Keystone artifact is the one artifact in your deck that you want to have up most of the time. Your art slot is going to waste if you don't have anything activated. The default card for this slot is HSR, but can change depending on deck makeup.

So basically, you have to bear in mind that you can only have one Artifact active at any given time (unless you're playing enough Teal to justify Solomon's Temple or enough N.T. Humans and recursion to justify Herod's Temple), and that all artifacts are dead cards when they're not active. If you have built a defense that requires two silver bullets, a theme enhancer and a jammer to function, you have to fix the defense. What I'll typically have is one jammer (usually HSR), two or three of supplemental and theme enhancements, and one silver bullet. If the same artifact can cover multiple duties (such as HHI serving as a jammer, a theme enhancer and a silver bullet all at the same time), so much the better. I have never played a successful deck that used more than 5 artifacts, and the sweet spot for optimization seems to be 3 or 4 ( if there is an artifact that can activate off-slot such as Wool Fleece or Magic Charms). The heart and soul of every deck is LS choice, Dom choice, characters and enhancements, and every other class of card should be seasoning. The total sum of cards that are not characters, enhancements, dominants and souls should be around seven, never more than ten, and rarely fewer than four. Mayhem delenda est.

Jammers are cards that negatively impact a broad spectrum of opponent's cards. Cards such as HSR, CoM, RBD, Golden Cherubim and HHI fall into this category. The ones that cut both ways should probably be included only if your deck is not hurt too badly by them (lots of CBN/P characters or little reliance on character SA's and TC enhancements suggests the use of CoM, while little reliance on banding suggests HHI). This category is strongly related to keystone.

Your art slot is going to waste if you don't have anything activated.