Magic: The Gathering's head designer Mark Rosewater has admitted that, if he could redesign the trading card game from scratch, he would merge artifacts and enchantments into a single card type. Writing in a two-part "Big-Picture Questions" column, Rosewater explained that the distinction between the two — once based on artifacts being usable by any deck and enchantments being tied to specific colours — has become increasingly blurred over the game's 33-year history, undermining a divide that matters for balance and clarity.

Rosewater noted that artifacts were originally colourless and open to all decks, while enchantments expressed the unique magical traits of Magic's five-colour "colour pie", a system central to keeping the game balanced. Over time, however, more powerful artifacts were assigned colours to limit their use, eroding that core difference and leaving the split feeling largely "creative" rather than functional. He suggested that, in an ideal rebuild, both would become subtypes of one overarching card type for noncreature permanents — floating "Relic" as a possible name — while artifact and enchantment traits would still function independently within it.