Probably just personal bias, but it seems on the surface that certain decks get targeted printings for viability and some don't. I have a small theory that, whether because of mental bias, or because of natural design bias, wizards tends to support some decks more.
I'm working on a list of cards, but I'd really like others to chime in on decks I'm not as familiar with.
Tron
Ugin, Spirit Dragon -> New Primary Win Con
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger -> New Primary Win Con
Thought Knot Seer -> New Sideboard / New Deck type
Walking Ballista -> New Primary Win Con / Flexible Removal
Gx Midrange
Assassin's Trophy -> New Removal
Fatal Push -> New Removal
Tireless Tracker -> New Value Creature
Ux Control
Search for Azcanta -> New Value Engine
Teferi -> New Value Engine / Primary Win-con
Affinity
Hardened Scales / Walking Ballista / Hangarback Walker -> New Deck Type
Experimental Frenzy -> New Primary Win-con/Value Engine
Ghirapur AetherGrid -> New Sideboard
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern UWUW ControlUW UGWSpiritsUGW GHardened ScalesG WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
While it is true that wizards prints cards with a goal in some situations, I think that you may be attributing intent to happenstance for a lot of these. You're going to get a number of midrange/ control/ aggro cards added to the cardpool per set because those are common archetypes across standard seasons and some number those cards will be printed to be powerful enough for eternal formats (ie: fatal push and assassin's trophy) and some will be standard role players that happen to fill a niche in those formats (ie: hardened scales and Kitesail Freebooter). That being said, there are examples of Wizards specifically boosting or creating modern achetypes: Thought-knot Seer and Reality Smasher are prominent examples of this going wrong as Wizards knew that these would be powerful in conjunction with Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin and designed them with those lands in mind, but were unaware of just how powerful they ended up being. Similarly any lord that is printed for an aggro creature deck and cards like Arclight Phoenix are fairly obvious in what they were designed for and often do not have the necessary support in standard.
The fact that this is explicitly "post twin" feels intentional. Look, in a limited pool of cards, even if that limit is high, the best rises to the top. WOTC can't be expected to not create strong artifacts, or creatures or removal or whatever out of fear of shaking up the modern format or any other. The reality is, modern has yet to go more than a few months with a "best deck." People wanted grixis shadow banned, then storm, then humans, then dredge, then phoenix, now tron. They didn't see bans, and things are okay. Not to mention, the irony is that these are all very different decks. KCI fell through, okay, sure. That's one out of the past seven "best decks."
You didn't even mention an example. I've said this in other threads, when you get into minutia there are dozens of different types of decks. As varied as modern is, you can't expect every type of play to have a top tier option at any given time.
I may as well half-jokingly answer that goodstuffs decks (BGx Midrange, UW/UWR Control, even UBx Control, arguably Zoo) consistently receive the most support from Wizards because they'll accept anything remotely good enough that fits their colours.
Bit of an odd question and the answer is most definitely creature based decks, but I have always found it funny that with Pod and Stoneforge banned partially for "limiting design space", basically every single new set with some amount of colorless matters has given Tron a significant boost.
Opt, Field of Ruin, Search for Azenta, Teferi, Hero of Dominion, Teferi, Time Raveler, new Narset, Dovin's Veto, Hieroglyphic Illumination, Lyra Dawnbringer, Cataclysmic Gearhulk and Jace unban
I think it is a fundamentally wrong question. We know that Wizards designs only with Standard in mind and not Modern.
In every set there will be cards fitting all archetypes (i.e. aggro, midrange, control). From this cards, it follows that at some point there will be printings powerful enough to slot into decks of that type in eternal formats.
Further, there will be cards that are "fun" designs, but that can be broken in card pools as large as modern.
I don't think it's either a personal or a design bias. It is literally how magic is designed. If anything, we know that in the last decade or so Wizards would like to have a more creature focused environment, without pushing spells completely out of the way. Even in this environment, however, we still get tools for all and any deck. Quantifying and qualifying them doesn't really show anything about design intention.
If anything, it shows that the design team can still come up with unique and powerful card designs that have play even in eternal formats and can compete with old, broken spells. That's something we should compliment the design team for and not bash them, as they often get way too much flack.
Arclight Phoenix is a card that excels due to the Modern card pool, but wasn't printed for a "specific deck." Humans.dec is rather incidental since Humans are the most common tribe - only in Innistrad were they considered a tribe. I'd say that the two modern decks that Wizards has been purposefully printing cards towards in recent years are Spirits and Zombies. Spirits is now one of the stronger decks in Modern, while Zombies still has much to be desired, but that doesn't mean WotC isn't printing new zombie cards in order to make the deck competitive.
The way to see this is to look at Zombie cards in Standard, see the lack of meaningful support for them in a given Standard environment, and then look at how many zombies are waiting to get utilized in Modern. Wizards wants them to be a thing, much like they wanted Spirits to be a thing so they kept tossing the deck new toys.
It's clear from Modern Horizons that WotC is also hoping to strengthen Blue as a color in Modern. It has long been said that Blue decks are the least prevalent in Modern, outside of UW control. Horizons has given us a plethora of new cards that force Mono-blue or Blue-dominant decks. Wizards is probably trying to make Blue in Modern what blue used to be in the early days of MtG - albeit more balanced :-D
Edit: I'll also add that though Wizards has also been printing many Modern-focused cards recently with the specific intention of combating linear decks. So though Wizards isn't printing cards to support one *specific* deck, they're clearly tossing us tons of new SB options in order to make Fair, interactive decks more viable.
It's not exactly on topic and I'm a bit bias but I kinda feel like Storm should probably be on the list of decks that can use some love. Among the "unfair" decks it seems like it's almost fair considering how much work it takes to pull off and there's disproportionate hate against it.
Control and it's not even close. Control got insane boost in the last 1-2 years, literally more good things than other archetype together.
Can't really argue with that.
Im just coming back now and I realized that I have to spent $200 to update my UW list because of the cards it got in WAR and MH1. That's like half of what I initially paid for the entire deck. Ugh...
I think it is a fundamentally wrong question. We know that Wizards designs only with Standard in mind and not Modern.
In every set there will be cards fitting all archetypes (i.e. aggro, midrange, control). From this cards, it follows that at some point there will be printings powerful enough to slot into decks of that type in eternal formats.
Further, there will be cards that are "fun" designs, but that can be broken in card pools as large as modern.
I don't think it's either a personal or a design bias. It is literally how magic is designed. If anything, we know that in the last decade or so Wizards would like to have a more creature focused environment, without pushing spells completely out of the way. Even in this environment, however, we still get tools for all and any deck. Quantifying and qualifying them doesn't really show anything about design intention.
If anything, it shows that the design team can still come up with unique and powerful card designs that have play even in eternal formats and can compete with old, broken spells. That's something we should compliment the design team for and not bash them, as they often get way too much flack.
Well Horizons actually ended this restriction and we are now in a different world.
That being said, they for sure don't design for legacy or vintage because narset, parter of veils and t3feri wouldn't have happened.
I'm working on a list of cards, but I'd really like others to chime in on decks I'm not as familiar with.
Tron
Ugin, Spirit Dragon -> New Primary Win Con
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger -> New Primary Win Con
Thought Knot Seer -> New Sideboard / New Deck type
Walking Ballista -> New Primary Win Con / Flexible Removal
Assassin's Trophy -> New Removal
Fatal Push -> New Removal
Tireless Tracker -> New Value Creature
Ux Control
Search for Azcanta -> New Value Engine
Teferi -> New Value Engine / Primary Win-con
Affinity
Hardened Scales / Walking Ballista / Hangarback Walker -> New Deck Type
Experimental Frenzy -> New Primary Win-con/Value Engine
Ghirapur AetherGrid -> New Sideboard
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
You didn't even mention an example. I've said this in other threads, when you get into minutia there are dozens of different types of decks. As varied as modern is, you can't expect every type of play to have a top tier option at any given time.
Twin call out is weird.
Spirits
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Opt, Field of Ruin, Search for Azenta, Teferi, Hero of Dominion, Teferi, Time Raveler, new Narset, Dovin's Veto, Hieroglyphic Illumination, Lyra Dawnbringer, Cataclysmic Gearhulk and Jace unban
Humans also got a boatlaod of cards after 2015:
Thalia's Lieutenant, Kitesail Freebooter, Militia Bugler, Tajic, Legion's Edge, Unclaimed Territory, Damping Sphere, Knight of Autumn, Deputy of Detention, Reflector Mage, Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
In every set there will be cards fitting all archetypes (i.e. aggro, midrange, control). From this cards, it follows that at some point there will be printings powerful enough to slot into decks of that type in eternal formats.
Further, there will be cards that are "fun" designs, but that can be broken in card pools as large as modern.
I don't think it's either a personal or a design bias. It is literally how magic is designed. If anything, we know that in the last decade or so Wizards would like to have a more creature focused environment, without pushing spells completely out of the way. Even in this environment, however, we still get tools for all and any deck. Quantifying and qualifying them doesn't really show anything about design intention.
If anything, it shows that the design team can still come up with unique and powerful card designs that have play even in eternal formats and can compete with old, broken spells. That's something we should compliment the design team for and not bash them, as they often get way too much flack.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Modern:
Mardu Pyromancer
Grixis Shadow
Traverse Shadow
Jund
Abzan
The Rock
The way to see this is to look at Zombie cards in Standard, see the lack of meaningful support for them in a given Standard environment, and then look at how many zombies are waiting to get utilized in Modern. Wizards wants them to be a thing, much like they wanted Spirits to be a thing so they kept tossing the deck new toys.
It's clear from Modern Horizons that WotC is also hoping to strengthen Blue as a color in Modern. It has long been said that Blue decks are the least prevalent in Modern, outside of UW control. Horizons has given us a plethora of new cards that force Mono-blue or Blue-dominant decks. Wizards is probably trying to make Blue in Modern what blue used to be in the early days of MtG - albeit more balanced :-D
Edit: I'll also add that though Wizards has also been printing many Modern-focused cards recently with the specific intention of combating linear decks. So though Wizards isn't printing cards to support one *specific* deck, they're clearly tossing us tons of new SB options in order to make Fair, interactive decks more viable.
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
Modern: Goblins,Storm
Legacy: Burn
EDH: Simic Merfolk
Can't really argue with that.
Im just coming back now and I realized that I have to spent $200 to update my UW list because of the cards it got in WAR and MH1. That's like half of what I initially paid for the entire deck. Ugh...
Well Horizons actually ended this restriction and we are now in a different world.
That being said, they for sure don't design for legacy or vintage because narset, parter of veils and t3feri wouldn't have happened.
Tron hate:
UW control hate
Gx midrange hate
Affinity hate:
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB