Space…the final frontier. These are the ramblings of an internet persona, its continuing mission: to explore the limits of a singular focus on a single trading card, to seek out answers to mundane questions, to boldly question where no Phelddagrif has questioned before…But not this set because there was no Phelddagrif in Magic: the Gathering Presents Star Trek.
This is the least surprising one of the year. Oh, reader, please, don’t look at me like that with those puppy dog eyes.1 Of course Phelddagrif wasn’t going to appear in Star Trek. I think the show is more about whales than hippos, and, while we could draw the connection with hippos being close genetic relatives of whales, I don’t think we’re catching any fish2 with that bait.
Maybe they did, I don’t really know. All I know about Star Trek is that it’s a 90’s sitcom about Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra…yadda yadda yadda then the walls fell.
According to a Star Trek Wiki, a hippopotamus is seen on a television in “Future’s End” (Season 3 Episode 8) of Star Trek: Voyager. I know it’s a bit of a joke that this blog doesn’t have good “UX” but this is right from the wiki. I do not think it gets any less blurry.
And the set? The online murmurings about Star Trek the set, or at least what I’ve heard, seem to be concerned with audience response being mostly tepid. Prereleases with low attendance or not firing, the prices of booster boxes being less than $1003, people not having to wait to get their secret lairs. Those content creators who make videos4 have pointed towards lower viewership metrics for their star trek related videos. If those who have more expertise, those who experience content success, are in the mires of Tanagara when talking about Star Trek, then why should I, a humble blogger about all things mostly Phelddagrif, even try?
As Captain Picard said in Star Trek: The Next Generation5:
Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense.
A Star Trek Screed: What Went Wrong!
While there were no hippos in Star Trek6, there weren’t elves in Avatar: the Last Airbender either and we still saw Rhys in the Avatar: the Last Airbender through the bonus sheet. Star Trek came with its own bonus sheet called “Stardates”7 which Questing Phelddagrif could have been reprinted on. Presumably the cards are thematically linked to the characters/scene being depicted. Zuko was a reprint of Rhys not because of Zuko’s elfish personality but because both of them were redeemed like the card says.8 Even a tenuous cosmetic connection is enough for a card to get reprinted.
While bonus sheets are a good opportunity to reprint desirable cards, and Stardates has quite a few including Starfleet HQ, Under Assault as a reprint of Phyrexian Tower, there are also duds. Bonus sheets aren’t all money reprints and sometimes come with cards like Hull Breach.9
Are the towers constantly being hit by spaceships as long as it’s on the battlefield?
While I would be ecstatic about a new Questing Phelddagrif card, the market is unlikely to reflect this enthusiasm and most players/pack openers would wish they opened a $70 Benedict Cumberbatch instead. Questing Phelddagrif could appear on a bonus sheet by virtue of its lack of value, not despite it.
No. Questing Phelddagrif is not legendary and there were only legendary creatures on the Stardates bonus sheet.
So there was never any hope of Questing Phelddagrif appearing in Star Trek. And to that, reader, with mouth agape10, I say: “Good.”
Don’t Call it Sour Grapes: Why It’s Actually Good That Phelddagrif Didn’t Appear in Star Trek
Lots of people say things on the internet. It’s happening to you right now, someone saying a thing on the internet. But I try to keep you, reader with toned calves and piercing insights, on the level when I say things on the internet.
Some of the things being said right now are about the Magic: the GatheringStar Trek set allegedly failing11 and why it is failing.12 Some of these read more like moral condemnations than justifications. Critiques of the art in the set, that it’s too many pictures of people standing or sitting down. Even though that’s what happens in the show, I could see people getting upset that the static images on their cardboard aren’t implying more motion. Not like the gold old days of Magic art which was bustling with speed lines.
Squee is just standing there! Masques had terrible art and that’s why the set sold so poorly!
Among other criticisms like the show Star Trek not having much Magic in it, or the set appearing to be low power level, or whatever other allegedly ex post facto reason why the set isn’t doing so hot.13 And, while there are plenty of words on the Internet garbed in the robes of “reason”, none of these are why the set is not doing well14. It’s because the set missed the core thing about star trek: The Transporters
Transporter technology in Star Trek “beams” crew members through vivisects a person of all their matter and recreating a copy of them on the new destination. Yes, you heard that right, vivisects. Stepping into the transporter kills you and recreates a hallow facsimile. Where Magic went wrong was in representing the transporter problem through the “Beam me up” mechanic put on sorceries15 that flashbacks a spell as long as you return a creature from the battlefield to your hand. The creature that is returned to your hand is still the same creature that has been “beamed”.16
But “beaming” your creature doesn’t destroy it, and it isn’t a faithfully scientific or philosophically sound way of representing the technology through a trading card game. Magic has rules and mechanics that could correctly portray the transporter working, by sacrificing the creature and creating a copy token17. Or do the whole alchemy thing where you “summon” a copy of that creature to your hand after destroying it.
I mean, what are the fans of the franchise and Magic: the Gathering to believe? That the creature hasn’t been killed and xeroxed, but instead has been magicallysaved to be redeployed later from your hand/spaceship?
Ok, there’s a joke18. See you next year for Nauctis!
Reader, would you prefer these essays to be video essays (from the French verb for “video attempt”)? ↩︎
This is kind of a silly name for a show, isn’t it? ↩︎
I wrote this before finding out about the comics and then that one blurry screenshot. So lets just pretend hippos went extinct in Star Trek for now. ↩︎
Although this is uncertain if this is true, this is just vibes off reddit and bluesky, which is not a great way of doing research or for making claims but it’s good enough for other publications. ↩︎
Once again, a dubious claim which will be proven wrong when MaRo makes a post about Star Trek being the highest selling set of November 2026. ↩︎
Which, again, no clue if this set is actually a failure or not. ↩︎
“Beam me Up” having timing restrictions is simultaneously flavorful as there’s tension created by whether they’ll be transported in time, and unflavorful since yeah the transporter pretty much always saves the main crew in the nick of time like an instant would. ↩︎
I’m sure there’s a correct Star Trek verb for using the transporter. Shout off in the comments if you know what it is and the pornbots that spam this site will have someone new to talk to! ↩︎
My god, they even made a copy token in the Star Trek set. ↩︎
On Halloween night of 1992, BBC broadcasted Ghostwatch, a documentary style television special featuring actors such as Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene and comedian Craig Charles playing themselves in a live paranormal investigation of a house in the fictional neighborhood of Foxhill Drive. While keeping the genre trappings of a news special, the hosts call on experts in the paranormal to explain the entity, “Pipes or “Mr. Pipes”, haunting the Early family. As the special progresses, things get a bit spooky before becoming very spooky at the end of the hour and a half runtime. The special started with a disclaimer at the beginning of the program stating that the program was fictional, which was easily missed before watching, leading to some believing that they were watching a factual news program about ghosts being real and they were very angry at you in particular. That was the risk you took when you ran to the bathroom while watching television in the 90s.
Nearly four years later, Magic: the Gathering would release the Alliances expansion, introducing the world to Phelddagrif.
Ghosts are not real, trusting reader. It’s a harmless belief, so I won’t try to dissuade anyone of their delusions. For those of you reading that do believe in ghosts I promise that there will be no ghosts in this piece. No entities possessing you, no past sins rising from the graves, no hungry ghouls seeking vengeance on the living, and no spirits of the past haunting us in this piece. This is just a fun read for halloween, must like Ghostwatch is a fun Halloween watch.
While the ghosts in it are fun, Ghostwatch’s is a movie about hoaxes: the documentary brings on panelists from both sides of the “ideological debate” about whether ghosts exist to argue the veracity behind the paranormal. There’s lies within the plot, characters lying to each other, prank calls being pulled. Outside the movie, there’s a meta-experience of the “hoax” of Ghostwatch itself. Because of the viewers who missed the disclaimer at the beginning there were viewers who, maybe did not believe that ghosts were real but for 50 seconds thought ghosts were really real and began to freak out, leading to 30,000 calls from distressed viewers. But that’s part of the appeal of horror movies, isn’t it? Watching them and knowing that ghosts and ghouls aren’t real it’s easy to slip into some fantasy of thinking that we really see Mr. Pipes in the background.
While I appreciate the ambiguity from this Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds level gaff, others didn’t. Ghostwatch led to scrutiny and media attention around the network as a whole. This type of press would get people to talk and lead to a movie’s success 7 years later with another documentary style movie, but Ghostwatch’s association with the BBC, an actual news channel, caused conflict for the creators and a rift of growing distrust between the network and its viewers. (allegedly) Due to this controversy it was never re-aired, and, until 2017 when it became widely available through the Internet Archive, it was difficult to find a copy to watch and it was hardly mentioned and, perhaps to the BBC, hopefully forgotten.
Phelddagrif has roots in the earliest parts of Magic: an association with the playtesters, an inside joke both about the release cadence of Magic cards, that they would run out of ideas and be left with making truly ridiculous things like a purple hippo with wings, while also poking fun at the naming conventions of Magic cards after people in hidden anagrams, and the then Marketing Department at Wizards of the Coast wanting to impress by mentioning that the game’s creator has a PhD.
It feels like this past of Magic is a bit embarrassing for current magic now. The set release cadence of 1996 looks quant compared to 2026, to the point that there’s either a sense of hostility or resigned ambivalence for the amount of Magic product currently released, making it difficult to make a self-effacing joke about that on a card. While vanity references aren’t completely removed from the game, this habit has also diminished and are slightly less obtuse than an anagram. Magic’s creatures, outside of Universes Beyond, are now less outlandish than those of yore: look not for your fungusaurs, your brushwaggs, your phelddagrifs…
Perhaps Stephen Volk, the writer and creative mind behind Ghostwatch, did not intend to perpetrate a hoax, did not want to scare people into believing that our pasts are ready to lunge out of the past and scratch our faces; or that the mass of human psychology can summon entities from metaphysical realms and conjure our great fears and manifest what society deems an atrocity; in short, did not want to convince the British public that ghosts are real. And, if he did, I’m sure he didn’t intend to get so many people with his prank. (which, again, I don’t think it is) I don’t read a lot of literature around movies I watch, even year after year, but the mythos around Ghostwatch helps aid in its watching. The ire around the movie, the anger over being confused, those who did take it seriously, and the youths who got freaked out to the point of PTSD. But there is another thing that contributes to rewatches. “Mr. Pipes”2 is a shadowy figure acting behind the scenes of the movie/documentary. While it wouldn’t be fun if the ghost was always hanging around in plain view, there are scenes where you can see him. It’s rather spooky. It’s rumored that he appears in the movie 13 times during the movie’s 90 minute runtime, enough to tantalize the viewer without giving away too much.
Well reader, you sharp wit! You caught me in my own hoax! Brushwaggs have returnedthreetimes! Fungusaur, now erratad to be a fungus dinosaur type, got a similarly typed creature in Jumpstart 2. I also swear this thing was a fungus dinosaur, but I guess not?
Weird that there weren’t any Fugusarus in Ixalan 2
As Magic keeps returning to the past, as it keeps introducing weirder looking creatures, it feels like Phelddagrif is off in the periphery, that I’m catching glimpses of it out of the corner of my eye (metaphorically). The public can only handle so many brushwaggs, so many new homarids and oozes, before they get tired and want some new-old stuff. Is that Phelddagrif, hiding around the couch of Nauctis? Rattling the cupboards of Kamigawa: Titan Breach? Maybe, Phelddagrif is sneaking around the abandoned shed out back, or tapping at the windows with its long, protruding hippo nails. Let me in Phelddagrif is whispering to Wizards of the Coast’s design team. Let me in the next set, hot hippo breath on their cheeks Let me in…
Maybe there aren’t 13 appearances of Mr. Pipes. Perhaps it’s all a pig numbering prank and I’m the teacher looking for missing Pig #3. Maybe I’m a fool looking for more Phelddagrif, for looking under rocks and expecting more than dirt and bugs. Maybe I’m a sucker getting my hopes up watching Ghostwatch year after year. If that’s the case then I’m too far gone. It’s too late for me, I’ve been captured. I’m down for the count. I’m drawn into the alluring gravity of the promise of the past, or looking back to what you’ve already watched, what you know happens, and hoping something different occurs. It’s what brings me back to Magic set after set. Returning with the hope of seeing something old become new. The anticipation of seeing the ground shift, a monster uncovered, rising and chasing us through the grass.
Remember to have a better diet than Ebenezer Scrooge this halloween, or else you’ll get scared! ↩︎
Named for the mother’s rationalization of her children hearing a ghost as saying “It’s just the pipes.”, maybe the best part of the movie for me. ↩︎
Briefly touched on this in this blog post. Gee, I just keep saying the same stuff over and over again. It’s like I’m in some sort of time loop horror movie like Groundhog Day. ↩︎
We used to build things by hand, reader with strong hands and a furrowed brow.1
We still do, but things like decklists would exist right there! There, in front of you on paper as a vertical list of card names as we could best remember. I remember writing a few decklist this way, but I’m not so old that I did often. It was done manually, but typed with my soft fingers2 as a .txt file or in a forum post, usually without bothering hyperlinking to the cards because that would take forever.3 If you go to archived versions of The Dojo you can see some decklists written this way.
Example from TheDojo, I can’t really parse why each section of cards is grouped the way it is, and the 9/9 split for swamps and mountains is quant looking at manabases in current standard
This is ancient Magic, today we have more sophisticated technology than writing out what we think the card’s name is in the back of our algebra notebook, sometimes forgetting if it’s Zuron or Zuran orb. Advanced technology like Moxfield, the deckbuilding website that I’ve used the most since I’ve returned to playing Magic with the new-fangled commander format. Easy enough to count to 100 when the website is doing it for you, showing you how many of each card type you have, and even things like mana symbol breakdown to help you tune your mana base.4 Though commander has been around longer than Moxfield (which became widely available in 2019) or similar deck building websites like Archidekt in 2018, I can’t help but believe these tools helped people create more tuned commander lists. Could Commander have been a more casual format partially because of the lack of technology around deckbuilding? It may be easier to just put all the ramp cards I have: Nature’s Lore, Rampant Growth, Kodama’s Reach, Three Visits, Cultivate, and a Harrow, into one deck instead of thinking about which ones fit best with my curve. How many one mana cantrips can I play in blue before I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel with cards like Portent?5
These deck building websites helped sort decklists, take known templates for building commanders and help visualize your mana curve to help optimize your deck. With added features like showing sample hands, tracking percentage of colors across cards, and being able to goldfish the deck on the website itself, these websites helped deck builders visualize and playtest their creations before they needed to buy any new cards.6
The Numbers
Oh, who knows, reader who has a lot of answers but I won’t press you for any. How could I possibly plumb the history of how people built these commander decks, and what would that even entail? We can never return to the past.7 We’re the future people and as future people we’re interested in future things: data!
Yes, these websites bring troves of data on the deckbuilding habits of Magic players. EDHrec, gathers data through these websites to generate statistics about different cards, ranking how popular commanders are based on how many decks have been created with that commander. On EDHrec, popularity, or inclusion in certain decks, is the measure of success. Taking a look at a totally random commander, like Phelddagrif, we can see its current rank as of writing as #7848 , with a little over 3.6k decks built with it as a commander. We get stats for new cards, top cards, cards with “high lift”, whatever that means.9
Captured for posterity, so we can remember when Phelddagrif was <1000 in EDHrec ranking
Those tools are old, though, around 6-7 years old! We’re future people, remember? Keep up with the future! What’s new is CommanderTemplate.com. The website is a tool to help players build better commander decks by visualizing templates, making it easier to search and add cards, creating functional manabases, even generating the entire deck for you. She has made videos on these features as well, providing in-depth reasoning for how to build commander decks and why.
This project is really exciting: aiming to help players create consistent decks that function while letting players “do the thing”. While CommanderTemplate helps to streamline decks, it doesn’t force deckbuilders to optimize them. Not every Blind Seer deck starts with Rhystic Study and Force of Will.10
Granted, deck numbers are not really high across the board on the website, with Y’Shtola having 108 publicly available decks, and the next highest being Teval at 57, it’s not representative of how many players are playing these commanders. Y’Shtola recently becoming the #1 commander according to EDHrec with over 57,000 decks, while Teval is ninth with over 40,000 decks.
This, compared to Phelddagrif, who is the 784th most popular commander with over 3,600 decks recorded on EDHrec. Now, not everyone can be the most popular, and some commanders are going to be built more than others, and I’m glad that some people are still building Phelddagrif decks, there is something to be said13 about there being no cards that were originally printed in old border breaking the top 100 of most popular commanders. The most popular commander that was originally printed in old border is Urza, Chief Artificer, which feels a bit like a cheat.
Popularity is, obviously, reflected through recently made decks and updates.Checking Moxfield, Phelddagrif has 12 decks that have recently updated in the past day, Y’Shtola’s decks have been updated within the last three hours.14
So, bummer ending, reader! Sorry to have everything end like this, but it looks like Phelddagrif is slowly spaghettified into the black-hole of obscurity. Watch it dwindle down the drain as it gets replaced by anime cat girls and Doctor Doom. The Phelddagrif Project is over, it is no more. Break out the fiddles, because we are watching Rome burn around us.15
Water for the Roman Houses
One can’t help but think that when Dylan Thomas wrote “Do not go gentle into that good night he was anticipating the dwindling popularity of Phelddagrif from Magic: the Gathering’s Alliances expansion in the Commander format in 2026. Some poets are prophets, and some get nothing right but they have a couple good lines and we say that’s enough.
No, reader, we will not go gentle into the good night of Phelddagrif’s obscurity. The tools to fight back have always been in our hands and within our minds. We can stop Phelddagrif from being the 781st most popular commander and, with enough decklist uploads, we can maybe break the 760s.
Throw that pen away, reader. That waxing nostalgic at the beginning of this piece about writing down decklists and visiting those old forums was nonsense. A commander deck does not need community consensus to build, even though it’s really cool when people do. Commander is about personal liberty, an individualistic expression of self. Metrics based around winning are less important than having a large quantity of decklist available for the masses to gawk at and copy.
For this project, we will utilize that most advanced of deckbuilder tools: Commandertemplate’s autofill tool. With this, the Pheldd-army will build such a plurality of different Phelddagrif decks that will overwhelm the commander community with a bounty of different and competing Phelddagrif strategies. An angel typal Phelddagrif deck with a stax subtheme? Easy, press the button and it’s done. What about Phelddagrif odd-mana-value-matters with a stax subtheme? The deckbuilder can do that too. It’ll supply the manabase, the cards, the whole decklist. Just make a name and a brief description and you’ve done your part! Maybe even write a primer too, if you’re feeling saucy.
Reader, I can see your eyes bugging out of your perfectly normal looking eye sockets16 as you read the above. You may be thinking “This is an assault on human dignity!” or “I’ve never read such poppy cock self-published in such an esteemed publication before!” or “Does this not cheapen Phelddagrif into something less than the turd rolled over by the dog that shat it?” I can’t answer any of those that were questions, and the rest could be true, or, if not true, then it might be the case. Maybe, by engaging in such a project as to generate a bunch of nonsense Magic: the Gathering decks would have one lose their dignity, honor, their sense of self, and any hope they might have for the future.
Even with all that lost, think of the metrics that could be gained.
Animating Alternatives
Come now, reader whose furrowed brow is perfectly justified now. I wouldn’t want you to sink into the mire of content creation, the impulse to create merely to see a number go up, to gather metrics, to meet a deadline or goal with no intention or reason behind it, for there to be no point beyond capturing attention. No, do not go gently into that good night of creating decklists in the age of mechanical reproduction.17
Besides, even if all 6 people reading this made a decklist every day for a year, that would be something that would never happen even automatically generating the lists because that’s a lot of work and I’m already tapping out thinking of it. We would need a galvanizing force, something that makes people want to build Phelddagrif again. It’s obvious what it is, just looking at some of the top commanders:
Phelddagrif needs to become an anime. Yes, the Japan Showcase treatment on cards like Ms. Bumbleflower and Firelord Azula has players frothing at the mouth ready to make more and more decks. If there was a Phelddagrif with an Anime Japan Showcase treatment it would stand to reason that it would shoot up in popularity and maybe break top 750.
Or do whatever is going on in this Kaalia (currently #8) art, it seems to be working for her.
What is on your mind, reader? Are you ok? You don’t need to bring such acrimony into this article already, there will be time for that soon enough! ↩︎
Reader, please don’t take this idle mind meandering as anything resembling research. I don’t know what Commander was like 10 years ago, other than Phelddagrif was maybe slightly more popular then. And the casual/tuned drive of commander deck building is not ↩︎
Although I doubt this stopped many people from buying cards before testing their deck ↩︎
As Harold Clitus once said “Don’t you go stepping into that river again, y’hear?” ↩︎
Phelddagrif dropped 6 ranks while I was editing this piece, I had “#778” written here before I decided to grab a screenshot of the edhrec page for Phelddagrif. ↩︎
I won’t rehash criticisms about EDHrec, because there’s nothing new to say, although I think it is valid that it encourages building a certain way and making commanders become a bit one-note. The most popular decklists get copied, which reinforces what is put in a particular commander’s deck, which gives it a higher score on the commander’s EDHrec page, which people keep using to build their decks. I’ve already complained about Questing Phelddagrif being included in most Phelddagrif decks as it usually doesn’t add anything mechanically to the deck, but it gets included anyways and has a “top card” status on Phelddagrif’s EDHrec page. ↩︎
No one can stop you from including these in your Blind Seer deck ↩︎
Of note, this looks very similar to the Phelddagrif control list that has been developed for over a decade on mtgsalvation and mtgnexus, more information on that here. ↩︎
Reader, you may have noticed I haven’t updated this blog in a while. There has been a dearth of Phelddagrif related media in your life, all our lives, recently. For that I apologize-nay-I greatly apologize! My apologies are massive, and I extend their extra mass to you, reader. I extend them in the form of an explanation which is as follows:
You see, I’ve been consorting with that enemy of the habit of writing: thinking. Yes, secretly, behind my word processor’s back, when the cursor blinks sleepily deep in the night, I slip out of the bedroom and into the fresh air of the metaphysical laboratory, where ideas run rampant with nary a pen in sight. The chief idea I’ve been toying with is the most seductive of them, the idea of writing it down later. This idea introduced me to so many others, each more attractive than the last. These ideas were fantastic: thrilling Phelddagrif thought-pieces that were going to shake up Magic story telling; deck lists that would destroy the metas in eternal formats, warping all games around Phelddagrif and the proliferation of hippo tokens on your enemies boards; bold new designs uncovered through long forgotten histories of secret cards. Yes, it really felt like this would all usher in a new age of Magic: the Gathering, one that is based around Phelddagrif. Unfortunately, I can’t remember any of these ideas.1
Save for one.
I promise that idea isn’t the idea of silly one line paragraphs, I’ll try to practice some restraint, reader who has infinite patience with me, as I continue this explanation demonstrating my humility at disappointing you for the lack of new Phelddagrif reading material. The idea is definitely not one line paragraphs or explanations on top of explanations. It’s the idea of what “Phelddagrif” content should be.
To be less, uhh, whatever I am, and a bit more frank I’d say I’ve been in a a rut. I’m a bit disappointed in myself with the lack of variety of types of writing and other creative media that I’ve presented to those readers. Some of the pieces I’ve most enjoyed writing try to answer a question: What is up with Seedtime’s Flavor Text? How long can you sustain online conversation about a single commander? How much can one say about Phelddagrif on their birthday? What does it mean to build a deck around Phelddagrif, or even mean to build a deck? 2
But the majority of articles have been about Phelddagrif not appearing in whatever set Wizards has released. Less rigorous, less “research” (although I’m not sure I’m using this word right since there isn’t much research going on here to begin with), and lower stakes with too many ideas why bother writing them down.3
My writerly intuition has me believing these articles have taken over.4 Even with the abnormal amount of sets released this year5, the pace of set releases doesn’t look like it will slow down next year. It feels like there’s an imbalance on this set, leaning towards the fabulous, as opposed to the hard hitting Pheldda-grif based journalism that this site and its writer sought to write about. The set reviews begin to feel like grist for the content mill. And, while these posts are fun and I’ve been having fun writing them, wow they are not any less difficult.6
How am I to solve this issue? When inundated with so many sets that one must review, specifically reviewing the lack of Phelddagrif?
The obvious answer is that I need to write more. But what type of writing will this include? What is “Pheldda-form” content?7
To answer this question, we need to think about what Phelddagrif is: A card from 1996 printed in the Magic: the Gathering expansion of Alliances, a tri-color legend that was part of a cycle, originally going to be the name of the Nature goddess that plays a pivotal story role. It’s also one of the first non-elder dragon cards allowed to be your commander, a weird mishmash of activated abilities on a creature in, perhaps, a boring color combination for Magic’s premier format.
But Phelddagrif is also defined by what it is not as well. It isn’t a card that broke formats open. And, while an oddity in early EDH/Commander, it does not draw cards when it enters or cheats mana or is some other engine. It isn’t relevant to current Magic story, despite the omenpaths opening and hippos playing a pivotal role in a major set last year. We even got a new version of a tri-color legend from Alliances, just not Phelddagrif. And, because of its status on the reserved list, Phelddagrif will never be printed again.
It would be correct to assume that Pheldda-form content would be media with Phelddagrif as it’s central concern. But, perhaps, it could also be something different. Perhaps the center of things is not always at the center, but the center is at the periphery. Such creative geometry is demonstrated in the image below.
The Phelddagrif head (on the far right) is meant to represent the center, but it is clearly on the periphery of the oval. I think this is what maps do?
Perhaps, it may mean approaching the truth slant-wise to find success in this circus, covering topics where Phelddagrif isn’t the chewy nougat core, but the disgusting caramel vein on top of the candy bar. While there would still be ambitious projects like tracking the history of Phelddagrif on the competitive scene, there may be stuff that isn’t so immediately related to Phelddagrif, like thinking about what’s up with the Magic communities obsession with Utilitarianism, or eating magic cards. This could also mean smaller projects with less words, like tracking down other test cards that mention Phelddagrif. Other projects, like updating the %-agrif set scores, which I have been doing and updating on Bluesky, which may get a review at the end of the year.
There’s whole new vistas of content to explore out there. It may not be as “rigorous” or “thought-provoking”. But reading them will be something to do.
Isn’t that what content is, after all: Something to do?
No links here, these are still on my defunct substack. Geeze, seems odd to say I’m not writing anything when I probably could have just recycled those, huh? ↩︎
Like saying that The Hobbit demonstrated that Phelddagrif can be reprinted now because Wizards is outright encouraging either Plagiarism,Elder Abuse or both through their headliner cards like The One Ring. But that’s a bit too mean for such a light hearted blog) ↩︎
I guess I could just check to see how many I’ve written compared to other types of posts here, but Math is for not me. ↩︎
On August 7, 2026, Magic: the Gathering presents The Hobbit prereleased at stores across the globe, one week after the full visual spoiler was released by Wizards, and then subsequently uploaded to scryfall so that people can actually view, read, and search the cards. A full seven days, or 168 hours, for the cards to be legible, easily sorted and ready for my intense scrutiny.
Normally, this is where I would mention all the time and effort I spent going through the cards for this set looking desperate for the tracks of Phelddagrif to you, loving and kind reader who has been working so hard and really deserves a vacation. Normally I’d describe the salty sweat on my brow trickling down my cheeks, mixing with my tears, as they slowly drip to my keyboard as I type query after query of variations of “Phelddagrif“, “Questing Phelddagrif“, “Garfield, Ph.D” and, in desperate moments, “Garfield”.
The longer I look at this the more weird details I see in this card. Why is Odie doing a finger gun? Why does the ability say “Best Buds” deals the damage?
I may even include a little detail in setting up a scene, describing the evening sun beams slowly fading, capturing dust motes in their twilight dance. A cup of coffee sits on my desk, prepared earlier in the day to give one energy for an onerous task sits in cold solitude, the cream separated from the mud. This instills a sense of hopelessness, preparing you, careful reader who makes sure not to step on any cracks in the sidewalk, for the disappointment that is to come. I would include some dialogue too, because I think it’s funny when writers attempting to portray “real” events do that to heighten the drama of the scene: “No, it can’t be. It’s not…” I whisper while shaking my head.
Then, and only then, I finally reveal that, despite my hours of looking at every card in The Hobbit, Phelddagrif has eluded us once again and is not in the set.
Normally I would write all of that because it’s a big deal that Phelddagrif hasn’t shown up in another Magic set.1 But I won’t this time, reader, whose time I respect, so I’ll keep this thing moving.
I quickly scrolled through the image gallery, didn’t see Phelddagrif, and moved on.
What Went Wrong!?
Nothing, this was all according to plan. To Wizards’ plan, at least. This is because The Hobbit is a content set. And that has nothing to do with the set delivering a feeling of satisfaction, despite the name. In fact, it is quite the opposite. A content set is one that is meant to create content. The cards and design of The Hobbit generate intense feelings quickly and in rapid succession without leaving room for any sense of resolution. From the set’s initial previews immediately revealing plagiarism on the headliner boxtopper card, to the rise in cost of Collector Boosters, The Ambassador Program leaking cards early, the “reaction” to the ambassador program and content creators, the $25,000 Smaug card and “bounties” being placed…None of these are about the cards, the theme, the story and setting of the hobbit. Nothing about the limited environment, the excitement of how certain cards will play, how they may alter or change formats.
It’s hard to avoid the “content” of The Hobbit, and difficult to take the time to see the artistry in designing and creating a Magic set. It feels difficult, especially when you’re in a tiny Phelddagrif-shaped bubble.2 It feels that this is a set meant to generate a constant stream of reactions, one where you imagine yourself in these scenarios and form opinions on imaginary scenarios of wealth and notoriety. It’s a set that generates questions: What if you opened a Plagiarism One Ring? What if you opened that Smaug? Booster packs become not a way to transport oneself to the ludonarrative depicted on the cards, but throw us through a portal to a counterfactual universe, the same spells cast on us when we buy lottery tickets.
This is no climate for Phelddagrif to thrive. A set that agitates, rattling our brains like a gerbil in a cage, is no place for Phelddagrif. Phelddagrif needs a calmer climate, like a jungle, or maybe a patch of green grass that’s glows at night.
That grass is awfully bright for a night scene, perhaps Phelddagrif has some bioluminescent properties?
Or even the controlled chaos of the plane of Bablovia, the steampunk un-plane where Phelddagrif was last seen (on the card Hydradoodle). And, while this plane was full of in-jokes and was science/steampunk themed, I think it could have still fit on the classic fantasy setting of The Hobbit. I’m sure Tolkien put some jokes in there.
Anyways, that’s why there was no Phelddagrif in The Hobbit! Onto the next set!
Mystery Booster Commander: Sic Semper Homaridae
On August 2nd, 2026, the Dearest Magic players (and not you) were invited to join a special event held by designer Gavin Verhey. This group of Dearest Magic Players3 went on to draft the newly announced convention product: Mystery Booster Commander Edition. This product, like other Mystery Booster products, has a staggering cardpool of thousands of cards with some sought after reprints and special editions of cards in a future sight border.
On August 3rd, the full card image gallery for Mystery Booster Commander Edition was uploaded, 60 new legendary commanders included in this set, none of them were Phelddagrif.
Mystery Booster Commander is filled with nostalgic callbacks to characters in Magic that had not received cards before, like Nivea, Zagorka, and Worzel, as well as updates to previous legends such as Joven and Chandler, Selenia, and Greensleeves. Even the Lord of Tresserhorn (who is part of the original tri-color rare cycle from Alliances, read my Phelddagrif 30th birthday article to learn more!) got a new card so that you can play it at the table and hang with the rest of contemporary commanders.4
I’ll save you clicking the footnote, they made it a card draw engine
With Joven and Chandler being spoiled, I thought that there might be a good chance that Phelddagrif would appear in this set. Joven and Chandler’s art already pillages from Amy Weber’s past work, putting both Joven’s Ferrets and Ebony Rhino on the card. I’m not sure the status of the rights for the art of these cards, but if Wizards was willing to push the boundary here, they might print a new Phelddagrif without the original artist having a say. Worzel makes Scryb Sprites tokens, another card with only Amy Weber art.5
But we got Feroz as the Bant legendary instead. Great for Feroz for finally getting a card. It looks terrible just like Feroz’s Ban. And I’m happy Phelddagrif did not show up.
What Went Right?!
You read correctly, keen-eyed and well-coiffed reader! I’m happy Phelddagrif did not appear in Mystery Booster Commander. Mystery Booster Commander sets a dismal precedent for creature types going forward.
Rikala, while a Homarid, is typed as a “Lobster Noble”, officially retiring the Homarid type. Presumably, this was done ahead of next year’s underwater set Nauctuswhile bringing Homarid’s in line with the current templating for creature-folk typing conventions (Cephalids and Viashino becoming octopus and lizards were the last victims of this new templating). It wasn’t to help out the homarid/lobster typal decks, as this new change to type only added two new creatures to the “homarid” family: Ragost, who is well outside Homarid colors in red and white; and Rock Lobster which is silver bordered, but basically a vanilla creature and I doubt would warrant being brought up in a rule 0 conversation.
Prior to this change, there were no cards before that cared about the Homarid typing, not even the new Homarid King. The only card that cares about the lobster v. homarid typing is Homer the Hermit, also a new card from the Commander Mystery Booster, which adds a new “batch” of creature types (Crabs, Lobsters, Nautiluses, Starfish, and Trilobites). Ironically, the only card that cares about homarids is Old Fogey: Another silver-bordered card.
Maybe there’s no use crying over spilled milk, the type change is going to happen and Homarid’s will be dead in all but name.6 But I do think something is lost with this change. Come, reader, and follow the following flight of fancy. You’ve already read so far:
Imagine a player looking at a homarid card, a newer one like Deepmuck Desperado or Homarid Explorer, and see that creature type is “Homarid”. While this may create some friction in the player’s mind-they thought it was a lobster but it doesn’t say “lobster” anywhere on the card- they thought one think but it was actually something else, it might also intrigue that player to learn more about Homarids. Maybe these cards resonate with the player, and they begin to collect them, and look at cards like Shore Up and wonder if there are more homarids out there for their collection.
And say this player is going through the bulk at a store or looking through trade binder, and finds the card Homarid Spawning Bed, or even Homarid itself? They learn this isn’t a new creature type, that this is something that has history behind it. The vista of possibility opens up for this player, there’s an ocean full of Homarids for this player to explore. Wouldn’t this be exciting for this player? Wouldn’t this be a bit more exciting than, if the type is changed to lobster, and seeing the old cards as unplayable, since they will still read not only “Homarid” but “Summon Homarid”? Without that clear hook to the typeline, will players bother looking for that Homarid history? Will they blow over it without caring?
Sure, this is a made up scenario, but Magic is a growing game, with new players joining every set release, and most of these players aren’t enfranchised and have access or know how to use tools like Scryfall, so I don’t think this is entirely unrealistic. I recognize that this is hard to measure, so it’s unlikely that the “thrill of discovery” would matter. And I suppose we’ll still see the word “homarid”, maybe in the name of the card instead of the type-line (although this isn’t a guarantee with none of the Capenna Cephalids having “cephalid” in their name). The only benefit I can see is that this typeline change makes the game easier for universes beyond. Other properties have lobsters, but only Magic had Homarids.
That was a fine screed, but what does this have to do with Phelddagrif?
Oh, yeah. If they’re fixing to get rid of unique Magic types even when there’s zero typal support already present in the game, it seems very likely that “Phelddagrif” would be changed to support Magic’s vast bestiary of hippo cards.
I’m fine with waiting on Phelddagrif for a little longer. I can hold off until Reality Fracture.
Of my own making, to be fair. I could care about other formats or other parts of Magic beyond how Phelddagrif could fit into anything, but I’m not looking to expand how I think about Magic. ↩︎
It’s my birthday so I’m going to complain.1 Here are some things that royally and really peeve me off!
Questing for a place for Questing Phelddagrif
I like to go through and see other people’s Phelddagrif decks. Everyone knows this about me. My Moxfield comments are one of the many reasons why I’m so famous and loved. It gives me ideas and keeps me updated with the happenings of Phelddagrif deck building technology. On the whole, I’d say there’s some pretty neat Phelddagrif decks out there! But there’s something of a strange include that too common in these decks: Questing Phelddagrif.
Questing Phelddagrif by Dmitry Burmak. What that tongue do?
Rarely–oh who am I kidding–never do I see this card doing anything other than being a 4/4 with some weird abilities. It does, basically, the same thing as Phelddagrif. You can use Questing Phelddagrif the same way as one uses Phelddagrif: a tool for currying favor with opponents by giving hippos, life, and card draw. But why include Questing Phelddagrif at all? Any Commander deck builder can safely assume they will nearly always have access to Phelddagrif since it’s the 8th card in hand as commander, and can save itself with its bounce ability to avoid paying too much in commander tax. And, other than the green ability, it’s not like Questing Phelddagrif’s abilities are that outstanding. Protection from red and black is such a millennial ability.
I’ll warrant that the dials on the abilities have been lightly tweaked. It’s easier to give your opponents cards with Questing Phelddagrif, since you don’t have to hold priority and activate Phelddagrif a set number of times before it returns to your hand. And +1/+1 for a green is a better mana sink than giving trample over and over again. But I somehow doubt these players are playing Phelddagrif as an overcosted shade. And who wants to make giving your opponents cards easy? Your opponents are the worst! I don’t want to make it seem like giving them cards only costs a single blue mana. I want them to be grateful for the hoops that those jerks are making me jump through so they can have 2 cards, maybe!, to hopefully draw an answer to whatever threatens the table.
Grievance Correction Protocol: Take Questing Phelddagrif out of your Phelddagrif decks and put in something good. Like a nice Mana Tithe.
It might be that these abilities are actually better than original Phelddagrif, and if original Phelddagrif had these abilities the card might be a little more exciting, maybe sacrificing some of the stickiness of the commander for raw power…
Get real. We all know the real reason that these decks aren’t using Questing Phelddagrif for its “political power” at the table, or its unique abilities. It’s put in there because the card has Phelddagrif on it! Same card has same energy and redundancy is good, right?2
Wrong! This error in the players judgment confuses cosmetic appearance with deep game-skill and player knowledge. Which brings me to another grievance:
Name-Calling
Sometimes people will get Phelddagrif’s name wrong. They’ll say “Hippogriff, Gryphon, Faildagrif, Pheloldogrif and many other ones. I don’t care if someone gets my name wrong, but don’t get Phelddagrif’s name wrong!
Grievance Correction Protocol: Just read the card correctly please!
Type-Calling
The real grievance that this is, which was prompted by the grievance not listed before this one but one prior to that, being the first one in the list, is thus: People put hippos in their Phelddagrif decks.
Because the bull hippo thing isn’t too common. No, the greater misstep is the amount of Phelddagrif decks that play Keruga as a companion. Why? Is Phelddagrif so powerful, so awe-inspiring that we have to play a card in Commander’s fictional sideboard that slows the deck down and promises your opponents you’ll do nothing good anytime soon, if ever? All for the sake of having another hippo, not in, but around the deck? Even when Phelddagrif is specifically not a hippo!?
This won’t matter to those mad players whose minds are too far gone. To them, Phelddagrif looks like a hippo (with wings and purple skin), and Keruga looks like a hippo (with dinosaur features and…tusks? Honestly looks a little closer to a walrus in some ways). This is a madness that looks at the sky and thinks it is made of the same stuff as the ocean because they’re both blue. They need to do like that dad from the memes says and think. It’s not enough to merely use your eyes, use your brain too! Just because something looks one way doesn’t mean that’s the way it is! You wouldn’t piss on Piss Christ because you thought it was a toilet!
Notorious art pisser Keruga, the Macrosage Illustrated by Dan Murayama Scott
But there is no small chamber in my heart that is not filled with a gloaming fear that…perhaps…Keruga deck builders might. So I say the following with all the sincerity one can muster in such a format as this one is:3
People who build Phelddagrif decks with a Keruga companion restriction should not be allowed in museums because they might piss on the exhibits.
Grievance Correction Protocol: Do not let people who build Phelddagrif decks with a Keruga companion restriction into museums because they might piss on the exhibits.
May-day
Enough of ragging on deck designers, they don’t have a clue! That’s what they don’t got! Most of them, I assume, are copying each other’s decks as well as whatever EDHrec says. Let’s turn our glowing eyes of rage towards those who deserve all this ire: the East Coast Playtesters who designed Phelddagrif.
Any other method of reasoning (Deductive, inductive, Australian, etc.) would lead one to believe that I would think this group of designers unimpeachable. They are, as the story goes, the ones who brought Phelddagrif forth from the realm of weirdly specific inside joke to an actual card. By all means, their honor should be impeccable and their grand designs mysterious and unapproachable.
Wrong! No one is safe on my birthday!
Although the East Coast Playtesters did a good job in designing a weird card that is simultaneously straightforward (buffing both itself and your opponent’s game state) and baffling in what it does (buffing both itself and your opponent’s game state), a card that has seen competitive 60 card format play, while maintaining an enduring legacy in Commander (even if that legacy is sunsetting because of a bunny rabbit raised by pirates4). Yet, the designers included one word, an intentional imperfection that mars the card like a dog turd scrapped into the fabric of a rug:
I would have used brown to underline “May” but it was kind of hard to read and I kept getting sick looking at it and thinking about the dog turd metaphor from the paragraph before
May. Really? At the end, you have to add “may” to the blue ability? Never have I activated this ability and others have declined to draw a card, even when it gives me advantage. Players can’t help themselves, they’re hopeless when it comes to picking up plastic-covered-cardboard from a pile of plastic-covered-cardboard. It’s our fixation!
What was so dangerous that they need to include “may draw a card”? Did they think Phelddagrif would be too powerful? Oh no, if someone gets infinite mana they might kill their opponent with a flying purple hippo! I have a hard time believing that the East Coast Playtesters were that concerned with the power level of cards when they dropped Necropotence in the previous set.
Sure, ok, whatever. Make Phelddagrif worse, just try it.5 The larger issue is that the “may” breaks the parallel structure of the abilities. The first two abilities are musts. Your opponent, if they are able, must create a 1/1 hippo token or gain 2 life when you activate those abilities. Why is the third ability different? Why does the opponent suddenly get a choice?
I’m getting worked up over this because this isn’t just me being a handsome old crank waving their stylish walking stick at the clouds as he yells in a deep and sonorous baritone. This is rough card design. I’ve been around Magic players, played with them even. I play the game myself and something I know is that none of us can read these cards. We recognize the words, skim through the text box, get the general vibe of things, and continue our game. I bet that there are opponents who assume Phelddagrif can deck them, or even players who have played Phelddagrif and tried to deck their opponents.
Oh well, I suppose that it’s flavorful that none of Phelddagrif’s abilities can actually end the game for your opponent. What a nice legendary creature with no lore.
Grievance Correction Protocol: Short of an errata, a signed letter of apology from all the of the East Coast Playtesters for putting “may” in Phelddagrif’s last ability.
No Plane for Old Phelddagrif (like a riff on “No Country for Old Men” but with Phelddagrif, anyways this is about Bloomburrow)
Are you kidding me? The Animal plane with no humans at all, where everything is a non-human animal, doesn’t have Phelddagrif on it? I get it, the plane is all tiny critters like rats and mice and moles and frogs, no reason to have Phelddagrif there.
But what about the Calamity Beast? Has anyone asked “What about the Calamity Beast?” yet? Because I’m asking. The plane with these inscrutable and strange elemental beings that embody eternal and durable metaphysical facets of the world couldn’t have Phelddagrif there?
The calamities represented aren’t all fire and volcanoes and being hungry either. Spring is a calamity beast. Spring, that thing that people generally like. Maybe some people don’t like it but they wouldn’t describe it as a “calamity”, except on their sinuses! Also, I wouldn’t exactly call “night” a calamity, but I want to be attentive to my younger readers who may be scared of the dark.
Your fears are valid.
JUMPSCARE KIDDOS! Maha, Its Feathers Night by Alessandra Pisano
But it felt like Wizards was teasing Phelddagrif showing up on Bloomburrow through arena, previewing a set Chatterfang sleeves and avatar alongside a “Phelddagrif” (which ended up being Questing Phelddagrif) Avatar to buy in Arena before Bloomburrow was released.
This is the avatar and…
Wait a second…what is that? Is that…
Sub-Gripe: Locked in Arena
There’s been Phelddagrif lore this entire time, and it was hidden behind a paywall for Arena!? How was I supposed to know! I don’t play Arena, I want to look my opponent in the eye as I misplay, throw the match, and see them squirm in their seat as I refuse to offer my hand and say “good game.”6 But the only way to know about this was to have bought the Phelddagrif Avatar from the Arena store for $50.7
Ok, fine, they wanted to paywall it, and they call it “Phelddagrif” when you buy the bundle but then appropriately label it “Questing Phelddagrif” on the page where you select your avatar. A little confusing, but let’s see what that blurry bit of lore actually says:
Questing Phelddagrif
The elusive and peculiar phelddagrifs may be physically imposing in size and wingspan, but people with reported encounters also claim immediate blessings and prosperity in their lives. Such fortune will not appear for all, though–it’s believed only those with a compassionate heart and strong friendships will someday see a wild phelddagrif.
So…they’re like Unicorns? But for generous people, and maybe still virgins? A little uninspired. That em-dash is a bit suspicious. $50 is a pretty steep price for this bit of lore. Hard to tell if it’s insulting or funny that Phelddagrif hasn’t really returned to Magic since the early 2000s. I guess Magic players aren’t that compassionate and have no friends!
Grievance Correction Protocol: I don’t know, I’m not really mad about this one.
End Sub-Gripe!
Back to Bloomburrow
But fine, most of the animals in the valley in Bloomburrow are animals found in the northern hemisphere: rats, lynxes, foxes, rabbits, frogs. The Gar kind of feels a bit odd, but maybe it’s the exception that proves the rule. I understand the main set not having Phelddagrif…
But what about the commander decks? The one where generous gift was printed showing that elephants do indeed exist in Bloomburrow and exist in different locations? That there may be other areas of the plane where pachyderms run rampant?
What about the commander deck that is literally in Phelddagrif’s colors, is titled “Group Hug” and is about “Giving Gifts”? It says it on the box, “Give Gifts”, something that, while not mechanically named, Phelddagrif is known for: giving hippo tokens, life, and cards to opponents. Other than Zedruu, and alongside Blim, what better gift giver is there?
Reader, it does not, in fact, say “Give Gifts” anywhere on the box. I’m not changing it though. “Group Hug” is close enough. I’m also too lazy and too far down the hole to try and rewrite a portion of this emotionally cathartic blog post where we’re all, even you reader, are getting our feelings out.
Sure, it didn’t need to be a mechanically unique Phelddagrif, I’m not entirely sure Wizards can make a third Phelddagrif card. But they could have printed Questing Phelddagrif, with the Matt Cavotta art, in the modern frame? And maybe at uncommon so Phelddagrif can be tried out in some other formats.
Instead, we got the rabbit. And it sucks, because this rabbit is actually good. It’s a good commander, it’s fun to play and it hits like a truck. Ms. Bumbleflower is strong! I get the popularity! Even the backup commander isn’t bad, and the lore behind Foxglove and Bumbleflower is fun! Sure, it’s Magic’s version of Zootopia (ACAB), but it’s still a little cute. And it’s fun to think about there being pirates on Bloomburrow.
Oh, by the way, kind of fucked8 that Bumbleflower’s draw is not a “may” but Pheldddagrif’s draw is. What the hell, Wizards of the Coast? Way to pour salt in the wound.
Grievance Correction Protocol: There is no redress for this injury.
Modern ‘Grif
How is Questing Phelddagrif not legal in Modern? I understand how Phelddagrif isn’t, but Questing Phelddagrif never being reprinted outside of Mystery Booster and Secret Lair is mind-tingling-ly confusing (the tingles you feel in your brain as you contemplate this are the “anger neurons”, which are like mirror neurons but for hatred and made up).
The Nephilim are legal in Modern, and those cards suck! Why not Questing Phelddagrif? There’s been three Modern Horizons sets, bringing older cards into Modern such as Meltdown and Counterspell. There’s room for Urza’s Rage and Chance Encounter but no room for Questing Phelddagrif in Modern? No wonder that format is a pit, a stinky armpit.
This also means that it isn’t legal in Pioneer, but I don’t think that’s malicious intent from Wizards’ to not include Phelddagrif. They probably just forgot that format existed.
Grievance Correction Protocol: Just put the card in Foundations. The set is huge and no one would be able to tell when you’re adding or removing cards from it. I’m sure Wizards has done it before. Do they honestly expect me to believe that Arcanis has been in Foundations this entire time? We know you snuck it in there you cheeky little scamps!
But on June 10, the rules were changed so that the token was owned by whichever player’s control it entered under. This meant if you spent your hard earned mana giving Phelddagrif trample over and over again giving your opponents 1/1 hippo tokens, the rules now looked at those tokens and said that they never belonged to you and they were owned and controlled by your opponent. The rules read that possession is ten tenths of the law and Phelddagrif can get bent.
It is probably an exaggeration to say that this is the Iceberg to Phelddagrif’s Titanic. That would be making light of a serious tragedy, so I won’t say that.
But it was pretty bad.
In theory, this change was pretty small and didn’t impact a lot of cards. In the rules update article, Wizards claims that it was unintuitive that you owned the tokens you made. While this isn’t confusing to players, one can see how Wizards would be confused that players would think that they are entitled to what they have labored to create, given Wizards firm and vociferous anti-union stance.
Still, this didn’t impact too many cards. They don’t mention Phelddagrif (because they know that the people would rise up if they saw how blatantly they were kneecapping the card) but they did mention the hunted cycle from Ravnica as making tokens under your opponent’s control. They also mentioned how this would change how the card Brand would work, which doesn’t seem confusing to me since this probably rarely came up in any games and, once it did, someone would look at the rules and see that the person playing their weird “hunted typal” deck with 4 Brands was right, and continue the game knowing a rules interaction.
The rules interaction with Warp World was maybe a teeny bit more egregious. I could suffer an argument from my opponent saying that they should get the warp world for the creature tokens on their side of the board, but would know that’s mostly rooted in them trying to eke out any advantage they could over my superior rules knowledge and deck building skill. But one would have to be a master deck builder to be playing Warp World in 2009.
I don’t like the change, but if it had just been Brand and Warp World that would have been fine. They are both outside of Phelddagrif’s colors anyways, and I wouldn’t have any interest in dipping into red and shunting Phelddagrif from the command zone merely for Brand.9 But in 2011, two years after this affront to Phelddagrif, Wizards printed Homeward Path:
Which, under the old rules, would have worked perfectly for Phelddagrif. This is the proverbial hand forcing the dog’s face in their mess which was scraped into the fabric of the rug10. The Phelddagrif players are the dog in this metaphor, and the mess is…the rules change I guess? Are you confused? I am too! Because I don’t know what would cause this much acrimony from Wizards specifically towards Phelddagrif!
Grievance Correction Protocol: Just make it work the way that I think it should do. Who cares anyways?
Well, that’s probably enough gripes for now. Oh wait, I haven’t said anything about the Commander Format Panel, let’s levy our anger-lazers at them. One last one and that’s it!
Seed-un-born Muse
To all members of the CFP who are reading this: Please, please, please do something about the whole Seedborn Muse thing. I know it’s a powerful card, totally fair to keep it on the Game Changers list. I know there are other commanders who would do really unfair and unfun stuff with it, such as Ms. Bumbleflower, but Phelddagrif really needs the mana to do stuff, like giving hippo tokens or life or cards to opponents. My opponents keep saying that a game changer is a game changer and it doesn’t matter if “Pheloldagrif” is an old commander that needs help in its twilight years. He just can’t stand up against bracket 3, forget about 4 and 5, without Seedborn Muse.
Grievance Correction Protocol: Maybe the card can stay a gamechanger, but it could get the Lutri treatment where an exception is made? Like “Seedborn Muse is not a game changer if Phelddagrif is your Commander”? Seems like a good deal to me, and might get more people to build some Phelddagrif decks, reinvigorating some deckbuilders who want to try something new with an old card! What a windfall that would be!
What We Talk About When We Talk About Birthdays
I’m not really made about this stuff, not anymore at least. Because I spent my birthday purging myself of all my anger over these slights and misdemeanors that the world has conspired against Phelddagrif. That’s what a birthday is for, shedding that old shell of anger that you accumulate over the year to reveal the tender, soft and sweet flesh of whatever tasty emotion has been boiling underneath. So, with these final words I cast the spell:
Fly! Fly away grievances! Take roost in another’s heart, you’ve been mooching off the spoiled milk in my fridge for too long!
I’ll see you all next year for Pheldda-gripes 2: Phelddagrif Can Happen to Anyone!
The time honored Magic player tradition is engaging in the discourse around offering a freaking handshake. You should probably offer one (or a fist bump) no matter what! But I’m not your therapist! ↩︎
It came with some other stuff like draft tokens or something I don’t know. Sort of regretting it now because I think they took it out of the store and you can’t get it anymore. ↩︎
This is my one eff-bomb of the year and I can only use it on my birthday, which it totally is. This is called “world building”. ↩︎
Although Warp World has my anger neurons tingling… ↩︎
On September 8th, 2025 June 12, 2026 the full set for Marvel’s ̶S̶p̶i̶d̶e̶r̶-̶M̶a̶n̶ Superheroes was fully spoiled. Well, technically the full set was spoiled on Friday, September 5th June 15, 2026 including the cards from Jumpstart and all the Commander Decks, but today we got the Through the Omenpaths cards, which my original prediction said that Phelddagrif would appear in the Arena only version of the set.
Turns out Phelddagrif did not appear in either the main set or the arena only set three or four supplemental products being released alongside the standard legal set. Something went Spectacularly, Amazingly, Superior-ly, Ultimately, Sensationally wrong!
What was it?
What Went Wrong
They didn’t reference “One More Day”, or any of the other classic̶ S̶p̶i̶d̶e̶r̶-̶M̶a̶n̶ Marvel stories like “Spider-Man: Reign”, “Sins Past”, “Sins Remembered”, “Fathers and Sins” and “Sinner’s Delight”. Chances are they couldn’t print Phelddagrif because the set was so small and tiny. As micro set two sets and four commander decks with over 700 unique cards, that was all the room they had for cards. Phelddagrif was going to appear on card 199 727, most likely, but because they only had 198 726 cards, they couldn’t print the Phelddagrif card, so they sent it to the same warehouse where they kept Coldsnap and all those Legend’s Booster Boxes. So tune in next time where I’ll tell you how Phelddagrif appears for certain in—
Reader, dear, beloved, reader. I’m sorry, but Phelddagrif will not be appearing in any of the Marvel presents Magic: the Gathering sets in the near future. Wizards of the Coast took that dog behind the shed and shot it six or seven times to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Through the Omenpaths is gone forever and surely never to return.
Missing Poster for OM1
Through the Omepaths (08/25/2025 – 05/19/2026) was not greatly appreciated while they were with us. Announced as an Arena only digital version of the Spider-Man set, the role OM1 played in Magic’s ecosystem was surrounded by a vague haze of confusion. The players were never sure why the set existed, why players of paper Magic (well, only standard and arena really) had to know two names for each card in the Spider-Man set, or what led to these circumstances. Many players theorized what happened: a digital rights dispute; Disney didn’t want competition for their Digital CCG Marvel Snap. Although, to this humble obituary writer, it seems as likely that the arrow of IP-dispute could have gone the opposite direction: perhaps OM1 was a challenge to other brands that they would not offer free digital marketing. A battle-cry that the team has the juice to reskin an entire set and brand it Magic. While unlikely, it’s another theory adding to the mire of questions surrounding Through the Omenpaths.
Egrix the Bile Bulwark by Lars Grant-West
So as we commemorate OM1‘s…departure…we’re left standing in the crater it left behind asking “What was Through the Omenpaths?” Was it the reductio ad absurdum of looking at Rick, Steadfast Leader and Greymond, Avacyn’s Stalwart and saying We could do an entire set like this? What was originally table-scraps meant for Vorthos with the Universes Within versions of Universes Beyond characters turned into an all-you-can-eat buffet?
Or was it a challenge? Where most Universes Within variants took place on Innistrad (it seemed, with the Street Fighter Secret Lair taking place on Zendikar…I think?) Through the Omenpaths offered little Innistrad lore compared to cards on New Capenna, Kylem, and The Edge.
What Through the Omenpaths was was an opportunity, not only for Wizards but for the fans. The way fans reacted to OM1, between beleaguered sighs and hand wringing over Universes Beyond impacting Arena and Standard play, there was excitement. There was a rallying around Fleem, either because he looked kind of silly or as some strange protest against Loot? And there was the OM1 Flavoring Project, a fan effort to add flavor text to the OM1 cards. Collaboration, creativity, community was knit through reaction with OM1.
Not to put on my rose-tinted contact lenses when waxing and waning poetic about a digital only Magic set. It wasn’t all happy frolicking. Even getting more Magic “flavor” there was the gnashing of teeth of the group of people who play both paper standard and Arena (I’m told that this group of people are quite a bit bigger than the Vorthos community). This meant that these competitive grinders, the group of players who support the illusion that they prop up the Magic economy, had to learn that Superior Spider-Man‘s secret identity was Kavaero, Mind-Bitten.
I’ve been known to bite a few minds myself!
While there weren’t many cards that made a splash in standard, with Kavaero/Superior Spider-Man being the extent of cards that one needed to remember, and the only other card from SPM that made a splash in standard, Multiversal Passage, had the same name for its OM1 version, the onus of the work of remembering these cards should not be forgotten. I’m sure many people who were totally going to take down the pro-tour got got by forgetting that Super Spider-Man was also Kavaero.
Again, it would be reductive to say that Through the Omenpaths was an elaborate memory game on the level of Simon Says. It was also a refreshing to visit and see the Magic setting, even getting some cards that helped expand the recently visited settings of Bloomburrow and The Edge.
Although most cards don’t do much to move a current story in these settings forward, or even to really start new ones. Drix Interception is really another in a series of counterspells depicting the Drix. And, while the art for Strength of Will is some of the best art in the game and it’s a real shame it was relegated to online only, it’s not like the card was telling us anything new about Bloomburrow; animals using magic is basically the conceit of the plane. And, beyond Fleem, I don’t think we’ll be getting any story updates on the discoveries made by the Pinnacle Research Team or the adventures of the masked bloomburrow denizen on Secret Identity. These cards do more than progress a story up the slope of Freytag’s Triangle, they were enriching the atmosphere of Magic’s narrative and adding to the possibilities of its setting.
Maybe Omenpaths was all of these things and more. Maybe Omenpaths was none of these things. The real question is: was OM1 the path forward that would bring Phelddagrif back to Magic again?
Reader, I’d love to tell you how Through the Omenpaths being brushed off the stage and replaced with Magic functioning as it normally does means that we will not see Phelddagrif again. That this was an avenue to see our old favorite characters, what they were up to. That OM2 was where Chandler and Joven were going to show up as reskins of The Whizzler and Squirrel Girl. When we lookg through OM1 we did not get a lot of returning characters. While we got art from the March of the Machine story with (that one Chandra card) and some other outliers, the story of OM1 felt more self-contained to that set, new characters taking on the mantle of Spider-Man and The Green Goblin. To tell the story of these symbiotic Spider-Magic relationships, to showing Magic’s Symbiotes, and to setting up spiders as a metaphysical force in Magic’s multiverse.
This was not Phelddagrif’s story, and the hypothetical OM2 was not going to be either. Marvel’s Superheroes is a set full of heroes and villains, over 300 unique legends introduced across the many products this expansion offers, most of them share that type, and many of them are humans. It feels unlikely that Phelddagrif would have snuck in between Iron Man Iron Man Iron Man and Iron Man (plus his three other versions).
Do I think that the Through the Omenpath’s version of Magic’s Marvel’s Superheroe’s would have included Phelddagrif? Do lovers hold hands and sigh at sunsets? Certain as sun beams. Would OM2 have been as beautifully baffling as OM1? I wish we could have found out.
Wing and a Prayer
Well, that’s it for Through the Omenpaths. Kaput! Still, that has no bearing on how Phelddagrif is always imminent in the next set! And we got a big hint that Phelddagrif is coming with Marvel Superheroes: nestled between some feathers!
Questing Phelddagrif by Matt Cavotta
I’ve always wondered is what inspired the wings on Planeshift’s Questing Phelddagrif. The black color from the tips of the wings stopping halfway through the feather, and then returning towards the quill on the bend and shoulder of the wing is similar to the color on some condor wings like the Andean Condor (Memory Gifted readers will remember my post on Seedtime and the confusion over the relationship between hippos and condors!)
shamelessly taken from Wikipedia
Yet, we don’t really have these condors in Magic, except for the Skyshroud Condor, the art for which I will show now and you, reader, who will not fall for my trap because you’ve also watched all 10 or 12 Saw movies and know the choice is yours. You will not think that the Skyshroud Condor‘s wings look at lot like Phelddagrif’s wings, even as you look at it below and observe the black wing tips, the white middle, and the return to an inky black shoulder and coverts. You will not think that this defeats everything that I’m about to say about Questing Phelddagrif’s connection to Marvel’s Superheroes.
Skyshroud Condor by Doug Chaffee
Because you’ll notice that the images of the Andean Condor I’ve shown you and the image of the Skyshroud Condor have all been from the dorsal view! And we are observing Questing Phelddagrif’s wings from the underside ventral view! And maybe there are images of the Andean Condor with white feathers from a ventral view, but we’ve got 0% of a clue what the ventral view of Skyshroud Condor’s wings look like!
Now, reader, turn your attention to Birds of Paradise from the Wakanda Forever Commander Deck! Behold, a perspective that indeed does positively give us a ventral AND dorsal view of the wings:
Birds of Paradise by Kevin Sidharta
This is a stunning discovery, almost the same colored wings of one printing of Questing Phelddagrif! All that’s missing is the black on the coverts and bend of the wing. Maybe it got lost in the move to a universe beyond? Could this bird actually be…Phelddagrif?
Tell me you don’t see the similarities!
Oh cunning, cunning reader! Your wit outstands and outpaces my own, for you saw through both my first ruse and my second ruse! You are no meek bird of paradise, which is actually a plant as well as a bird probably why it taps for green, or a scavenging condor (who has beef with hippos for some reason). You have the eyes of an eagle, or maybe a hawk, and you recognized right away what made this printing of Birds of Paradise so special. No more tricks, no more ruses! Reveal what was once hidden! Use your sharp senses and…look! Down in the corner, at the watering hole!
Those pachyderms are missing trunks and horns, and look like they have awfully wide mouths. There’s only one animal that could be.
Hippos.
It seemed like we weren’t going to get any hippos in Magic this year, but Birds of Paradise came in clutch. With the similar wing patterns, and the hippos in the art, the art could be a hint that Phelddagrif was meant to be in the Black Panther precon, but was cut at the last minute for some reason (probably a bad one). Maybe Phelddagrif was meant to be in Through the O2enpaths, and this is our hint towards what we lost.
Or maybe it’s all a coincidence! Who knows!
Next article I’m going to complain a lot! Happy Summer!
June 10, 1996 saw the release of the second set in Magic: the Gathering‘s Ice Age block; Alliances. The set is notable from a design perspective as it continues the use of the Ice Age mechanics of cumulative upkeep and cantrips, but does not add any new keywords and doesn’t continue the previously setup snow theme. The set has some of the most notable cards in Magic, from Force of Will, one of the strongest cards in the game, and other powerful cards like Helm of Obedience, Lake of the Dead, Thawing Glaciers, and the perennial meme card Storm Crow. It was also the set that introduced the card of monomaniacal obsession:
Today is June 10, 2026, and Phelddagrif turns 30 this year. This means that Phelddagrif has been able to vote in the past three presidential elections in the United States1, legally drink the past nine years2 and is old enough that they won’t have to pay more for car rentals (although they haven’t been charged the “young renters” fee for more likely the past 6-7 years). Phelddagrif is also old enough to be a US Senator while remaining 34 years younger than the average senator this year. It also means that Phelddagrif is not a young hippo anymore. They’re no longer eligible for Forbes’ “30 under 30” list.
Yes, 30 is truly a wonderful age to be. So much happens in your 30s, so much Magic is gathered. So, to celebrate Phelddagrif’s 30th birthday I’ve gathered 30 Phelddagrif…vignettes we’ll call them.
Think of them like candles on Phelddagrif’s big purple birthday cake!
Like this one that I just grabbed off google images. Hope it’s not AI!
1. Anagrams
It’s well known that “Phelddagrif” is an anagram for “Garfield Phd”. The fun thing about Anagrams is that they work backwards too, meaning Richard Garfield Ph.D. is an anagram for “Richard Phelddagrif”.
Let’s go over some of the other Phelddagrif anagrams:
“Phelddagrif” was originally going to be the name of the nature goddess/planeswalker that broke the world spell and ended the ice age on Dominaria. During Ice Age testing, the card “Freyalise’s Winds” was called “Phelddagrif Winds”.
More like Freyalise’s Farts!
The name was ruled out as too outrageous sounding at the time, with the continuity director commenting that ‘Phelddagrif’ doesn’t sound like a nature goddess, it sounds like a purple flying hippo. This story suggests that, at one point, they were going to name a nature goddess after Richard Garfield, a 33 year old PhD in combinatorial mathematics. I’m interested in seeing the process of squaring that circle of comparison.
The story also suggests that the card was designed with the name first. And, at different points, the designers needed to think of what abilities a flying purple hippo would have and designed from there.
3. ONE-WUG vs. ONE-GWU
When Phelddagrif was printed in alliances the mana symbols in casting cost were printed in the order that they appear on the mana circle on the back of the card. White is the first color, Blue is the second color, and Green the fifth, so it appears as WUG after the generic cost.
Wizards changed how mana was ordered in casting cost in 2000 with Invasion, writing the mana cost to minimize “jump distance” between mana costs. This meant that Questing Phelddagrif’s mana cost would start with the 5th color (green) then loop back to white then blue.
The change had meaningful impact on gameplay, specifically the changes made again in Khan’s of Tarkir which made it easier to recognize what color combinations one wants to be in when drafting, but I’m not a fan of the change. “One GWU” doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way that “One WUG” does.
4. Shared Costs
Phelddagrif is the only card printed with the One-WUG casting cost, but there are 23 other cards with the same total casting cost. All of them are permanents, only two are non-creature permanents, both of those planeswalkers (Tamiyo, Field Researcher and Estrid the Masked). Three of them are non-legendary creatures (one of them being another Phelddagrif typed card with Questing Phelddagrif), and 18 of these cards can be your commander (Estrid making the counting a bit wonky because of the rules text that allows her to be your commander even though she is a planeswalker). Kind of wild that there are no non-permanent spells with this cost.
Of the 22 cards with Phelddagrif’s exact casting cost, 13 of them have been printed in the last 5 years. Here’s how it looks as a graph that doesn’t include current year:
What does it mean that no cards with Phelddagrif’s casting cost were made between 9-11 and Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign?
We’ve only seen one in 2026 so far: Captain Kirk, Boldly Going! There may be some in the Magic’s Marvel Superheroes set, but I don’t know as of writing this post because the set hasn’t been spoiled yet and I’m not bothering to edit this while it’s being spoiled.
5. World of Phelddagrif
While Phelddagrif was once the preeminent “group hug” commander (a title now held by Ms. Bumbleflower, a precon will do that to you), Phelddagrif has had some competitive success. It appeared not once, but twice in Australia National’s in 1997. The deck was a four color pile of control that used Phelddagrif’s bounce ability to have a threat that can avoid removal and close out the game. It was piloted by Rod Ho and Lenny Colins, Rod winning the tournament and Lenny Colins placing 97th (better than I’ve ever done at Australian Nationals!).
in the top 8 of 1999’s World Championship in Tokyo during the extended portion in an Oath-Prison-Control style deck piloted by Joao Isidro, a deck that utilized Phelddagrif to constantly trigger oath of druids to lock players out of the game while looping Triskelion to grind out the game.
6. Grand Prix Kobe 2001
1991 wasn’t the end of Phelddagrif appearing in competitive Magic. Questing Phelddagrif was in the top 4 of 2001’s Grand Prix Kobe in a deck called “Counter Phelddagrif” piloted by Takayuki Nagaoka. The more I look into Phelddagrif in competitive magic, the more I see it appearing in tournaments. I’m not saying the card was ever the best thing to do, but it’s neat that it saw high level competitive play and put up results (I don’t think it was a mere Poison Dart Frog).
Of course, you can read more about this in my last blog post. We’re six candles in and I’m already stretching Phelddagrif factoids.
7. Phelddagrif’s Illustrious Artists
Despite Phelddagrif being on the reserved list, there are five artists who have depicted Phelddagrif on cards: Amy Weber, Matt Cavotta, Dmitry Burmak and Mark Rosewater. I’m keeping one of the artists secret and I’ll never reveal who it is no matter how much you beg. Most of these are from Questing Phelddagrif being printed after the reserved list and getting several printings.
8. Art Stories for Phelddagrif
When I met Matt Cavotta at MCAtlanta in 2025, he mentioned him getting the call for Questing Phelddagrif in Planeshift: He said that he received a call from the art director at the time. “We need to get art for some sort of winged thing, a beast, I think it’s called something like “hippogrif” but not quite…” Cavotta recognized it in one: “A Phelddagrif, right?” He responded, rescuing the befuddled art director from further indexing the hybrid winged quadrupeds in their mental catalogue.
Mark Rosewater has a really interesting story on why he did the art for the secret lair Questing Phelddagrif:
A “global series” is a collection of a single card in every printing possible, meaning collecting it across editions and across languages. Phelddagrif, like all cards from Alliances, was printed in 6 languages: English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. To complete a global series collection of Phelddagrif you only need to collect these six cards, which is pretty doable.
10. The Quest
Did you know the first time “Quest” appeared on a Magic card name was with Questing Phelddagrif in 2001? All those Quest enchantments from Zendikar? References to Questing Phelddagrif. Questing Beast and Questing Druid? Questing PHelddagrif reference. Quest counters on Ascensions? That’s because of Questing Phelddagrif.
None of this would have been possible without Phelddagrif.
Someday maybe we’ll get a Phelddagrif Ascension enchantment. We got pretty close with Airbender Ascension:
They could have put Phelddagrif there instead of Appa
11. Font Size
I can’t prove this, and I know I risk sounding like a nut, but I’m pretty sure that the font for the textbox of the Mystery Booster printing of Questing Phelddagrif is just slightly larger than the original printing from Planeshift. I don’t think I can prove it because it’s such a small increase, but if you stare at the cards side by side for about ten minutes I think you can begin to tell.
User t4trees on bluesky helped create a gif to demonstrate this change; perhaps the font is just bolded a bit more on the Mystery Booster printing? It’s difficult to tell if that’s the case or if the Planeshift printing is just faded a bit more over time.
12. Collecting Phelddagrif Part 2: The Quest for more Phelddagrifs
Collecting Questing Phelddagrif is a bit tricker. Planeshift had foil cards, so any number of different languages is doubled: one nonfoil and one foil. Planeshift was printed in 9 languages: English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. This would be a total of 18 cards, but Questing Phelddagrif was also the prerelease card for the set, so it was printed in Greek as well, but only in foil.
Great choice for prerelease card!
You would need to collect these 19 cards to complete the Planeshift part of this global series.
Questing Phelddagrif was also printed in Mystery Booster 1, which had no other printing other than English. The card also had an extra life secret lair printing in foil and non-foil with a “child” drawn version (odd to call it that because it was drawn by a 53 and ¼ year old Mark Rosewater) and the professional interpretation by Dmitry Burmak. This brings the total to 24 versions of Questing Phelddagrif for a Global Series.
I am constantly complaining to anyone who will listen about sellers not knowing or listing the difference between Simplified and Traditional Chinese, but CardMarket has a guide explaining some easy ways to tell the difference that I’m linking in the vain hope that a seller reads it so I can get that Simplified Chinese Questing Phelddagrif.
13. The Color Green
The Portuguese printing of Phelddagrif has a color error with the Green mana symbol being shaded blue.
credit to Yeloti’s Misprint Shop, this image is on eBay
While this is a zoomed in image, in person and with other green cards nearby it is easy to notice the difference. All Portuguese Phelddagrif’s were printed with this color error, so an even more exciting misprint would be finding one without the blue shading.
If you’re looking for a “misprint” for your Phelddagrif collection, this is a pretty easy get! Even if it is more of a “printer error”, I wouldn’t split hairs over this.
14. Hidden Phelddagrifs
Fine, I’ll tell you who the mystery artist is. In 2017 Unstable was released, a set that takes place in the steampunk un-plane of Bablovia, the silver-bordered set was meant to be a stand-alone product played on its own and without other Magic sets. It featured the long anticipated explanation of contraptions, but also had a sneaky return of Phelddagrif on the art for Hydradoodle.
Bodies can change a lot in 16 years! I love the aquatic theming on these Phelddagrifs.
For all my bluster about Phelddagrif always imminent in the next set, this is how I would like to see Phelddagrif appear; on the periphery.
I asked Matthias Kollros if he had any stories about the Phelddagrifs on Hydradoodle and he was kind enough to share the following:
“Hydradoodle remains one of the most unique cards I have done to this day, and a big part was designing the Hydradoodle as well as the Phelddagrif mutants. As reference, I used the Pygmy hippo due to their cuteness, especially the juveniles. :D”
The Unofficial-Official Token
I’m always making a stink about Wizards not releasing an official 1/1 hippo token in print for Phelddagrif. The 3/3 Hippo token from Amonkhet feels like they’re mocking Phelddagrif fans. But there IS a 1/1 hippo token that has art commissioned by Wizards (even better that the art is by Jeff Laubenstein, beloved Magic artist). Originally, you could only see the hippo token art on Magic: the Gathering Online
And you can still see it on MTGO!
16. Shine-dagrif
Psst! Want to know a secret? Huddle in close.
There exist foil Phelddagrifs. They’re out there right now, and, no, they aren’t fake. In 2007, Masters Edition was released on Magic: the Gathering Online, which included all pre-mirage printed cards, including Phelddagrif. It was possible, allegedly, to get foil versions of the cards in Masters Edition, which means that there is an official “foil” Phelddagrif made by Wizards, you just can’t hold it and it’s basically a gif you can look at only through Magic: the Gathering Online.
It’s supposed to look like this and maybe sparkles sometimes
17. The Modern Phelddagrif
Both printings of Phelddagrif are not legal in Modern. Phelddagrif was originally printed in 1996 (happy birthday!), and Questing Phelddagrif in 2001, slightly missing the 2003 cutoff date. And, while Questing Phelddagrif has been printed with the modern card frame, it was for Secret Lair and not in a Modern legal set. And, despite 23 years of opportunities, there has been no Phelddagrif printed that can appear in a modern legal deck. Not even Hydradoodle is legal (although it’s a perfectly cromulent card3 for the format)!
18. The Phelddagrif that Once Was(n’t)
In my Lorwyn Eclipsed Emergency Blog Post, I mention the origins of the Phelddagrif creature type didn’t start with Phelddagrif, but actually started with Questing Phelddagrif. Original Phelddagrif was a “Summon Legend”, the subtype being retired for a supertype and older legends receiving new creature types in 2004. This means that for 3 years between 2001 and 2004 there were only 2 creatures with the creature type Phelddagrif: Questing Phelddagrif and, not Phelddagrif but Mistform Ultimus.
M.U. better wash my face before returning it
19. $Phelddagrif$
While not the most absurd card on the reserved list, Phelddagrif made the cut. Unfortunately established in March of 1996, mere months before the printing of Alliances, Phelddagrif was marked to never be reprinted again. Sharing company with cards like Volcanic Island and Wood Elemental has made Phelddagrif the target of buyouts. There was one such buyout in April of 2021, and, according to MTGstocks, was nearly $70. Luckily the card is more reasonable now.
Magic: the Gathering is a wonderful game for children
20. Test Print-agrif
Playtest cards, normally kept under lock and key, are a fun look into the gestation period of a card. It’s interesting to see, especially with older cards, how things might have been different if the card was printed as it was once tested. How would things turned out if skullclamp gave +1/+1 instead of +1/-1, or if Oko’s second ability cost loyalty instead of added?
Some test cards can show what changes the card went through, and some of Phelddagrif’s are pretty drastic.
The extra generic mana is such a killer for this card: 5 mana for a 4/4 that doesn’t get flying unless you give your opponent 2 life. Imagine bouncing this version of Phelddagrif and trying to replay it, what tempo loss.
The biggest thing is Phelddagrif not being a legend, which may have made the card slightly better for the early years of Magic, but it would not have a renaissance with Commander’s popularity. Heck, I’m sure the card would have been relegated to the bulk-box of Magic history.
Here’s another playtest card that mentions Phelddagrif, sold by the same vendor on eBay:
I lost the auction while playing pauper. Real case of chasing two rabbits and catching neither.
Looks like a playtest version of Altar of Bone. No clue what this is all about, seems like a reference to “Phelddagrif” once being the name for the nature goddess “Freyalise” if I had to guess.
21. Correcting the Record-agrif
I may have mentioned that one of the things that is stopping a new Phelddagrif card from being printed because it was a “vanity card”. I had no clue what I was talking about here. It turns out that Mark Rosewater is a pretty smart person and had a specific definition of what a vanity card is, which means people who work at Wizards. But he also believes that vanity cards of previous employees are grandfathered in.
A once perennial Phelddagrif question concerns Phelddagrif having the Legendary Supertype.
But when Questing Phelddagrif shows up in Planeshift it loses the Legendary Supertype.
What happened? It seems weird that the generic sounding “Phelddagrif” is a legend while “Questing Phelddagrif” is not. There’s joke answers, like Questing Phelddagrif is on a quest to get their legend status. Or that “there must be many of them.”
Most of us were ok with this answer, it’s the flying purple hippo card afterall, don’t need to be too serious about it. At least until 2019 when Questing Beast was printed.
You see it too, right? That typeline: “Legendary”. No article in the card name, it doesn’t sound like a very “legendary” name. So why is this one legendary? And why isn’t Questing Druid legendary?
All of this could be avoided by putting “The” in front of all of these cards (including Questing Phelddagrif) I’m sure.
24. Collector Numbers
Planeshift’s Questing Phelddagrif has collector number 119/143. Both the prerelease promo and Mystery Booster printing of Questing Phelddagrif have this same collector number. The Secret Lair printings of Questing Phelddagrif have collector numbers 671 (Dmitry Burmak) and 672 (Mark Rosewater).
Alliances didn’t have collector numbers. If it did, Phelddagrif would have collector number 165/199 (being the 165th card in the set organized by color and then alphabetically).
Of course, this isn’t printed on the card, but there is a version of Phelddagrif that has a collector number: The MtG:OMasters Edition with collector number 150/195.
The sum of those collector numbers is 1777.
Someone tell me if there’s anything special about that number and you get to know what’s special about that number!
25. Death of Commander
Do you know Commander? The largest format (as of 2026) that brings new players into game stores and makes Wizards a lot of money? That thing that’s killing the game? Did you know that the first ice cube on the slippery slope of Commander’s descent upon the game and into its infernal plunge towards the Magic hellscape we currently live in is Phelddagrif’s fault?
Back when Commander was still called Elder Dragon Highlander, the only commanders could be the original Elder Dragons from the Legends cycle. One of the first legends allowed to be your commander, or “general” back then, outside of these dragons was Phelddagrif (which is not an elder dragon). This opened the floodgate to all legendaries, eventually leading to Wizards designing for Commander, leading to Nadu, Winged Wisdom and destroying Magic.
Planeshift’s Questing Phelddagrif was also part of a tri-color cycle of rares: the other cards are: Ertai, the Corrupted, Phyrexian Tyranny, Destructive Flow,and Radiant Kavu. This cycle loses a legend, shifting the Grixis legend to Esper with Ertai. It also continues the cycle of three creatures and two noncreatures. And they’re all rares. But other than all those things there’s really not much connection between these cycles, or the cards in each cycle and what they do.
Phelddagrif, in all their might, couldn’t be contained by the four walls of the card frame and has made home in universes beyond Magic. In the game Age of Mythology the flying purple hippo was a “cheat unit” created with the code “WUV WOO”.
Ignore the rest of the picture, I don’t know what’s happening there
This one has a tophat, and Phelddagrif has never worn a tophat (a cape though, yes).
28. Pheldda-target
Looking at gatherer, there’s only one ruling on Phelddagrif:
The wording makes this sound like all three abilities were updated, but it only changed the last and most famous ability of Phelddagrif:
The ruling is a bit puzzling. There’s not much reason for the card to target, other than to mirror Questing Phelddagrif’s version of this ability which does target an opponent. But the cards are already pretty different, +1/+1 instead of trample, flying from blue mana instead of white mana, different artists.
But it also provided a sneaky buff to two cards: Ivory Mask from Mercadian Masques (printed in 1999) and True Believer from Onslaught (printed in 2002).
Phelddagrif’s six year reign of terror sneaking hippos under Mask, and three years past the believers,was finally over.
29. Birthday Suit
Here is some art I found by “Brizycomics” of Phelddagrif in their birthday suit!
Mammoth Phelddagrif by Brizy Comics
Phelddagrif is normally not wearing any clothes, but ever since they put on the cape for Secret Lair, one is left to wonder about their nudest proclivities.
30. Digital ‘Grif
Speaking of NFTs, did you know that there is a “Phelddagrif” avatar in Arena? Yes, the mobile way to play Magic has “Phelddagrif as one of the avatars that you can represent yourself with.
For 49.99 this deal is a steal…from your wallet!
This is clearly Questing Phelddagrif labeled as “Phelddagrif” in Arena, but I guess we’ll take it. This was initially leaked on the /r/MagicArena subreddit, which was paired with “Chatterfang sleeves”, giving the impression that Phelddagrif may have some connection with the upcoming Bloomburrow (it didn’t, see my upcoming “Pheldda-gripes” post for more about this).
Did you also know that the Arena team, the people who make that game work is currently forming a union despite Wizards‘ efforts at preventing the union instead of working with their employees who have delivered them the most successful digital Magic product ever? You should let Wizards know you want them to recognize the United Wizards of the Coast – CWA.4
Happy Birthday, Phelddagrif
Well, that’s a listicle alright! Some of this was fun to figure out and write down, and I’m really happy I got some stories from Matt Cavotta and Mathias Kollros (who you should follow on Instagram, they’ve done some other really killer art too! Armaggon, Future Shark is stunning!). This was a lot of work though, and kind of hard to put together and come up with 30 different things. For Phelddagrif’s 31th birthday, I’ll probably do something easier instead, like a multi-part part podcast series or a song.
I checked Phelddagrif’s voting record. It’s not good. ↩︎
Wait, the Simpson’s references were in Unfinity, not Unstable! D’oh! ↩︎
I understand the old refrain of “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism” but it’s just a bit embarrassing for a toy company to hire the Pinkertons and Fisher Philips and to treat their employees with hostility instead of attempting some compassion. ↩︎
One of the oddities of my collection is this Questing Phelddagrif:
Keen-eyed readers may notice a purple star stamped in the text box that isn’t normally found on cards. Back in History Times, when there would be large limited tournaments for GPs, SCG Invitationals, and other bygone tournaments each card in the limited pool would be stamped. This was to prevent cheating by sliding in outside cards from personal collections or nearby vendors into their limited pool (a well-known example of this was Mark Justice’s Muscle Sliver cheat). While a star stamp seems easy to copy here, players wouldn’t know what shape the stamp would be, or even the color of the ink, that they should bring if they wanted to cheat. Maybe they bring a star stamp and green ink but the event is using a red balloon.
When I saw this a couple years ago on eBay, I snatched it up as a neat curio to my expanding Phelddagrif collection. The stamp was a sign that this card was present during sanctioned play at a high-ish level event. That’s neat, but just because a card was stamped doesn’t mean that it saw play. All cards opened were stamped, it was up to the players to decide what to play and what goes in what deck. With 45 cards drafted across three packs, there’s bound to be some last pick duds that you’ve got to schlep in your deckbox between rounds. I assumed that this Questing Phelddagrif was opened at some limited event sometime between 2000 and 2002, stamped, and left in a player’s sideboard throughout the event, left in the sideboard between a couple Sea Snids. I’m not Marshall Sutcliffe, but Questing Phelddagrif doesn’t seem like a very good card. It’s a four mana in three different colors for a 4/4 with no keywords, three different abilities that all give an advantage to your opponent. No thanks, I’ll play Goblin Game as the 23rd card in my deck instead.
Reader, who believes in me more than they should, I was pleasantly surprised, exuberant really, when I heard otherwise:
Turns out, the card was actually good.
What is The Good?
Let’s not beat around the bush, we know what a good card looks like, even when it’s bad. Like this one:
You know what this card is, unless you’ve been living under a rock, and you know it was good. Many players recognize the power of this card and, some wish it was still powerful and playable, while most wouldn’t say this card is good right now but will recognize that it once had the sauce. Tarmogoyf is one of these cards. This card is not good in any format it’s legal in, it doesn’t see any play now and it hasn’t seen any play for over 5 years, except for maybe 2015 Modern1. It’s not good because of the art. Certainly not the art, and the parsimony of design on the card is almost nonexistent (a bone thrown for my few Melvin/Melanie readers). But the impact of this card on Magic is huge, so that it even has a patina of good to it that can’t be entirely scrubbed off to time.
Tarmogoyf has an enduring legacy. Players remember how expensive this card was, having to pay $200-400 for a playset for their Legacy/Modern decks. There’s scandal around the card, there is a token for the card so that it can see play in Commander it was so beloved. Heck, die were made just for this card, it was that good!
Behold the Tarmodie!
And, the card saw a lot of serious competitive play.
Respect the Competition
Phelddagrif has been, for most of Magic history, a joke. It started out that way, when the continuity director in charge of Alliances said that the name, an anagram of “Garfield Ph.D.” sounds like a flying purple hippo, not a badass nature goddess that would eventually become Freyalise. The card was then ignored as a bit of Magic zanyness until EDH became commander, Phelddagrif being at some fault for this, and some people picked up the purple hippo as an amusing multiplayer card until better things came along. Phelddagrif’s share in the meta continues to degrade to this day. Thank you Mrs. Bumbleflower.
In this context, we have a small sliver of time where Phelddagrif could be called a “good” card, in that it saw play and people built it in Commander, a casual format, at one point in the distant past.
While Commander is very popular and has done a lot for Magic, when someone says a card is good in commander there’s a sneer behind that qualifier. Cards that are good in commander always seem to have that qualifier necessary. Nobody needs to say that The One Ring is good in Commander, you say The One Ring is good. Cultivate and An Offer You Can’t Refuse though? Those cards are good in Commander.
For a card to, with heavy emphasis on the past tense, have been good in Commander feels like being slapped with the same fish twice.
But, what if, there was a different history to Phelddagrif? What if something could be uncovered about any variation of Phelddagrif (both non-questing and questing) being a force to be reckoned with? Something that could be played for higher stakes than getting someone a soda/pop/cola?
Finding Questing Phelddagrif was good in Limited was a nice treat. It was the first step to this truer history, knowing that Phelddagrif once had a place somewhere other than the fake hell-of-our-own-creation-and-a-little-bit-Wizards’-fault-too that is Commander. But this lacks something that other “good” cards have. Maybe someone was dream-crushed by Questing Phelddagrif at an FNM draft in 2001, but who else would talk about that other than the store? Being a “limited all star” means little if you don’t have a proper stage.
2001 Grand Prix Kobe
August 18, 2001 saw the start of the seventh season of the Pro Tour, beginning with two Grands Prix2: one in Denver, Colorado and the other in Kobe, Japan. Held at the Kobe International Exhibition Hall, over 1350 Magic players signed up to play Invasion Block Constructed, a format with a 60 card deck with 15 card sideboard only using cards from Invasion, Planeshift, and Apocalypse. That’s a mere 621 cards, less than 15% the size of the current standard card pool at over 4000 cards.
Despite the small card pool, the top 8 for the tournament had a variety of decks. I’ll list some of them here, but I’m working off these Japanese wiki pages for this information and I’m not sure how accurate some of the names for these decks are such as:
Steroids: a R/G aggro that Shuhei Nakamura took to 2nd place deck featuring Thornscape Familiar to make your threats like Thornscape Battlemage and Raging Kavu cheaper, and burn your opponent out with Ghitu Fire and Urza’s Rage. Kei Ikeda placed 3rd playing a similar list splashing blue.
Crosis Control: A control deck in “Crosis” colors3 that sought to control the game through counterspells like Disrupt, Undermine, and Exclude while controlling the board with Repulse, Terminate, and Void while pushing over the finish line with burn like Prophetic Bolt and Urza’s Rage. It was played by Hiroshi Kawasaki for 5th place.
The Solution: A deck meant to be the solution to all the problems in the meta, playing creatures with protection like Galina’s Knight, Crimson Acolyte, and Voice of All to block and get through all other creatures, while playing the control suite of Absorb, Exclude, and Repulse. Takuzo Hasegawa played this deck and placed 7th.
Trench: This deck is all either counters and permission (Exclude, Repulse, Evasive Action, Absorb) or Burn (Fire//Ice, Urza’s Rage, Prophetic Bolt). No creatures, other than the ones made by Goblin Trenches, which I doubt would win the game but would create blockers until the Trench deck won through sheer oppressive permission. This deck looks absolutely miserable, I love it. Takashi Ishida won the GP with this deck.
But what about the much vaunted 4th and 8th place slots? What did Kenshiro Ito (8th place) and Takayuki Nagaoka (4th place) bring to earn them such prestigious places in the top 8?
What a wild looking deck; 4 color control with 10 counterspells across Absorb and Mystic Snake and no creature removal at all. Nothing to take care of your opponent’s Flametongue Kavu or Opposing Kavu Titan’s once they stick except for Repulse. This deck is hoping to get to the long game, to stick things out until they can refill their hand with Fact or Fiction and then start beating in with a Kavu Titan or even a Questing Phelddagrif. The RG deck being a large part of the format and most removal being red based made the protection on this creature really good and a resilient threat to the format. While your opponent may gain some life, they’ll have a hard time removing the 4/4 beater permanently.
One of the neat things about this deck is that it is splashing red not for Fire//Ice or Prophetic Bolt (or even Urza’s Rage, it is the only deck in the top 8 not playing it) but for Obliterate.
Looking at Takayuki Nagaoka’s record, he had a pretty great run with the deck, winning the first 10 rounds before his first loss in round 11, ending the swiss with a record of 11-1-2 to make top 8.
He would go on to beat Takuzo Hasegawa on The Solution in the quarterfinals, a U/W permission strategy that played creatures with protection such as Crimson Acolyte and Voice of All to stick threats that could not be answered to take over the game. Eventually, he would lose in the semi-finals to Takashi Ishida (who would win the tournament).
This strategy, control the game until you can cross the finish line until you can beat down with an evasive and sticky creature, isn’t new. It isn’t new to Invasion Block Constructed, as The Solution was doing something similar. And it wasn’t even new to use Phelddagrif to do this.
1997 Australian Championships
Nationals were large tournaments that took place from 1995-2011 (returning briefly in 2017 and 2018), a 16 year run for tournaments meant to showcase the best players from each national region. Top four players would get an invite to worlds, the winner of Nationals would lead the “national team”. In 1997, Australia would hold a very special and important National’s tournament. Although this wasn’t known at the time, someone must have sensed it in the air, as SideBoard, the magazine Wizards printed and published online, decided to commemorate the tournament by sharing these factoids about Australian Nationals:
I can’t tell if the penal colony thing or the warning of the Tasmanian Devils at the end is the strangest part of this list (Here’s the page the Tasmanian Devil hyperlinks too. It’s a website you will never forget.)
I first stumbled on this deck through a youtube channel doing old tournament replays that was playing the Australian Nationals Championships 1997 bracket: Phelddagrif vs. Forgotten Orb. The video description has this succinct summary:
Two tournament decks from 1997 Australian Nationals: Phelddagrif and Forgotten Orb. Lenny Collin’s/Rod Ho’s Phelddagrif Deck: This is a 4 color control deck (UWgr) used in Australian Nationals tournament in 1997. Phelddagrif is a multicolor creature that can be bounced (U), can trample (G) or fly (W). An ideal creature for control decks combined with Wrath of God.
Yeah, I guess Phelddagrif is pretty good when combined with Wrath of God.
The deck, which Rod Ho took to 2nd place and Lenny Colin’s took to 97th place, is not traditionally called just “Phelddagrif” as the youtube video claims. Instead it’s a version of CounterPost. It’s surprising to see this deck in the same format that would see Necropotence combo decks and the beginning of the well-oiled machine that is Sligh (or Red Deck Wins). But CounterPost has all the tools needed to deal with these decks. It’s a classic control strategy, using efficient counters and removal (Counterspell, Force of Will, Swords to Plowshares) before ending the game with a wave of soldier tokens made by Kjeldoran Outpost.
This 4-color version introduces some variations from the more traditional CounterPost decks. It’s usually U/W control, the most famous version being the one Jon Finkel played at the 1997 US Nationals. The version Rod played included Fireball to give some more reach, as well as Phelddagrif as an additional threat.
Reader, who is doing a great job!, you may doubt that this “counts” towards Phelddagrif being a competitively viable card. It’s not crucial to the strategy, there’s already a core version of CounterPost focused on cards like the titular Counterspells and Kjeldoran Outpost. Even Thawing Glaciers seems to play into the play pattern of waiting to do anything until the end of your opponent’s turn. You would be right to be doubtful, but I think Phelddagrif is doing something interesting in this deck and adds some utility.
Phelddagrif can be bounced back to hand to avoid removal or an unfavorable combat. Another neat part about Phelddagrif in this list is that it can be bounced to hand and pitched to Force of Will if needed to counter a crucial spell.4 This technique of pitching Phelddagrif is used later as well.
I keep calling this CounterPost, and I’m comfortable doing so because that’s what it’s called in this tournament report published on The Dojo for Australian Nationals. The pilot also played counterpost, not to the same success as Rod Ho did, but did not include Phelddagrif in their list. In fact, the Tournament report mentions that Michael Landers included Phelddagrif at the last minute addition to the deck. Which leads me to wonder about why the deck Rod Ho is playing has 61 cards; could Phelddagrif have been the 61st card added to the deck? Who knows! I have no way of reaching out, but if you know how to reach them and they can remember a tournament that was 29 years ago, please ask them for me!
This, like all my Phelddagrif writing, has been fascinating and entertaining. It is also losing the plot. Are these really examples of greatness? Fourth place at a GP? First at Nationals? Those aren’t bad records, they’re quite good honestly, better than I could do. But we want to find something that makes Phelddagrif distinctive, something worthy of great renown. Something to really heap the laurels on its purple crown.
1999 Tokyo World Championship
The 1999 Magic World Championship in Tokyo was a watershed event for the game. Featuring a busted standard format of Tempest-Urza’s Saga block, and inviting some heavy hitting pro players whose names still reverberate in the halls of Magic history today: Brian Selden, Raphael Levy, Randy Buehler, John Finkel, and of course, Kai Budde who would go on to win the tournament and be crowned 1999 World Champion.
So much has already been written about this, about it being shot and aired on ESPN, about Kai’s rise to the top and his legendary winning streak, about the busted standard format and the bans surrounding it, about the accommodations in Tokyo. But less focus was given to the Extended portion of the tournament on Day 3. Decks ran the gamut of Counter Sliver, High Tide, Pox, RecSur, Sligh, and CounterOath.
Oversoul on the Casualplayers.org forums has a great write-up on what this deck does differently; highlighting the oddity of Phelddagrif keeping Oath triggering, while being a prison deck using Arcane Laboratory and Forbid to prevent your opponent from resolving a spell the rest of the game.
But is Phelddagrif crucial to this strategy? Well, it was one of the few ways to give your opponent a creature at the time, while simultaneously acting as a threat that can continue to attack your opponent with evasion, although Morphling was a faster clock. But Phelddagrif can be used to give your opponent multiple hippos, triggering multiple Oath of Druid’s to gain life or do damage multiple times through the Spike Feeder and Triskellion loops.
Additionally, the same trick that was done with Force of Will in the 1997 CounterPost deck can be done with the buyback cost of Forbid, and then shuffling the Phelddagrif back in with Gaea’s Blessing’s triggers to get it back. Phelddagrif isn’t just a blinking spirit, a hard to remove creature meant to end the game. It’s not a poison dart frog acting as a mascot hanging out in the sideboard. Phelddagrif was central–nay–core to the strategy of this deck on the main stage of the largest tournament of the year and one of the most important tournaments in Magic history.
Atlantic Crash
Reader, have I not proven that Phelddagrif is a good card? Is my argument not only comprehensive, overdetermined, and also air tight? If not only being played to a top 4 finish in 1999’s worlds, but to place in two other large Magic tournaments of yore? While also having the feather in the purple-and-green Phelddagrif cap of being a Limited All-Star? Having discovered or uncovered these truths about Phelddagrif, I had a responsibility to go out, outside to the people where they are outside, and correct the record.
Looking to blast from the past some unsuspecting commander players, I went to my Local Game Store with my Phelddagrif decks in tow. I had tried to politic Phelddagrif before as a useless commander, that unless there was an entirely empty board there was no reason to target Phelddagrif. With what I know now that couldn’t be farther from the truth. This is a National’s winning card, played in high level competitive tournaments, the World’s tournament of Magic. I sat down at a table, grabbing a “looking for more for cedh” banner and waited for my unsuspecting competition to come to me.
My opponents, younger than me, questioned my commander choice. “This is a tournament winning card.” I told them. “Australian nationals 1996? Grand Prix Kyoto 2001? Haven’t you read the article on “Counter-felddagrif” from the mtg.wiki Japan? Rod Ho and Joao Isidro, haven’t you heard of them?”
Their blank stares spoke more than words ever could.
Was this the fate of the search for Glory? Briefly burnished by grandeur’s glow, only to recede back into obscurity? How cruel, this Pyrrhic venture to be known and respected, to touch greatness only to be disfigured by time into something unrecognizable.
“You’ve at least heard of Tarmogoyf?” I asked my fresh faced opponents. “They made a die for it.”
“I don’t know about all of that.” My opponent put Thassa’s Oracle on the stack holding priority to cast Demonic Consultation (there it is! The old card that became new, that rejuvenation! Oh what sorrow it is to be a creature printed before FIRE design, when instants and sorceries constantly bask in the sun’s glow!). My opponent named “Phelddagrif” as they flipped their deck into exile.
I’m pretty sure this will be the next pre-modern in ~5 years. It has the chance to be cheaper since there are no reserved list cards, while tugging at player’s nostalgia for a format from 15 years ago. Sadly, I think the cards will end up getting expensive quickly, as there’s not a lot of opportunity to reprint these cards this year and, if that trend continues, few reprint sets in the future. Reader, I hope you’re proud of me. I actually used a footnote for the correct thing this time. This section has nothing to do with Phelddagrif being played in high-level competitive events. Go back to reading the rest of this post, I worked on it. Not very hard though. ↩︎
Isn’t that a weird pluralization of a word? Well, according to very accurate websites that is correct! ↩︎
Before there were shards and wedge names people allegedly used the names of the elder dragons. I never heard anyone use these names and would probably just say “UBR Control”. ↩︎
Although this is major card disadvantage to do so, since it gives your opponent a card and you have to lose Phelddagrif and Force of Will, it’s almost a two-for-zero in your opponents favor. ↩︎
The anagram1 has a long and enmeshed history with Magic. Wyluli Wolf is an anagram of Lily Wu, creator of the game Richard Garfield’s first wife. Erhnam Djinn is an anagram of Richard Garfield’s sister’s husband. Ydwen Efreet and Mijae Djinn are anagrams of Wendy and Jamie (friends of, you guessed it, Richard Garfield). “Leshrac” came from “Charles” Page, a playtester at Wizards. “Nevinyrral” from Nevinnyral’s Disk is Sci-fi author Larry Niven backwards, which is sort of an anagram.
Magic has some anagrams that are a little less esoteric. Elkin Bottle is Klein Bottle, and Bösium Strip is Möbius strip, both of which are named after people who are not related to or friends with Richard Garfield. And there are some cards that don’t depend on having knowledge of the designers of the game, of tertiary games, or any real people at all. “Citanul” of Citanul Druid and Citanul Flute is an anagram of “lunatic”. Liliana Vess is an anagram for “A Villainess”.
Some of the most fun anagrams are the ones that are nearly, if not entirely, self-referential. “Linvala” is an anagram for “vanilla”, and it turns off creatures’ abilities making them more ‘vanilla”. My favorite is Pemmin’s Aura, an infinite combo piece with many different mana dorks, enchants a creature with the abilities of Morphling. Morphling was a powerhouse of a card, nearly impossible to kill and could do double duty as a flying attacker and then untapping itself to be a towering defender. The card was so powerful that it had the nickname “Superman”. Pemmin’s Aura is an anagram for “I am Superman”.
I figure out a better way to demonstrate anagrams later
“Guided Strike” depicts a weird looking creature that eventually got its own card with “Ridged Kusite“. Anodet Lurker is an anagram of Darker Onulet, While that last one was probably intentional, others, like “Hundroog” being an anagram for “oh god, run!” may not be. It still does not make it any less of a true anagram than the others. Mangara is an anagram of the word “anagram“, which is weird and doesn’t appear immediately relevant, but perhaps there’s something there. And Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar is a well known anagram for (fill in when someone else figures that out).
No, not here, after this
And, of course, Phelddagrif is an anagram for “Garfield PhD”. Given how many of his friends and family got cards before him, I’m surprised it took until Alliances for him to get a card.
What are we to do with these anagrams, these cards that transform before our eyes, from Wolf to Richard Garfield’s first wife, from an ancient disk created by a powerful mage to a plate named after a buffoon? It’s not like Guided Strike is much better with Ridged Kusite, and Pemmin’s Aura is a horrible aura to put on Morphling (any aura is pretty bad to put on Morphling). Are these hidden messages? Are they intentional? And can we measure it?
First, yes. These are hidden messages. Sure, these anagrams don’t reveal the best strategy to using these cards, you have to use your brain for that. They do demonstrate the psychic fields that the game’s designers are swimming through, what they and everyone else is thinking about.
What are they thinking about? The past! Always the past, that old chestnut! More and more often cards are printed as references to the game pieces and history of the game itself. Sometimes these are obvious, such as the smattering of cards in Edge of Eternities, while others are more subtle: references in art or flavor text to Magic‘s storied past. Perhaps, through anagram, Wizards is delivering a message to us, showing how much they are thinking about Phelddagrif and trying to convey that through their naming conventions.
Don’t worry about measuring, I already did that.
Measuring Phelddagrif
I needed a method and a machine that could measure the amount of “Phelddagrif” in a set quickly. I know it may not seem like it, but I am a human being and I only have a certain amount of time before my bedtime or I’m cranky the next day. While I could count out every card in Magic‘s history, measuring how much “Phelddagrif” is in each card, this seemed like the perfect task to outsource to a machine. I then outsourced building that machine (or “program” as it’s sometimes called) to someone else. Thanks!
The goal was to measure how many sets have cards that are anagrams of “Phelddagrif”, as well as cards that are near or incomplete anagrams of “Phelddagrif”. Looking at every set the program searched each card and assigned them a score based on how many letters the name of the card had in common with “Phelddagrif”. This score, which everyone on the team enthusiastically agreed to call a “%-agrif” score, works on a scale of 11, one for each letter in “Phelddagrif”.
For example, a card that has four letters in common with Phelddagrif would score 4/11, or have a 36%-agrif score. One of the benefits of calculating how much Phelddagrif is contained in a card is that it was an easy calculation that was not based in logic, fact, or reason, which makes it difficult to challenge. It also would give Questing Phelddagrif and Richard Garfield, Ph.D.100%-agrif scores because they are, undoubtably, Phelddagrifs.
From this data, we gathered how many and which cards scored the highest and lowest %-agrif score, as well as an average %-agrif score from each set, so that the data could reveal correlations of when Magic was trending towards a higher %-agrif and when it was moving away from it.
So, what did the data show?
So much. So, so much.
The Data
This image is a link to a more detailed chart, one that you can actually see.
When Alpha released in 1993, the set had an average score of 42%-agrif. Not bad for Phelddagrif not even being conceived of yet, although below average.2 Alliances, in 1996, the set that introduced Phelddagrif, has an average score of 49%-agrif. While it’s a bit outside the median range, we can see that the average %-agrif score per set is rising even when factoring in outliers like Alliances and March of the Machine (with a whopping set score of 56%-agrif), or Unhinged (which has a 40 %-agrif score, tying Homelands for the lowest %-agrif score). After 10th Edition, which scores 44 %-agrif, the average %-agrif set score does not dip below 45.
While there was a more rapid climb between Unhinged and Battle for Zendikar, the average %-agrif score for each set is continuing to rise, with the most recent set release, Secrets of Strixhaven’s having an average score of 51%-agrif.
Could it be that cards are getting longer than they were when Magic first started? That we’re seeing more letters on cards and it’s easier to include three out of five possible vowels, some consonants like “d”, “h”, “l” and “g”? Or perhaps it’s a hidden message that the designers at Wizards are designing sets with a bent towards Phelddagrif? This could be a secret so closely guarded, that the designers themselves may not be consciously aware of it.
It is most definitely the last one, because the line is going up (not down).
The Perfect 5
The highest scoring cards in Alpha were Merfolk of the Pearl Trident and Two-Headed Giant of Foriys, each with 82%-agrif scores. These would not be beat until three years later when Phelddagrif, with a 100%-agrif score, was printed in Alliances in 1996 (duh, (which has a 18%-agrif score by the way)). Predator Flagship, printed in 2000’s Nemesis, would be the first card with a 91%-agrif score, but it wouldn’t be the next highest scoring card after Phelddagrif. That was in the previous set: 1999’s Silverglade Pathfinder from Mercadian Masques which has a perfect score: 100%-agrif.
“Silverglade Pathfinder” obviously has more letters than “Phelddagrif”, which means there’s an extra message about Phelddagrif and Phelddagrif lore that we can take from this card. This is similar to how Questing Phelddagrif card name illuminates that Phelddagrifs go questing sometimes. After taking out the 11 Phelddagrif letters we are left over with these letters:
SVLEATHINER
Which we can get a lot of things from (svelte arni? Alerts vine?) but I’m pretty sure the correct answer is:
After at least 30 minutes spent decoding until I decided to eat chips and watch Legacy videos I came up with these anagrams:
Guardian of the Guildpact: Phelddagrif Cutout Again (perhaps a reference to how Phelddagrif was meant to be in Dissension, and several sets before.
Spirit of the Aldergard: Phelddagrif Rat Sortie. This alludes to a dropped story line where Phelddagrif appears on Kaldheim with an army of rats. An intern misheard “Phyrexian” instead of “Phelddagrif”, so we got Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider instead.
Glissa, Herald of Predation: Phelddagrif, loose Sinatra. This one makes sense.
Pippin, Guard of the Citadel: Cut in a Phelddagrif Pot Pie. If you need to eat a Phelddagrif Pot Pie, you have to cut into it.
Despite Phelddagrif being such a fun card that no one hates, there are many many cards with the lowest %-agrif score possible: 0. The first of these was Unsummon in alpha. Bad enough that it had a typo but they reprinted this card into the dirt. While sorting through the data if I saw a card with a 0%-agrif score, it would usually end up being Unsummon. But there are a few others:
Boom//Bust is special because neither card name in the split has a letter in common with Phelddagrif. It’s almost like a 2-for-1 anti-Phelddagrif card. (I mean “anti” in the sense of the opposite value, like Bizarro from DC Comics or Antipasta from lived experience).
That Asterisk from Earlier
You, dear attentive reader who nothing gets past, may have noticed an asterisk in the section previous to the previous one. You see, it turns out that there may be more than those five “perfect” %-agrif cards. When pulling from the Scryfall API and sorting, the program my friend made counted both sides as double faced cards as one name. So, for example:
Would be pulled as: Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER//Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel
Which has a 100%-agrif score. (extra letters are: EILOORSSSWabdeeeeeghhhiilnnnooprtt by the way. The anagram I could find here is “Phelddagrif hides rebellion. How? It hoops tangerines!” I am not putting that into MSPaint). But it only has this score because of the letters on Sephiroth’s precious back half (the ‘a’ and ‘g’ specifically). In theory, these cards (double face cards, adventures, battles, omens, and now cards with prepared spells) all contribute to, perhaps, a higher %-agrif than they should and each name should be separated out. Many words have been spent in the Phelddagrif subreddit debating whether these cards count towards a perfect %-agrif score. If someone wants to do all that, go ahead. I think if Boom//Bust gets to be a double whammy then Phelddagrif fans are allowed to count these cards:
More than double than if we were not counting both “cards” included.
The Future of %-agrif
Sometimes the world can be dreary. A total bore, a dull amorphous mass that ingests the bright light of imagination to excrete the violent products of capital. Or sometimes it just fucking sucks! How are we supposed to find joy when we are forced to leave those things in the past and strapped down into the forward facing “grindset”?
I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do when I sit down to a commander pod with Phelddagrif and my opponents are on Witherbloom, the Unbalanced and Prismari, the Insipid?4
Let’s finish by wrapping ourselves in the warm faux-wool blanket of extrapolating from our current data. Magic started with a below average score (the first set be below average?) of 45%-agrif, but grew 6 points with Secrets of Strixhaven and more recent sets averaging 51%-agrif. That’s 33 years for ~6%-agrif worth of growth of 0.05%-agrif/year.
But we can get a little more accurate. Not too much because I’m not looking to spend more time on this blog post.
If we’re to assume that this is a steady trend that is linear, then the average of set %-agrif scores is “y=0.0321*x+45.1”, with “x” being number of Magic Sets released (including commander and reprint releases). When y = 100%-agrif, x should equal ~1710, meaning by the 1710 set/product release we can expect to have an average of 100%-agrif. With 265 data points over 33 years of Magic releases, averaging ~8 releases/year (although there’s reason to believe that the current rate of product releases will increase over time as they have in the past, I’m too lazy to figure out what that line looks like), we can expect that by Magic’s 213th year, around 2206, we’ll see the set that has a set average of 100%-agrif.
50% is average when it comes to complex statistical models like this. It’s the number halfway between 1 and 100. We start at 1 because a world with a 0%-agrif score cannot be conceived. ↩︎
Good chance I messed this up, which is why I had to show my math below using MSPaint. ↩︎
I actually don’t have a problem with these commanders, or pretty much any commander. I just needed to do a bit, and I guess include a footnote? ↩︎
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