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!
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:
Silverglade Pathfinder = Phelddagrif Tinsel Rave
Guardian of the Guildpact= Phelddagrif Cutout Again
Spirit of the Aldergard = Phelddagrif Rat Sortie
Glissa, Herald of Predation = Phelddagrif, loose Sinatra
Pippin, Guard of the Citadel = Cut in a Phelddagrif Pot Pie
2. The Planeswalker that Wasn’t
“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”.
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:
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:
“They asked me to do it. I said yes. As is my artistic process, I drew a whole bunch until I found one I liked and turned in that one.” He also did not get paid for that drawing, and he welcomes drawing on the card.
9. Collecting 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.
Someday maybe we’ll get a Phelddagrif Ascension enchantment. We got pretty close with Airbender Ascension:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
22. While I’m on Blogatog
23. Questioning Phelddagrif
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:O Masters 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.
Thanks Phelddagrif!
26. Cycle-agrif
Alliances Phelddagrif was part of a cycle of tri-color cards. Phelddagrif was in Bant, but the other cards are: Wandering Mage, Lord of Tresserhorn, Misfortune, and Winter’s Night.
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.
Since the seemingly only thing that makes this a cycle is that they are all 3 color cards we can do the same with Secret Lair: Questing Phelddagrif, Post, the Enchanter, Prince of Thralls, Lord Windgrace, and Titanic Ultimatum.
Finally, the Phelddagrif Mega-cycle is complete!
27. Phelddagrif in Other Media
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”.
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!
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.
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. ↩︎
- Might explain their voting record. ↩︎
- 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. ↩︎