When Wizards Banned Comedy

On January 21, 2026, Wizards released a terrapin-pun laden statement on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, often abbreviated as TMNT, leaks that occurred during the Lorwyn prerelease. While acknowledging the leaks, Wizards also updated the TMNT visual guide with all of the leaked cards, which were all the rares and mythics from the set. With these 79 cards revealed, and none of them featuring Phelddagrif, it’s a foregone conclusion that Phelddagrif will not be appearing in this set. I mean, they wouldn’t dare denigrate Phelddagrif to appear as an uncommon (despite my constant and loud yearnings and moanings for an uncommon printing of Questing Phelddagrif so I can build Pauper EDH and Clover decks around them).

Well, sometimes Wizards has a good reason for Phelddagrif not appearing in the set. There are certain demands, and I’m sure that the media franchise that is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has a lot of deep lore to it that can hardly fit into 190 cards. So let’s see what is taking Phelddagrif’s place instead: 

Oh…hum…well…hmm.

Funny, isn’t it?

Transdimensional Bovine is an oddity because, printed 30 years ago, I think it would have fit in with other Magic cards. But, if designed a little after that, it would have banned along with the rest of Magic comedy.

It’s weird to think, although it’s true, that Wizards once banned jokes from Magic. It’s always felt that humor was fused into Magic’s fused to its DNA like a melted whoopie cushion. Since Alpha, we’ve had wacky cards with some bizarre art. Some may have been unintentional (I’m pretty sure Animate Wall was meant to be a joke) while the art on others communicate the humor of the card’s mechanics. Counterspell, depicting a wizard in a gaudy outfit with their mouth agape as their spell fails to cast, weakly deflating in the air before their rube face: a ludonarrative combination of art meeting card function. 

Flavor text has been another vehicle for the fine sitcom writers moonlightin at Wizards to practice their bits. Grizzly Bears flavor text sounds like an excerpt from an experienced travelers encyclopedia, until we reach the sarcastic final sentence:

Phil Foglio’s work feels like it’s the Adonis Column of humor in Magic’s DNA . Their art portfolio features cartoonish characters with exaggerated expressions, disproportionate bodies, breaks of the fourth wall, and, frankly, some pretty bee-zarre stuff. And, as Magic continued and started the Weatherlight saga, we would get a stream of quippy flavor text that anticipates the scripts of our favorite superhero movies.

Sure, everyone knows Magic is sort of funny (kind of). There’s been 4 or 5 un-sets, self-referential sets meant to be goofy, silly, and wild! Buy these packs of not-tournament legal cards and play very casual Magic that doesn’t really work with the rules! And, while there seems to be a bigger appetite for “funny” in Magic, there was a period where Magic didn’t want to be goofy but seen as serious, mature, and dark. Or at least edgy. This shift had serious consequences for Magic, and one creature type suffered as a casualty of Wizards relentless assault on jokes.

The “squirrel” type first appeared in 1997 in Weatherlight’s Liege of the Hollows, creating 1/1 squirrel tokens. While not utilized often, there were a couple more cards that made squirrel tokens such as Deranged Hermit in Urza’s Legacy and Squirrel Wrangler in Prophecy. Odyssey, released in 2001, saw the first printed squirrel cards with Krosan Beast (a cheeky nod to Might of Oaks) and Squirrel Mob.

These would be some of the last black border cards printed with the squirrel creature type, and it’s not hard to figure out why. The existence of “squirrels” as a creature type disrupts the suspension of disbelief. It’s hard to convince players that they’re powerful wizards who draw mana from the land to command the elements, enlist the aid of powerful demons, only to end up losing to infinite squirrels? 

Those things from the park you saw eating a hot dog out of the trashcan? That demon you summoned is losing a fight to that squirrel. Insert 15 Squirrels vs. Emrakul Meme. While creature stats, power and toughness, are game mechanics, and we can only draw vague intimations of flavor from them and should not take them literally, the absurdity of the situation butts up against any suspension of disbelief. So, alongside a move to portray Magic in a more serious setting, Odyssey’s squirrel subtheme would be the last time the creature type would appear in tournament Magic. like Beebles, they would be relegated to supplementary product, mostly silver-border sets where the silliness of the cards could shine, with exceptions to Swawrmyard printed in Time Spiral in 2006 and Acorn Catapult printed in Commander 2011.

There’s an odd bit of Magic’s love for the self-referential with squirrels in silver bordered sets. Form of the Squirrel is a callback to Form of the Dragon, a card printed one year prior to it. It has a silver border, so there’s supposed to be a joke. What is it? Is it that the enchantment turns you into a squirrel, which isn’t as cool or useful compared to being turned into a dragon. Why is it funny that you’re turned into a squirrel? Because squirrels are funny, they’re so funny you’ll never see them again.

With this shift, comedy was banned from Magic. No longer were things allowed to be humorous, at least not in a way that would elicit a hearty guffaw. Instead, things were cold and metallic, or based in a culture and history far from what was traditionally shown on cards. If they were humorous, they were erudite facts whose punchlines were dependent on joyless trivia instead of a genuine joke.Their only refuge away from their silver-bordered cage would be an occasional appearance in the art of some card that wasn’t really about squirrels.

The Return of the Squirrel

Three things are certain in life: Death, Taxes, and Wizards going back on what they once said. They simply can’t help themselves, this time with the Modern Horizons sets taking the place of Unglued for self-referential cards printing Deep Forest Hermit, a reference to Deranged Hermit from Urza’s Saga. Helica Glider in Ikoria saw Magic’s first standard legal squirrel in many decades, and from there the squirrel-damn really bursts, with Modern Horizons 2 having a squirrel theme. Eventually, squirrels would take a steady footing in Magic with the release of Bloomburrow. Squirrels had finally returned to Magic in a way that, I’m sure marketing found sustainable. Magic was allowed to make jokes again, and balance was restored.

Let’s take a look at these furry denizens of farce, these huguenots of humor, these critters of camp:

Doesn’t really scream “funny”, does it? How about another one?

Less grim, but not exactly Saturday Night Live either.

Bloomburrow sanitized squirrels, stripping their absurdity away so that they would fit more holistically among the Magic’s multiverse. They’re no longer mere vessels for pump spells, goofy bits of matter that break suspension of disbelief in the game. There’s a whole squirrel society on Bloomburrow, they have mechanics that help identify their cards. They have a whole culture over there! They have context! And none of it is very funny. It’s mostly about things dying, and while death can be a subject for comedy, these squirrel cards aren’t a great vehicle for those jokes. Gone are those days of the silly cards of yore. We haven’t seen a beeble in decades (this is a lie) and they made our squirrels serious.

I, obviously, have a horse in this debate. It’s staked out at the races, ready to go, but I fear it’ll never get out of the starting gate. What is it, you, dear reader who I have never forgotten?

I mean, have you ever looked at Phelddagrif? 

It’s sweet, and I love it, but this is a goofy looking hippo. A purple hippo with green wings was already small meme in the 2000‘s, now it’s an extremely dated one that has lost any possible context it once had. It’s absolutely bizarre, complete nonsense, just da-da. Phelddagrif’s subsequent printings didn’t get more serious either. This is a card that is steeped in old Magic nonsense, and I’m afraid that we won’t see this nonsense in a Magic set for quite a while.

And I would love to see this sort of thing again, but it feels rarer and rarer. Lorwyn: Eclipsed feels like an exception that proves the rule, where a lot of other sets feel like they are missing some of those strange oddities that were present in early Magic, like Phelddagrif, Brushwagg, and Vizzerdrix, and replaced with twee and inane cute mascots like heckin-good puppers and small blorbos. Yes, this is just me yelling at clouds but I feel like we’re getting further and further away from seeing Phelddagrif appear in Magic, and I’d like to stop writing these posts someday and lift the curse placed on me 20 years ago.

And there is hope. Magic isn’t without this nonsensical goofyness, this holds-up-spork non-sequiter hasn’t left, it moved next door.

Checking in with the Neighbors: The New Silver Border

Universes Beyond presents a lot of opportunities for Magic that can’t be taken in Magic creative sets. Sandy Cheeks returns to the original kookiness of Magic’s Squirrels. A Squirrel that is an astronaut underwater? That’s almost as unlikely as it being bigger than an oak tree! Things that would not fit Magic setting can be done through Universes Beyond. If you want reference to historical events in your Magic cards, you can do that with Universes Beyond.

And we won’t have to think about how Magic might converse with geo-political history, how depicting a “wild west” themed world as already empty might be a retelling of the American myth of Manifest Destiny, or how a plane centered around crime, corruption and “being bad guys” that lacks law enforcement presents an odd paradox. Instead, it’s reduced to a reference to another Intellectual property.

If you want celebrity appearances, you can do that with Universes Beyond:

And what these celebrities do and who they endorse is their business.

And if you want guns in Magic, you can do that with Universes Beyond:

It feels that Magic has the risk tolerance of how the public perceives Hollywood studios, banking on the imagination of previous worlds with their established lore. Sequels are less risky ventures, and Universes Beyond presents us with a parade of cardboard sequels. And humor is hard and doesn’t always land, if you’ve read this far you know that because I doubt you laughed once. Why bother trying when you can be the kid in the lunchroom reciting one liners from Anchorman.

So, if you want something goofy and offbeat in Magic, you can get that in Universes Beyond:

Thousands upon thousands of Magic cards printed last year, none of them Phelddagrif. No legendary commanders to wrest the title of #1 Bant Group Hug Commander from Ms. Bumbleflower, no Phelddagrif cameos in art or references in flavor text and certainly no cards printed with that special Phelddagrif creature type. So much pulp pressed and printed only to exclude the plump purple hippo with green plumage.

Then, on January 9, 2026, Wizards of the Coast uploaded the full card gallery for the first of seven sets to be released that year: Lorwyn Eclipsed. Many players celebrated the return to Lorwyn and its iconic creature types such as treefolk, giants and noggles. Some celebrated the return of early Magic artists such as Margaret Organ-Kean and Jeff Laubenstein. Some celebrated the mythic chase rares of the set, while others gnashed their teeth and wept bitterly that their specs did not pay off.1

Yet, much like Winston Churchill also said: “Never ever give up!.” And, when the Phelddagrif Phanatics were at their lowest, Wizards finally brought Phelddagrif back.

But I did not see anyone celebrate the return of Phelddagrif. There wasn’t much fanfare, no trumpets blared or parades conducted. No spontaneous make-outs in the streets, no party poppers popping. No one climbed any flag poles to mark Phelddagrif’s return to Magic, or urinated in any mail boxes. So, forgive me reader, if I’m feeling a bit lonely writing this blog post while I gaze upon all the new Phelddagrifs marched into our lives with the new year:

Yes, reader, who is going to keep all their new year’s resolutions even though you didn’t need to change for anyone least all need to change for me, these are Phelddagrifs, as well as lions, tigers, bears and many more!

The Anthropocentric World: There are No Humans in Lorwyn

I suspect, dear reader, this is not how you expected Phelddagrif to return to Magic. None of these cards look like a Phelddagrif. None of them are purple hippos with wings, or more normal appearing hippos with wings, or purple hippos without wings but wearing a cape. Why am I claiming that a bunch of weirdos looking like what people in the 1950’s considered a salad Phelddagrif’s brilliant return?

It has to do with the ability on all of these cards. “Changeling” is an ability that gives a card all creature types. Because Phelddagrif is a specific creature type, it is included with the changeling ability. You can name “Phelddagrif” with Engineered Plague and Artificial Evolution. If you use Path of Ancestry to cast Questing Phelddagrif in your Phelddagrif commander deck you get to scry. Morophon reduces Phelddagrif’s casting cost to 1 generic. These are all things that you can do in the game, and the game rules recognize Phelddagrif as its own unique type different from “hippo”, which appears on more cards, even having a hippo printed last year. And while many words have been gurgled in the dark alleys of Phelddagrif discourse (also known as the Phelddagrif subreddit) over whether Phelddagrif should be a hippo or not, the fact remains that Phelddagrif is still its own creature.

For now.

So, yes, technically Phelddagrif appears in Magic’s most recent set (making the “technical” Phelddagrif count an additional 70-ish cards on top of the 2 cards printed with the Phelddagrif type). But I think you know as well as I do, dear reader, that these changelings are not the same as seeing Phelddagrif in Magic again. To say that we got 14 new Phelddagrifs is like saying that Lorwyn is a plane littered with humans. Sure, there are no cards that say “Creature – Human”, but all the changelings count as humans and, mechanically, function as them as well. This is because, while Lorwyn has “humans” in it through the changelings it doesn’t have human synergies or payoffs unlike the cards for boggarts and treefolk. Changelings act as a sort of glue that can strengthen weaker creature type strategies (such as bears or bats) or add extra power to already powerfully recognized creature type strategies (such as older modern humans decks with unsettled mariner), there are many payoffs to playing only Changelings (or shapeshifters) on their own. Furthermore, because Phelddagrif is such a specific creature type, with only 2 printed creatures and no typal payoffs, it’s not really obvious that a creature with changeling really adds or creates a new strategy.

So, while I’m not marching in any parades, tooting any horns, or popping party poppers. What’s really getting my goat?

It’s because I can feel the sun retreating and the shift in mood as we enter an eclipsed realm, the calcifying force that cements oneself and halts movement. I can feel their scratchy hands, the creaking wood of their joints, sense their frightening visages of that totally-real-group of people who believe and petition to make Phelddagrif’s creature type “hippo”, despite Wizards have many clear opportunities to update Phelddagrif’s creature type, and refusing each time.

Against “Creature — Hippo”

Belonging by Danny Schwartz

Not many people know that Phelddagrif is not a hippo and that it has its own creature type. Looking at it, it would seem that Phelddagrif is a hippo. The famous features of hippos everywhere are there: the cute little ears, that famous cryptic smile hippos give, the gigantic maw for crushing watermelons, the powerful, yet stubby legs and formidable torso. Most would assume that, because Phelddagrif looks like a hippo, and it makes hippo tokens, it must also be a hippo itself. And there isn’t anything on the printed card to correct that misunderstanding:

Originally, when a legend was printed, it was not always assigned a creature type, instead just having the text “summon legend”. There were occasional legendary creatures that included a creature type such as the original elder dragons and Rayne, Academy Chancellor, but these were exceptions to the rule. Phelddagrif didn’t have a creature type and was just a “summon legend”. The Phelddagrif creature type did not exist until 2001 with Questing Phelddagrif’s printing in Planeshift as “Creature – Phelddagrif”. And still the original Phelddagrif wouldn’t have the Phelddagrif creature type.

The typing for Questing Phelddagrif is crucial here to demonstrate Wizards intentionally choosing “Phelddagrif” as a creature type over “hippo” as it would have been the first point where they could print “hippo” on the type line of the card since the original Phelddagrif appeared five years prior. There would have been precedent too, as the “hippo” creature type had appeared on Bull Hippo in Urza’s Saga.

Perhaps Wizards forgot about updating the Phelddagrif type? Unlikely, as Bull Hippo was reprinted with the hippo type again in 7th edition, which was released the same year as Planeshift. Wizards had hippos on their mind, because they also updated the card type on the first printed hippo card: Pygmy hippo.

Pygmy hippo set the stage for other hippo cards such as Defiant Greatmaw, Rampaging Hippo, Keruga, the Macrosage, and the famous Lazotep Behemoth. The printing of Pygmy hippo (and Bull Hippo afterwards) created a window between 1996, when the Hippo/Hippopotamus creature type was introduced on printed cards, and 2001, when Questing Phelddagrif was printed, that the card could have been printed with the “hippo” creature type, not contradicting the typeline of the original Phelddagrif.

Another opportunity for this (profane) possible creature type update would be in 2004. It wasn’t until 2004 when “legend” as a subtype was removed and replaced with the “legendary” supertype. With this update, all previous legends that did not have creature types were given creature types, which mean Phelddagrif needed a creature type update. And what did Wizards chose?2

Another clear opportunity for this (wretched) update would come on April 10, 2006. This was when Visions was released on Magic the Gathering: Online, which included Pygmy Hippo. The original printing of the card was a “Summon Hippopotamus”, a distinct creature type from “Hippo”. While the words mean the same thing, because they are different there would be different rules interactions for the cards. For example: a Callous Oppressor on “Hippo” would be able to take a Bull Hippo, but not a Pygmy Hippo.3 During Pygmy Hippo’s online debut, the creature type was changed to Hippo. Which would have only brought up the numbers of hippos in magic at the time to two, so why not also eliminate Phelddagrif at this point as well and add two more hippos? Yet, Wizards remained steadfast in their inaction.

Finally, Wizards could have updated the creature type in 2021 with the printing of the Extra Life charity secret lair Questing Phelddagrif, the most recent opportunity across 25 years when either Phelddagrif was being printed or the hippo type was being updated for Wizards to eliminate Phelddagrif as a creature type. Taking all of this into account, a timeline looks like this:

And imagine how impressive that would look if I had put all those data points on there. Pretty compelling stuff, and not an overdetermined argument against a straw man at all. The overall point being that there has been many opportunities for Wizards to, sensibly, replace Phelddagrif as a creature type with hippo and they’ve turned it down at every point.

I believe it’s unlikely for Phelddagrif’s creature type to be updated to “hippo”.4 Don’t get me wrong, I would understand if there was a type change to Phelddagrif, especially if there was some typal support in an upcoming set for Hippos, although it seems unlikely. It might make more sense to combine the creature types, like with Cephalids and Octopus, if it opened new creature type synergies for a hypothetical hippo typal deck. Perhaps it would happen then, but only seven hippos printed over the history of Magic makes me think they’re not really going to lean into supporting this creature type.

But this largely doesn’t matter. For a lot of people5 Phelddagrif is the purple hippo. It doesn’t matter that it has a weird creature type because they haven’t noticed it. If the “Phelddagrif” type disappeared during the Lorwyn Eclipsed prerelease6 nothing would change for these players. Which conjures melancholy thinking of these people haven’t experienced “Legendary Creature — Phelddagrif”, and hope, since they can experience the joy from seeing that creature type for the first time.

The Thrills of Type Tautology

I adore “Creature — Phelddagrif”. I’m charmed by it. The cavalier attitude towards the early typing of cards, where the name just became the creature type to “add flavor” brings me joy. Enchanted Being is, perplexingly, a “Summon Being” and Flying Men are Flying Men. A Phelddagrif is a Phelddagrif. The tautological type line injects a moment of spontaneity into the game. When playing we’re suspending our disbelief, reading the cards and interpreting what the words mean to glean how each game piece interacts with each other. A player looks up Phelddagrif to figure out its typeline and is met with the card’s name. The game stops and the mind blinks. How much clearer can it get, did you really need to look it up? Taxonomy has hit indexical bedrock. It is what it is.

The self-referential type line creates mystery. Questions about the card spring forth when looking at it. Why does Phelddagrif have a unique card type? Why does it make hippo tokens if it itself is not a hippo? Where are the hippos coming from? Is this like a backwards mule situation? To clarify through the type line would not bring satisfaction, the pleasure comes from asking and imagining. Something changed in Magic when the answer to “What is a Dandân anyways?” became “Just a fish.” I probably always knew that it was the fish under the water, but I had fun seeing the card as a child and thinking it might be the fishermen, the boats, or even the water itself.

Updating the creature type halts those types of thought. Specifically to Phelddagrif, a type change would collapse differences across species. The Greatmaws of Amonkhet are different from the Bull and Pygmy Hippos of Dominaria, but all are still hippos. While Phelddagrif would be in esteemed company in this hypothetical update, it would have lost something unique and special to it. Phelddagrif would flatten to mean something that looks like a hippo but has wings, when there’s nothing to Phelddagrif meaning that it has to be a hippo. Each time we’ve seen Phelddagrif we’ve continued to see it evolve and change. Questing Phelddagrif showed some differences from the first printing by dropping the spiked-green wings and purple skin for condor wings and a grey epidermis.

While the secret lair Questing Phelddagrif has no wings at all:

Taking this idea to the extreme, the background of Hydradoodle has Phelddagrifs that differ greatly from any other Phelddagrif’s physical appearance:

Sure, they have the purple hippo heads, but their wings are white, one has the body of a dolphin and the other an octopus. The limits of what a Phelddagrif could look like is where we’ll find the limits to our imagination.

To go back to the original Phelddagrif, looking at the card Phelddagrif doesn’t need to be a creature type at all but the creature’s name. It’s a moniker for exceptional gift giving, a sobriquet for group hug, a pseudonym for the strange and misplaced. Who’s to say that Sami, in their infinite capacity for hope, is not a Phelddagrif; or that Savage Knuckleblade with three different activated abilities costing three different types of mana is not also a Phelddagrif?

Phelddagrif looks like a hippo, but isn’t a hippo. It’s form is that of a shapeshifter, all meaning associated with it is too slippery for thought to hold. It’s a bit like a changeling in this way. Both adorable and horrendous, cheerful and unnerving. This weirdness has echoes of Phelddagrif, and in the way that returning to Lorwyn feels like a return to older magic for many players, it also feels like a return to Phelddagrif.7

And, at the very least, we finally got an official 1/1 hippo token from Wizards:

Lagniappe: Notes From the Lorwyn Visual Spoiler

Lorwyn: Eclipsed revisits a plane after 17 years, which gives the opportunity to see what’s going on with some cards that have very large fan bases. Like Evershrike.

Well, the set can only be so big and we can’t reference everything if the designers want to give Ashling two different cards. It’s unfortunate that Evershrike will be condemned to the same dustbin of Magic history that is barely-bracket 2 EDH….

What? Is that a reference to a beloved card from Magic’s past not as an updated version of the creature but as an aura that gives a creature flying and can return itself from the graveyard? Very interesting. It sort of reminds me of something I wrote last year around this time…

I guess we’ll have to keep imagining a Phelddagrif here instead.