“This web of time – the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect or ignore each other through the centuries – embraces every possibility. We do not exist in most of them. In some you exist and not I, while in others I do, and you do not.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths
Phelddagrif Will Appear in Secrets of Strixhaven!
On April 24, 2026, the third Magic set of the year, Secrets of Strixhaven, will be released. The set is a return to the plane of Arcavios, a mashup of two planes colliding with each other creating tangles of opposing mana called snarls. The plane is ruled by 5 elder dragons who draw power from enemy mana color pairs. The elder dragons have been on the plane since their inception, along with the archaics, sage-wizards who time-travel to the beginning of the plane after finding wisdom. The first six thousand years of the plane’s history is known as the “blood age”, an epoch marred by violence and war. The natural conclusion of this plane is to make it American college themed through cards like Mascot Exhibition, Pop Quiz, and Study Break.
So far, 929 cards have been printed in 2026. And, much like 2025, none of these have Phelddagrif in them.1 Much like Lorwyn Eclipsed, Secrets of Strixhaven is not set on Dominaria or Bablovia, the only planes where we’ve seen Phelddagrif. And, despite the Omenpaths promising cross-planar travel, Wizards has shown little appetite to show off non-legendary creatures off their home plane. And, while Phelddagrif is legendary, most legendaries that we have seen have been more recent, with Norin, a character originally from flavor text in Alpha printed two years ago in Duskmourn, being the exception.
Despite the academic setting and theme, the enemy color types and lack of three color ‘shards’, the time travel shenanigans, and this, that, and the other things stacked against Phelddagrif appearing in Secrets of Strixhaven, Phelddagrif will appear in the this set.
“Quesitoning P., hasn’t this joke gone on long enough? It was fine last year, but I’m afraid that you’re sinking into a mania, an obsession that was once cute but now is destructive. I’m seeing some thematic resonances between the current story of Jace and his obsessive pursuits and your own.” You may be saying, reader who is so generous and empathetic and caught up on Magic story. Well, that may be true, although I haven’t melted into a puddle of Meditation Realm goo.2 Besides, this time we have a most choice way of Phelddagrif making their way back on the scene.
The How
We have already seen that Wizards is reprising the bonus sheet for Secrets of Strixhaven. The Mystical Archives represents spells a student could find in the Biblioplex.3 It’s an amazing piece of worldbuilding meeting ludonarrative. The actual cards act as instructions on casting these spells; you’ll need these components and it will have this effect. Sometimes it’ll come with some historical commentary on the spell, and it also includes an illustration to help depict what the spell should look like. If your lightning bolt comes out green, you may have cast the spell wrong.
The first Mystical Archives included different art and versions in Japanese language boosters, giving credence to how these cards are pages from a spell book. One lightning bolt is depicted in a different way because there were different artist portraying them. They aren’t photographs meant to capture the exact reality, but representations to give the spellcaster an idea of what it should look like. (I suspect that there is an argument with “spell names” and the rules text of these cards, being slight variations in what is written and lost in translation, where one might be able to read these as giving descriptions at having to cast the spell but not giving it a “true name”, just the name the person who is writing the spell book came up with. But I would have to either learn Japanese or sit down with a translator and talk about that to make this argument, which is kind of lost in a silly little blog post about something we all know isn’t really going to happen.)
While the Mystical Archives represents spells that can be cast, they aren’t limited to the generic ones like Lightning Bolt, Duress, and Brainstorm. (the last two of which are hard to imagine as spells, unless your BOSS! is casting them! oh ho ho ho!) A few of them are tied to specific characters, such as Urza’s Rage, Inquisition of Kozilek and Teferi’s Protection, or specific moments or locations in Magic story like Crux of Fate, Approach of the Second Sun and Blue Sun’s Zenith. It seems that, beyond being an instant or sorcery, there are little limitations on what can show up in the Mystical Archives. The cards don’t beat around the bush on this, Teferi appears on Teferi’s Protection, Tezzeret on Tezzeret’s Gambit, and Nicol Bolas on a couple of them.
Given Phelddagrif’s great historical significance not just to Magic history, but the Magic narrative, that Phelddagrif will appear on one of the spells in the Mystical Archive.
The Wrinkle on the Hinge
There is, as there always is, a wrinkle to this plan. The theming of the Mystical Archives is around casting spells and lends itself to spellcasters. While it’s kind of strange that this is Strixhaven’s “thing” and not, just, every plane in a game literally called “Magic”: the Gathering, them are the rules. And many of the characters show on the Mystical Archives are spellcasters, humanoids firing magical bolts or beams of light or energy or whatever you want to call it. Phelddagrif, not being humanoid, has rarely, if ever, been seen casting spells. The card itself does not seem to lend itself to a “spellslinger” strategy.(much to my chagrin, but I’m still trying)
And yet…4
What better opportunity does Wizards have for Phelddagrif’s return? For their triumphant return? It would be so…unexpected.
I doubt that we’ll see a card where Phelddagrif is spellcasting, but they can be depicted in the art as the object or accident of the spell (along the lines of Divine Gambit or Natural Order. We’ve also seen non-spell-casters casting a spell on Mystical Archive cards with All is Dust; depicting Emrakul, who is not often depicted casting spells, “casting” the board wipe. Heck, we even got the frame on a creature in Dina, Soul Steeper with the Multiversal Legends bonus sheet from March of the Machines. These examples are few and far between, but they help set precedent to be delightfully surprised by Wizards.
Phelddagrif’s Spell on the Flyleaf
With reason to believe we can apply our mental faculties, our noesis, our logos, the transcendental unity of apperception to figure out exactly which card Phelddagrif will appear on. We can also just look at the spells on EDHrec that show up in Phelddagrif decks. That seems a lot easier and not like a misuse of words I learned in college and forgot what they mean.
We can knock off the most common cards that are played across decks: Cultivate, Path to Exile, Arcane Denial. These are not idiosyncratic enough to have Phelddagrif on it. The obvious answer would be, Mouth//Feed, although the aftermath border doesn’t seem like it would fit on the Mystical Archives frame. So, luckily we will avoid such an offensive representation of Phelddagrif. Besides, looking through the data (scrolling to “Top Cards”) the answer is clear: Reins of Power.
According to the EDHrec data, the commander with the second highest inclusion rate Firkraag, Cunning Instigator with 32% inclusion, and dropping off even further with Zedruu at 27% and Kros, Defense Contractor at 23%. Those are steep dropoffs from Phelddagriff’s 51% inclusion rate. It has fantastic synergy with the strategy of loading up one person with hippos and then taking everyone out with them. It can both be played casually in that way, or as a payoff for infinite hippo combos, casting the reins after giving someone however many hippos as you want.
Sure, it might be a bit strange that Phelddagrif, the group hug commander, the peaceful-potamus, works so well with a card that is about overriding the will of others for violent ends. But it’s this dichotomy that adds rich texture to the complicated character that is Phelddagrif: a being of extremes and tension: both angel and beast, grace from divinity and savagery of nature. Is there a better card to depict Phelddagrif?
So that’s why it Phelddagrif will appear on the reprint of Seedtime in the Mystical Archives. Because…
Well…I’m not really sure why it would show up on Seedtime, actually. But when I look at Seedtime I always think of Phelddagrif for some reason. It’s a green card, and it cares about blue spells, but it’s not fully Bant. Maybe it’s the flavor text? It mentions hippos with wings, but a Phelddagrif isn’t a hippo it’s a “Summon Phelddagrif”. So that doesn’t make much sense either.
Well, you’ll just have to trust me not on my stunning logic but my sterling intuition then! Phelddagrif will appear on the Mystical Archives Bonus Sheet 2: T200 Bonus 4 U on the reprinted version of Seedtime!
The Forking Path: EMERGENCY BLOG POST: Phelddagrif DIDN’T appear in Secrets of Strixhaven! What Went Wrong!?
April 24, 2026, the third Magic set of the year, Secrets of Strixhaven, is released. Phelddagrif did not appear. Why?
Remember this card that was two cards?
And this card that was also two cards?
One card being two cards isn’t anything new to the game, split cards being introduced in 2001.
And I already complained in my previous article (above) about the most egregious slap in the face to Phelddagrif:
I suppose that at some point when they start designing two cards at once, they’re going to run out of designs and will have to start reusing some other cards. I didn’t realize that it would come at the same time that Wizards of the Coast decides that the Reserved List doesn’t mean anything.
Which wasn’t (just) with the Judge Gift cards reprinting Reserved List cards in 2004.
Or with the Duel Decks reprinting Phyrexian Negator (again) in 2010.
Or with the release of Magic:30 in 2022. Or the countless cards on Arena that can “conjure” reserved list cards:
All of these have contributed to eroding away that sacred promise that Wizards made to not print cards people want to play with and create a commodity that one can easily trade their crypto for that is easy to liquidate for a large amount of cash. Secrets of Strixhaven marks Wizards crossing the Rubicon, saying “Hells Bells!” to promissory estoppel and deciding to directly print legal reserved list cards with the Magic back. And it’s not things like Thunder Spirit or Wood Elemental.
It’s:
Now, I have to stop being cute here because, while Wizards may not believe in the the legal promises they made for the reserved list anymore, they do believe in exercising extrajudicial punishment when it comes to minor leaks of upcoming products of their children’s card game. This is what it looks like when the people5 are silenced6. To be beyond 10,000% clear: I am scared for my life.
But I am angry too. Why? For two reasons. The first being I have…quite a few Phelddagrifs, and I’m worried about my investment if they do decide to reprint Phelddagrif. But, more importantly, while Wizards exorcises the spirit of the reserved list harder than Father Damien Karras, they do all of this to reprint some crummy blue instant and not Phelddagrif!
We were so close! Why does Wizards miss, yet again! This is more disappointing than Phelddagrif not appearing in the Bant Commander precon titled “group hug” that was set on a magical animal plane.
Well, I’m sure the main set is fun anyways. I don’t know, it’s not out yet and I don’t really do limited because each draft costs like, 2 Phelddagrifs.
Conclusion
Well, I hope you all enjoyed that sort of “What if?” Adventure into Phelddagrif appearing in Strixhaven. In the Magic story right now, it looks like we are moving towards a sort of Planar Chaos but bigger, with mono-white Liliana and a Silverquill Ral Zarek showing up. Secrets of Strixhaven will maybe feature some of this color mashup stuff, maybe not, but a few people are excited about this. This media-work was meant to be a sort of hypertext in conversation with the current Magic story, sort of like a jazz riff but the audience is trying to do it instead of the band. If you did enjoy this, good!
Have a good night!7
- I know I said Phelddarif appeared in Lorwyn, but that was a bit facetious and I don’t think the Phelddagrif Community was satisfied with changelings representing Phelddagrif. Just check the Phelddagrif Subreddit to confirm this. ↩︎
- Yet ↩︎
- Maybe other places as well. I don’t know much about the lore of Arcavios and Strixhaven, it’s not really that interesting and it’s kind of strange. Well, I guess this footnote is as good of a place as any to get out my gripes about Strixhaven, which is that if feels like a Meyer’s Briggs test meets Academia. I’m not sure if I’m a fan of using education as an indicator of “personality type”, one very different from guilds. When identifying with a guild it’s an inward identification (Say, you’re into the natural world and mad scientist ethos so you’re Izzet or Simic. Or you think it’s cool to chain ghosts to debt so you identify with the Orzhov). Identifying with a school is outward facing (“I have an art degree so I’m Prismari, or I have an English degree so I’m Silverquill, or a Math degree therefore Quandrix). There’s a difference between thinking you’re “creative” so you identify with the Izzet, and having an art degree. it’s a marker determined by a whole host of factors, while perpetuating a myth that the field of one’s study is an indicator of what one is most drawn to (I suppose this is where we get into the ‘fantasy’ aspect of Strixhaven).
Sure, this is all just marketing and kind of embarrassing. but this creeps me out a bit, it feels like identity becomes cemented in past decisions: did you get a degree in the humanities or did you get a degree in nursing? Prismari or Witherbloom?
It reduces education to a faction, to personality type tropes and education changes from a discipline with the goal of the pursuit of knowledge to a new-age personality test for marketing. Part of me believes that getting an education is working towards answering the imperative at the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi: “gnothi seauton”. Just because a piece of paper describes you a certain way, does not make that true. And it might be dangerous to believe that it does. ↩︎ - Isn’t there a reality where Phelddagrif was a spellslinger? Their name linked to the creator of a game literally called Magic it feels like the Purple Pachyderm should be casting spells! Why is that not how the game is now? Where is Phelddagrif casting iconic spells like Giant Growth, Healing Salve, and Ancestral Recall? Their connection outside of the game would seem like this should be a very different card, one that’s a bit more powerful, a bit more on par with the card honoring the game’s creator in Unhinged. What a mar on this timeline. Who will rectify this? ↩︎
- A person with a Phelddagrif Blog ↩︎
- Can’t be bothered to find that leaked image ↩︎
- Hopefully you read this at night, otherwise I look like a total Doofus!
I’m happy the footnotes are back. ↩︎
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