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.
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.
Why? What does a Bull Hippo do for your deck? Nothing. It’s just dead space. If you want to look at pictures of hippos do what normal people do and go to the zoo and look at the pictures of hippos they keep near their cages. Some of us are assembling finely-tuned tools of aleatory destruction. I’m not going to complain too much about this, or the fact that Phelddagrif is clearly not a hippo and has its own creature type because I already wrote about that particular bugbear.
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!
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:
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.
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.
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?
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!
Off-Brand
On June 10, 2009, Wizards of the Coast had a major rules change with the release of Magic 2010. Among these rules changes were the rules of Token generation. Previous to this date, the person who had created the token was the one who owned it. So, for example, if you gave your opponent a token to pay the upkeep cost of Varchild’s War Riders, those were your tokens, just meant your opponent controlled them.
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!
- A yearly tradition ↩︎
- If you make your opponent sound like a caveman you win the birthday article. ↩︎
- A blog about the Magic: the Gathering card Phelddagrif ↩︎
- I’ve got my sights set on you, Bumbleflower, just you wait. Your turn is coming! ↩︎
- They did ↩︎
- 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… ↩︎
- Remember that image from earlier? Writing! ↩︎
Leave a Reply