What is “Pheldda-form” Content?

An apéritif to hold the reader over

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.

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?

1. You know, because of the not writing it down. ↩︎
2. 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? ↩︎
3. 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) ↩︎
4. 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. ↩︎
5. Seven! Seven sets! ↩︎
6. In case you haven’t read anything I’ve written this is kind of hard for me and I’m not very good at it! ↩︎
7. There’s the title of the article, still not sure what “Pheldda-form” means… ↩︎