Last time in Magic: the Gathering!!
Before the pack-cracking populace had time to open their Edge of Eternities prerelease kits had the dastardly and conniving villains Wizards of the Coast began to spoil the next set; Marvel’s Spider-Man! 35 minutes ago!
Literally WotC.
What's up Webheads! It's time for Spiderman Spoilers already!
I used to read comics, I used to read a lot of comics, and, even further back, I used to read a lot of superhero comics. But I don't remember reading a lot of Spider-Man. Which is kind of funny, the Sam Rami Spider-Man movie was one of my favorite movies when I was kid. Still like them, even if they’re bad (a bit like my love of Phelddagrif, don’t read too much into that!) It would make sense for me to be totally into Spider-Man. But it never really clicked with me.
As such, my encyclopedic knowledge of Spider-Man is puny.
But I know a thing or two about using an internet search engine and reading a fan-wiki, and, if you’re still reading after an extended hiatus as I tried to create my own website, then you know this is all a fun little lark anyways!
Not a Fun Lark; Being Wrong 5 Times in a Row
Gentle and surprisingly strong reader, you amazing creature, we’re not so different, you and I. You may be saying to yourself “I’m nothing like you, you’re always wrong!”
Well, to each their own. I chose my path, and you chose yours, the path of the questioning reader. And maybe you were amused for a little while, whiling away time reading blogs, but one thing WotC loves more than a thinking player, is to see a player fail, fall, turn into a mere passive consumer. In spite of everything you do for them, eventually you’ll grow to hate yourself. Why bother?
Reader, you may respond: “Because it’s right!!”
Here’s the real truth, there’s over 27,000 cards. And those teeming masses of cardboard for the sole purpose of lifting the few exceptional ones into formats. You, me? We’re exceptional.
[leans in and grabs the reader/Spider-man’s neck]
I could squash you like draft-chaff on pre-release night right now, but I’m offering you a choice! Join me! Imagine Phelddagrif appearing in the next set for eternity! What art we could create!
Or we could destroy! Cause the death of countless AIs scraping these boring blog posts as we fight each other again and again until we’re both no closer to Phelddagrif’s immanent appearance. Is that what you want?
[hops on Phelddagrif themed glider]
Think about it, Reader!
Rhino
Cover of The Amazing Spider-Man Issue #42
The Rhino, Aleksei Sytsevich, was, as marvel.fandom.com/wiki/aleksei_sytsevich_(Earth-616) puts it, “just another thug in the Russian Mafia.” I count myself blessed enough to have spent my youth in the halcyon days of the 90s and early 00s, because it seems like the Russian Mafia was a given in 1966 with Aleksei’s first appearance. His debut issue delivered high promises, such as the appearance of J. Jonah Jameson’s Astronaut Son, Peter Parker making an exciting new purchase, and the Rhino being the “most fearsome villain of all”.
Guess I’m going for a mid-2000’s Cracked Vibe with this one
Looking for money, Aleksei, who was already a big guy, volunteered for chemical experiments that earned him super strength. He is also given a bulletproof suit that makes him look like a rhino because they’re tough or something too.
It seems that most of Rhino’s stories revolve around the suit; either it being stuck to him and wanting to take it off, or needing a new suit, or forgoing the suit to go clean. He gets a girlfriend at some point, but she dies and Rhino goes back to doing crime.
The Rhino's abilities do not seem to lend themselves to being like Phelddagrif's. Rhino doesn’t seem to possess much martial prowess. Aleksei is no Zhuge Liang borrowing 100,000 arrows. Rhino’s “strategy” is to run fast and hard and trample over things. While Phelddagrif has trample, it's only sometimes. Rhino is also known for their strength, having gone up against Hulk in earlier comics. While four power used to be a sign of strength when Phelddagrif was first printed, I'm sure that whatever Rhino card we do see will have a much higher stat-line to match the expectations of today's players and the creature-stat-treadmill. Furthermore, the Rhino doesn't fly, and wouldn't bounce to someone's hand. And, from what I read on the fan wiki about him, Aleksei is most commonly driven by greed, and is unlikely to give boons to others such as life, tokens, or card draw.
Rhinos v. Hippos
Many readers out there will probably assume that, if Phelddagrif were to appear somehow in this set, it would be as The Rhino with the Godzilla-skinned (or ‘frame’) as Questing Phelddagrif. Rhinos and Hippos are big mammals found in Africa, both have sort of gray skin, and known to be dangerous and scary. But there are crucial differences between these animals as well. As Cindy Rasmussen in the article "Rhino vs. Hippo: Differences & Who Wins in a Fight Between These African Giants" from a-z-animals.com:
"Rhinos have large bodies with short legs and tough outer skin that somewhat looks like armor. Some refer to them as the tanks of the jungle."
Whereas:
"Hippos also have large bodies with short legs and thick skin but do not have a horn like a rhino."
Genetically, these animals are very different. While both are referred to as pachyderms, these animals aren't closely related and are not part of the same taxonomy. Rhinoceroses are members of the perissodactyla (odd-toed hoofed animals), where Hippopotamuses are members of artiodactyla (even-toed hoofed animals). The last common ancestor between both of these animals would have been approximately 70 million years ago.
I'm told that it would look like a large shrew.
yep.
70 million years ago for the closest relative, when the world was one supercontinent called Pangea (after the fact, most likely), a world of polar forests, shallow seas and dinosaurs. There was no Brooklyn, no New York Yankees, no cities full of skyscrapers, no pigeons or rats or stairs descending into subway tunnels for the rats to pull slices of pizza up from. There was no paper, no pens, no human anxiety about worrying over doing the right thing or the selfish thing. I don’t know if there was war or not, but if there was it was unlikely it was anything like world war two. And, while there was certainly great power, it’s difficult to tell if it came with great responsibility. And there was definitely no Spider-Man.
Rather, Hippos are the closest relatives of cetaceans such as whales and dolphins, from which they diverged 55 million years ago, while Rhinos are more closely related to horses. So we're more likely to get a Mr. Orfeo godzilla-skinned as Beta Ray Bill, or a venom-orca1 as Phelddagrif, than we are to get a Rhino/Phelddagrif card. And if there was some sort of hippo-themed spider-man character, perhaps one with a cool name, that would be most likely of all 4 options!
Hippo
In August of 2009, Marvel published Dark Reign: The Sinister Spider-Man Issue 1, a four part issue that featured Venom posing as Spider-Man under the thrall of Norman Osborn. In this issue, we are introduced to the character Mrs. Fluffy Lumpkins (not to be confused with another cartoon character: Fuzzy Lumpkins), a misgendered hippopotamus who was turned into a humanoid by the High Evolutionary and became "The Hippo" (not hard to see why this character doesn't stick around for a long time). In their debut issue, The Hippo has their leg eaten by "Spider-Man" (who is Venom pretending to be Spider-Man). The Hippo gets a mechanical limb, joining up with a group of other villains/vigilantes who have had bits of them chomped off by Spider-Man (who is really Venom, who also was The Scorpion?), and attempt to reform the renegade hero.
This doesn't work and Mrs. Fluffy Lumpkins is eaten alive by the Venom/Spider-Man/Scorpion.
In New Avengers: Luke Cage Issue 1, published in May of 2010, The Hippo is fighting Spider-Man when Luke Cage shows up and defeats the villain. Their not-being-eaten-anymore is never explained. He continues to show up across various issues, never playing a starring role, appearing as a mook for Doc Ock in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) Issue 642 in September of 2010, or part of some animal themed villain groups such as The Menagerie in Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 issue 1released in April of 2014.
Seems that The Hippo, or Mrs. Fluffly Lumpkins, hasn't appeared in a comic since April, 2014 in "The Superior Foes of Spider-Man" issue 11. in which the Hippo attends "Supervillains Anonymous", a therapy group for reformed.
A five year run, but hasn’t been seen in almost a decade.
I’ll admit, there are more similarities to Phelddagrif here than Rhino. For one, being a more minor character we can expect a less boosted statline. While Hippo also has super strength like The Rhino, because they're a minor character, I'm sure fans wouldn't be upset about them being portrayed only as a 4/4 instead of a 10/10. And, while Phelddagrif's other abilities are a stretch, Hippo mysteriously coming back from the dead after being eaten alive seems like a ludic rhyme of Phelddagrif's bounce ability: mysterious, intriguing, and unexplainable all at the same time. Perhaps the Hippo "bounced" themselves only to return when they could summon enough mana to recast themselves?
The Issue
Mrs. Fluffy Lumpkins, The Hippo, is a hippo. Phelddagrif is a phelddagrif, not a hippo.
It says so right on the card!
Phelddagrif makes hippos, or summons them, or has some connection to them, but is not a hippo themselves.
Fear not, Comic Reader! For while these two seemingly obvious answers did not pan out for arcane reasons that have left you feeling like you’ve been stung by the torpedo fish, there does indeed exist a path where Phelddagrif appears in this set!
One More Try
Most of these issues focus on the phenotypical features of Hippos, Rhinos, and Phelddagrifs. Beyond them both being villains and Phelddagrif is not a villain. Perhaps they’re mercenary at worst, but never villainous. These villains look towards the surface and make no attempt to peirce the tough hide of these pachyderms. To truly understand how Phelddagrif is going to appear in Marvel’s Spider-Man we need to look deeper, into what Phelddagrif stands for, that which stands behind Phelddagrif, the Phelddagrif archetype, Phelddagrif’s dasein.2
Phelddagrif’s two most popular tags on EDHrec, as of date of publication, are “Group Hug” and “Wheels”. Phelddagrif is perceived as the purple hippo that gives gifts, pillowfortin’ while the table has a rip roaring good time. Phelddagrif controls through influence, a “political” card that is used to make deals, exchanging Phelddagrif’s gifts for future boons. Sometimes it’s about securing deals, asking someone to attack another player, sometimes the gifts break parity in other ways by delivering more value to the Phelddagrif player through cards like Damping Engine or Defense of the Heart.
These deals always come at a price.
Marvel’s Mephisto
Introduced in 1968’s <em>Silver Surfer #3</em>, Mephisto became a noted villain to not only the cosmic cruiser in chrome, but also to Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man. He isn’t Satan but, as mavel.fandom.com/wiki/Mephisto_(Earth-616) puts it:
“Mephisto is an extra-dimensional demon who rules a fiery pocket dimension that he calls “Hell” or “Hades” although it is neither the Hell of the Christian religion nor the Hades ruled by Hades, the Olympian god of the dead.”
Reading more through the wiki entry, it seems like Mephisto is all about tempting others with deals dripping with irony: promising someone power and turning them into the Ghost Rider, using the Silver Surfer’s love interest to try and break his will. Mephisto even got Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, to give up his son, Harry Osborne’s, soul so that Oscorp wouldn’t go bankrupt. I’m not going to read any of these comics, but if I was I would probably start with that one to see how much Norman waffled on that deal.
While I’m pretending to be a fake comic book fan here, I’m also aware of a famous story where Mephisto plays a central role. One More Day written by J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada is the capstone on Spiderman’s arc from the crossover event Civil War. Released in 2007, I remember this series being contentious, as contentious as Civil War was (which people also did not like). In “OMD”, as the fans call it, Aunt May is shot following the fallout of Spider-Man revealing his identity in Civil War. In order to save Aunt May, Spider-Man makes a deal with Mephisto. He’ll save Aunt May, in return Mephisto wants to erase all memory of Spider-Man and Mary Jane’s marriage.
Spider-Man takes this deal and everything returns to the status quo following the big crossover event that was going to change comics forever.
Over the River and Through the Omenpaths
Mephisto makes for excellent inspiration for a Phelddagrif-type card. The villain is all about bartering, making deals, tempting others, giving what the heart desires, while recognizing the conflict within. Might it be that tension, those contradictions, that lead to attraction in the first place? The desire for power that one has is a desire for control, but they also end up being controlled by that desire. Aren’t these contradictions inherent to Phelddagrif too? I’ll give you a creature to block with, but my creature will trample over it; I’ll give you life, to fly over your board and take more; by seeking to answer my creature, ensuring that it’ll stay around even longer by bouncing it to my hand.
But Mephisto can’t be our Phelddagrif-type card. Because Mephisto is a villain, and I don’t think they would print knock-off satan in Bant colors.
But a spell referencing OMD could be right up there. We already know that Spider-Man is in bant colors, and what’s more Bant than bargaining away your marriage to save your Aunt/Mother figure?(I don’t know, I wasn’t playing around Alara block so I don’t really know what Bant is all about).
Furthermore, while the card could be called One More Day in the Spider-Man set, we don’t have to depend on Godzilla skins for a hopeful reprint like we all were thinking would happen in Final Fantasy and will happen in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
On April 21, 2025, Blake Rasmussen wrote an article called “Through the Omenpaths and Digital Universes Beyond Updates”. The article announced that some Universe Beyond sets will have different card-art and card names in Magic’s digital clients Magic Arena and Magic the Gathering Online. For this year, it was only going to be for Marvel’s Spider-Man. While there was typical online whinging about this, there was some interest in what WotC will do with these simultaneously functional reprints. This does give Wizard’s a chance to revisit some old legends that people have been clamoring for a while.Will Zagorka appear as a reskinned Aunt May? Will we get Dyfed, but they’re a Lizard or Goblin for some reason? While the creatures are trickier, I don’t see any reason why Phelddagrif couldn’t appear on one of the non-creature spells that are printed.
The Overdetermined Kicker
Recently, the set codes were revealed for Through the Omenpaths. They are OM1 and OMB. Both of these set codes are 1 letter off from the infamous abbreviation for one of the most infamous Spider-Man stories: One More Day (OMD).
OM1 + OMB = OMD? OMG