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Emergency Blog Post: No Phelddagrif in the Edge

Magic's greatest recent Love Letter to itself had no Phelddagrif, what does that mean?

It is Saturday, July 23, and I have been through the full spoiler for Edge of Eternities five times, looking for Phelddagrif.

But there was no Phelddagrif to be found.

I have combed over every card, the art, the flavor text, even the mana costs! All hoping to find a glimmer of a trace of the beloved purple pachyderm that The Many love so much.

But, still, there was no Phelddagrif to be found.

It is the night of July 25, I went to my not-so-local-game-store (I travel across state lines to play in prereleases, it’s how I was taught to do prereleases, a sort of cultural exchange for that both fearless and godless state that worships crabs that I must visit (now) 6 times a year) and played in the prerelease. I opened my packs, flipping quickly through the cards searching for a flash of “One WUG” casting cost before ripping into the next pack. The constant process of finding nothing. With a morose expression on my face, you should have seen it, I put together a deck and played the Format of Kings: Prerelease Limited.

Yet, there was no Phelddagrif to be found.

It is midnight, July 26, I open my prize packs from the prerelease. Not to polish my own trophy, but I’ve been on a hot streak since Outlaws of Thunder Junction. By the end of the night I’m playing at the top table. To be clear, it’s not “the top tables”, but the top table. #1, first seed, can’t get any higher than that. And, as I handily dispatch my opponent (after agreeing to prize split. When the game starts, I am a warrior with the mind of a cold stone, unmoving and unrelenting presence, but in between rounds I am the palm tree,who breaks to no gale), we collect our packs and go our separate ways.

I open my packs at home, in a safe state where people know how to drive, and flip through my winnings. Perhaps there is a special unannounced reprint, or maybe something went wrong at the printers, or something happened with quantum physics, a sort of “sci-fi” thing that would be thematic with a space setting. I’m not asking for a miracle, just something!

I fall to my knees, surrounded by torn pack wrappers glinting moonlight, and weep.

And there was no Phelddagrif to be found.

That morning, I flip through my cards to see what I opened, thinking that I missed something in my hypnagogic state. No luck, no clue, no chance.

Talk about a failure to launch! Phelddagrif is not in Edge of Eternities. There’s been several thousand cards it feels like (maybe I’ll put the right number in later, we’ll see), but still no Phelddagrif. Edge of Eternities was set to be a homerun. The story is amazing, the art is gorgeous, the prerelease was fun, and the poke-scalpers brought into the game by Final Fantasy buying up EoE product will make the suits think that the set is a success and demand a sequel!

So what went wrong?

What Went Wrong

I guess there was only room for one iconic creature from Ice Age block in this set.

This guy took Carl Sagan’s words that “we are made of star stuff” too seriously!

And I’m not mad. I’m not disappointed. I’m actually quite happy. I love everything about this card. From the name, the 2 cmc mana cost invoking Tarmogoyf , to the kick-ass art, to the flavor text referencing the original Lhurgoyf. This card is an exciting addition to Magic. There was a time when I would have been more cynical about referencing past cards. I would have called it pandering at best and unnecessary and self-congratulating masturbation at worst.

But Cosmogoyf is no mere reference to halcyon days of cumulative upkeep and reminder text of cards that didn’t exist yet. Cosmogoyf is a creature that creates itself out of its past. It’s less of a branch off the tree of Summon Lhurgoyf and more of a rhizome intrepidly shooting down a path of its own. The elements are recognizable to the layers, but they’ve come back changed from the edge. It’s no longer just fantasy, but science-fantasy.

And it’s also Creature - Elemental Lhurgoyf.

Star Signs

I’m going to preface the following by saying that, while I’m not a follower of Mark Rosewater’s Tumblr “Blogatog”, I am a fan of Mark Rosewater. I’m grateful for how much Mark cares about the community and how much interaction the community has with one someone who has had such a longstanding impact on the game. Not only are Magic players lucky to have a designer who engages so much with the game’s fans, but it’s clear that Mark Rosewater loves the game.I’m also a fan of the work he did on Questing Phelddagrif.

With all that said, I’m also a fan of the cryptic statements he makes on his blog.

What an enigma! Such mystery! What hermeneutical tools do we have in our intellectual toolshed to help decode this baffling statement. “Teasing what is possible” would imply that WotC doesn’t control what comes out of their booster packs! They can put anything in there! They once put Moat in booster packs. In fact, they did it twice! Is it the setting that matters: “in a space set”? Does that mean a lobster can only be a chef in space, and everywhere else chefs have to be trolls or elves? No, I think it is clear that MaRo’s answer isn’t so narrow. I believe these tools are a bit rusty, and we need to apply some charity to them.

Let’s focus on ‘teasing’ then. MaRo’s answer is engaging in a bit of playful provocation, as if to say “you are right, there is just one of each, you didn’t miss anything except what we haven’t printed yet.” There’s the not-quite-promise of more to come in the future, another space set bringing more of Magic’s weird and eclectic creatures to the forefront to join the Eumidians, Illvoi, and Drix.

And Edge of Eternities, the set, is also teasing, it’s pulling apart and separating the strands of the setting. The Planeswalker’s Guide insists that life in the Edge is chaotic, and that the Edge is huge, bigger than any setting in Magic before. We couldn’t possibly show all of what’s out here. Edge of Eternities helps filter out that tangled mess of chaos, sifts it through the teeth of its comb and produces a coherent guide for wizards who have found themselves in outer space. And one or two stray hairs, the sliver and Eldrazi, have found themselves not entirely filtered out. It doesn’t mean that more are not out there.

One Small Step

This teasing of what is possible is fueled by the nostalgia In the Edge. Edge of Eternities is a science-fiction set, concerning itself with the future. Space ships are from the future. Visiting different worlds is something we are supposed to do in the future. Laser pistols and bug/human romantic relations are supposed to be things in the future. But a lot of the set has us looking towards Magic’s past, what has been left behind like detritus on the moon as we continue to explore other planes in the blind eternities. The set is littered with references to the creatures and aspects of Magic's past. Kavu have return as the Kav of Kavaron. The long awaited return of Eumidians has finally manifested before our sun goes supernova. Slivers and Eldrazi are the hypebeasts that have created the biggest buzz when crossing over into the Edge.

Beyond this, there's also a lot of other smaller references, mostly found in the story. Mirri the cat, shahrazad and “Cherazad”, Hawking Radiation and Squadron Hawks, references to the Gatewatch and to the "Test of Metal" novel. I got unreasonably excited when Tezzeret gave a passing reference to the Mirari.

In the reddit1 thread linking to this blog-atog post, sprinkled between the usual reddit carping are users mentioning other creatures they wish they saw show up again: Atog, Slith, Metathran. It’s exciting to think about the future, to think about what can come, and, when we do so, we are limited by our past, by wishing to see those memories that have left us behind. So much Magic potpourri scattered, whatever bit of Magic lore you’ve been holding on like a worry stone we can hope will still be acknowledged in future sets in the Edge.

Gravitational Pull

It is the beginning of September as I write this. I’ve posted my hastily put together Marvel’s: Spider-Man Phelddagrif prediction, but my mind is still on Edge of Eternities. I’ve been thinking about what draws me to the set, what compels me to keep thinking about Kavaron, about Tezzeret experiencing true freedom for the first time, of Tannuk’s tragic aversion towards choice, of Haliya’s faith and Alpharael’s enthusiastic insistence on existence, of the set’s sense of scope, big creatures, big spaceships, of some legends remaining mysterious without too much about them said (Ragost, I’m looking at you) and how many many more named characters in the story are waiting to be seen on cards, or never get cards and remain story-only Magic characters.

I’m thinking about planets, about crew, about station, about lander tokens, about the return of Kavu as a card type, about the stunning art in the set that makes draft chaff foils stand out. When I think about these things, I am excited, I am pulled in by the setting and I want more of it. I’m thinking about all the great writing for the set, from Dominarian Plowshares and MTGCritical, and how excited a lot of people were for this set.

I’m thinking about the possibilities for the future, about going to an entirely different system, where none of our crew shows up, an entirely different story set in the Edge, but with the same feel, the same mood, the same atmosphere.

But, what has attracted my attention the most has been this this interaction from episode 8 of the main story, where Sami responds to Tannuk saying that Mirri is fine and being taken care of by other people:

"Yeah," Sami says quietly. "But I have to know. She's my cat. It's not a silly thing, Tannuk. Everyone who left thought it was silly to care so much. But they wouldn't have thought it were silly if she were my sister, or my mother, or my wife, or my friend, or my comrade from a war, or the only other person who survived the Wurm Speaker, or … or a complete stranger who I fell in love with at first sight. If I spent the rest of my life chasing those hypotheticals, it'd be decent, faithful. It's just, because she's a little cat, people think, well, she's not quite a person. She doesn't deserve devotion the way a sister or a lover or a comrade would. Maybe not. Maybe they're all right, and I'm wrong. Maybe Mirri's a lesser thing than a person. The way you or I would be lesser than a—a Drix, or a god, if there are gods. So? So? Would that change anything? Shouldn't we treat lesser things better than we treat ourselves? Wouldn't you hope, if there were gods, that they would chase you across the stars just to make sure you were all right? Even if Mirri's less than me, somehow, I have to treat Mirri the way I would want to be treated by a god."

Sami embodies those devotees of Phelddagrif, the Pheldda-lievers. There are plenty of other ways to engage with the game, hoping for more value commanders in the future, or a fun standard format. Those are understood. They seem sensible. But, in the face of the totality of existence, that which is so much larger than us and makes us realize how small we are, how little control we have and how much control everything that isn’t you has over you, what can we do? What can we choose to do? Sami provides an answer; while we may not choose the objects of our devotion, we may choose how we care. Even in the face of the mechanics of the Universe, in the face of the construction of social norms that have been reinforced throughout time, when that hope seems absurd, they still believe in it. And, through that care, our lives acting as demonstrations of our beliefs, effect those changes in those larger things; physics, black holes, quarks, Drix.

Similarly, Pheldda-lievers hope anyways, A hope that hope radiates to instantiate one’s beliefs in the world2, one where Phelddagrif is reprinted, now matter how many times it continues not to be.

What if Sami met Phelddagrif? Maybe we'll get some planar chaos-style sets soon that let us see that happening!

So I guess we could say that Sami is sort of an honorary Phelddagrif. As long as we ignore all the mechanics on their card, their typeline, and a few other things too. But why not? The absurdity of it actually compounds the logic of Sami being an honorary Phelddagrif! I, some guy with a blog, formally announce Sami’s status as an honorary Phelddagrif-like creature!3

Wrapped Up

But the set is also rooted in the present; science fiction isn’t “the future” for the characters in the story anymore than the time you are reading this and I am writing this is in the future for when that act occurs. And the present is a gift, one that we should cherish. A gift that is wrapped, wrapped like a spider cocoons its prey after it has been ensnared in its web. Oh! What a tangled mess this ending has become! I’ll admit, I had so many other plans for this post, but the shifting web of daily life and the pressures of running a blog has really caused some sections to stretch and get a bit messy, and, I’ve become tangled in a universe beyond my control.

Which is to say, Look out! Here comes the Phel-ddagrif! in Marvel’s: Spider-man.