Opinions of a goblin. Two goblins. Four.

Art by Matt Cavotta

What is a Phelddagrif (flavorfully)?

When a Griffon mates with a horse, it creates a Hippogriff, a mythological joke of a creature too silly to exist. One day, back in Dominaria’s Ice Age, a single Griffon got so absolutely blackout drunk that it mated with a hippopotamus. This hippo then gave birth to the legendary Phelddagrif, meaning field-griffon (Hippogriff means horse-griffon, and hippopotamus means river horse.) The Phelddagrif was a loving and kind being that healed people, invented the game of Magic: the Gathering, and had many babies. In modern times, Dominaria still has a small Phelddagrif population.

Also, I made all of that up. There’s no lore for these cards. They’re just winged hippos, named after the game’s creator, Richard “Garfield, Ph. D.”

What is a Phelddagrif (mechanically)?

I’m just going to post them right here, so you can see how tightly they’re related. The latter is a clear homage to the former, with the same mana cost, power and toughness as well as abilities clearly inspired by the original’s.

Can I make a Phelddagrif deck?

While there’s only two of the things, one’s Legendary and a classic Group Hug commander. Give everybody hippos and card draw and life!  Be kind! Make friends! Figure out how to betray them later. A 4/4 isn’t the best choice for commander damage, but Flying and Trample both help, and there’s plenty of alternate win conditions like Approach of the Second Sun and Thassa’s Oracle.

Is Phelddagrif a good creature type?

My personal preferences:

Get rid of Rhystic Study. Game changer, ban it, set it on fire, whatever. It's too strong for it's cost and more importantly it's annoying and unfun and bogs down games. I can see an argument that it's not too powerful and people can just pay, but the biggest issue is that a trigger ability on anyone casting a spell in a four player game that involves someone asking and another answering is just annoying. I've had plenty of games where I've won against Rhystic Study, but I've never had games where I've had fun against Rhystic Study.

Thassa's Oracle is fine- it's just a slightly better Labaratory Maniac or that Jace, and decks I see winning with it were just doing a clean win when they had unlimited options for dirtier ones. You can two-card with it, yes, but comboing out is dealt with by brackets, and winning by drawing out your deck is fine. Maybe it's just me, but I've never seen Thassa's Oracle as a combo piece, I just see it a lot as a win condition in a deck that wants to fairly mill itself or draw all its cards.

I'm obviously not sure if another backet is needed without more testing. I'll keep it in mind.

Significant spoilers for Legends: Z-A's story

Art by Zoltan Boros

What is a Pest (flavorfully)?

Pest is a rather generic word to refer to anything that’s small and annoying, such as rodents, bugs, or your little sister. Sometimes pests are negligible and can be shooed away. Sometimes pests completely devastate the crops leading to years of famine and a blight upon the land.

In Magic: the Gathering, we have two distinct pest sets. The pests on Mirrodin, represented in two cards, are tiny robot bugs with no clear purpose, but the far better known pests are those of Strixhaven. To quote the Planeswalker’s Guide, pests are “salamander-like, generally irritating creatures that dissolve readily into magical power for Witherbloom spells.” They’re spikey and bitey and nobody really likes them, so Witherbloom students feel free to sacrifice them for power and mana… which in turn makes Witherbloom students start to like them. I specifically point out the Salamander line, which I’ll come back to at the end.

What is a Pest (mechanically)?

The majority of Pests in Magic: the Gathering are 1/1 black and green creature tokens with “When this creature dies, you gain 1 life.” There are a dozen cards that make these tokens and only three actual, printed Pests. One is Blex, their lord, another is a mutated pest, and one is a random Mirrodin Beseiged card that's a callback to Nuisance Engine, which uses the Pest creature type for its 0/1 tokens. Why does it make Pests instead of any other creature type? No idea. Was it supposed to be insect but the artist only put in four legs instead of six?

Can I make a Pest deck?

In 60 card, this is just a Witherbloom deck, and it’ll be decent enough for kitchen table but nothing to write home about. Pests are only supported in a single set, so you’ll have some options but not enough.

In Commander, this is a Beledros Witherbloom deck, and you’ve got multiple options on how you want to go with it. Beledros supports all the pest cards, though there’s still not enough support to really make a ‘Pest’ deck so much as a deck that happens to have a decent number of Pests. Kindred rewards aren’t going to get you anywhere you’d want to get, so you’re just enjoying that Pests exist.

Is Pest a good creature type?

Remember at the start how we said they’re like Salamanders? Why aren’t they Salamanders? Why does this type exist at all? Witherbloom, Silverquill, and Quandrix are genuinely at a drawback compared to Prismari and Lorehold, because Pest, Inkling, and Fractal are unique types with no other support while Elemental has a reasonable amount of support and Spirit is one of the more supported creature types.