#krenko's guide

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Krenko's Guide to Creature Types: Performer

Art by Simon Dominic

What is a Performer (flavorfully)?

A Performer is someone who professionally entertains, such as by dance, acrobatics, acting, or… sometimes singing. But not all signings are performers, as some of them are bards. And some dancers are bards. Still, 100% of professional wrestlers are performers. 

The vast majority of Performers we’ve seen have been at Myra the Magnificent's Intergalactic Astrotorium of Fun, with the only others at time of printing being in the Spider-Man set. That said, we could easily start seeing a lot more in the future.

What is a Performer (mechanically)?

Performer is a Class (or Job) creature type, and is thus usually paired with a Race (or Species) creature type. As most Performers are from Unfinity, many of them interact with Stickers and/or names of cards, with a few caring about Attractions. They come in all five colors, with a cycle of rare Legendary Performers having Partner. In Spider-Man, the few performers have nothing in common.

Can I make a Performer deck?

You’re playing with acorn cards if you’re doing it, and thus it’s not legal in any official format, but you absolutely can. The only card that cares about Performers is “Done for the Day,” but just by playing Performers you’re making a synergistic Stickers deck. Obviously, using Stickers comes with its own challenges, but it’s an option.

Though there’s Performers with Partner, making a Commander deck with them becomes too tight. Performers are spread among all colors, and you’re only getting two colors this way. It’s genuinely hard for me to tell if this would work.

Is Performer a good creature type?

If Performer only existed in Unfinity, I’d brush it off and not worry about it at all, but Final Fantasy gave us Dancer’s Chakrams (which is basically still ignorable) and Spider-Man has given us five Performers, so I guess we’re doing Performers now. And now I need to complain, because I don’t understand the difference between a Performer and a Bard, and I’m not sure Wizards is really sure what it’s doing with Bard, either.  Now, Bard is a relatively new creature type, not showing up until 2021, but it immediately became standard for musicians, poets, writers, and, for reasons I don’t fully understand, a single painter. Let’s contrast with the Performer type, which appeared in 2022. Angelic Harold is a singer, but he’s a Performer and not a Bard. The Mary Janes, a rock band, are a Bard Performer. Gwen Stacy, their drummer, is a Performer, but not a Bard. Rock Star, a rock star, is a Performer, but not a Bard. Three Dog, a DJ, is a Bard, not a Performer. Lotuslight Dancers are a Bard. Thistledown Players, an acting troupe, is a Bard. 

This is a hot mess, and honestly, I don’t think we need Performer at all. Mary Jane Watson is an actress, she could be a Bard. Professional Wrestler is an actor and stuntman, he could be a Bard. Maybe it’s a bit weird to make acrobatics and beast tamers Bard, and I’m not opposed to a Performer/Bard split, but then it should be clear where that split is and all musicians should be Bard and all dancers should be Performer, but right now that’s not the case.

And of course, there’s the whole issue of this being a new creature type that older creatures don’t get updated to. Rakdos Headliner should certainly be a Performer, as well as half the other members of the cult. Rakdos Firewheeler? Rakdos Ringleader? Judith herself? I know Wizards balks at functional errata, but they could literally have avoided the issue just by making the performers in Spider-Man into Bards. 

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Krenko’s Guide to Creature Types: Pangolin

Art by Winona Nelson

What is a Pangolin (flavorfully)?

The number one most perfect animal to hang out with Sonic the Hedgehog that isn’t already doing so.

Pangolins are small mammals, more closely related to ungulates and carnivores than any of the things they seem more similar to. Also called scaly anteaters, they have hard, keratin scales and they can curl up to be protected by them.

What is a Pangolin (mechanically)?

The five (and one Un-) pangolins don’t seem to have any mechanical identity yet. They're split among three colors, at a variety of sizes, and, despite what one might assume, only one of them is particularly defensive to lean into the ‘heavily armored’ factor. There’s a few concepts that could be leaned into, but nothing has been yet.

Can I make a Pangolin deck?

While there’s theoretically enough to try a 60-card Pangolin deck by playing 4 copies of each pangolin, the lack of synergy or quality means this is a terrible idea.

Is Pangolin a good creature type?

Generally when I question if something’s a good creature type I question whether it’s used well and whether it’s the right type for the thing. Pangolins simply have to be Pangolins. There’s no other group they fit into, at all. The first few were printed as Beast, which I get, but Pangolin is more correct. As far as usage goes, they’ve only printed a few so far, but it’s clear that Wizards is keeping Pangolins in mind, so we could see something actually happen with them at any time. Vote Pangolins for Bloomburrow 2.

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Krenko's Guide to Creature Types: Phelddagrif

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?

Phelddagrif is a joke creature type. The story goes that the team had a running gag that with all the weird creatures they were making for the game they’d eventually have a flying purple hippo, and after attempting to use Phelddagrif as the name for the woman who would be called Freyalise and being told it was too silly, they decided to make the Phelddagrif the flying purple hippo. The second is merely a callback to the original joke.  Making it a creature type for the second is silly - it should probably just be a hippo- but it’s isolated on two cards and it’s clearly meant as a gag, so I’m not going to complain. 

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Krenko's Guide to Creature Types: Pentavite

Art by Greg Staples

What is a Pentavite (flavorfully)?

Pentavites are groups of small, flying drones on Mirrodin that come in batches of five, combining to create a bug-like construct called a Pentavus.

What is a Pentavite (mechanically)?

Pentavites are 1/1 colorless creature tokens with flying. They can be created by removing +1/+1 counters from a Pentavus or sacrificed to put a +1/+1 counters on a Pentavus. Pentavite is a solely unique creature type for Pentavus’ tokens.

Can I make a Pentavite deck?

No. Only one card uses Pentavite tokens and there are no printed Pentavites.

Is Pentavite a good creature type?

Pentavite exists in a small space of creature types that exist solely to ensure the card that uses it only references itself or other copies of itself under normal circumstances. Like Blinkmoth, the creature type isn’t trying to be anything, it’s not fighting anything for design space, and it’s just there to make sure the card works as intended. In theory, Pentavus would still be perfectly balanced if it made Construct tokens, and the concept would remain, but that’d be a significant change to how the card worked due to the sheer number of other Constructs that could be sacrificed to it. As much as I complain about too many creature types, I don’t mind when a card makes uniquely typed tokens and has the ability to specifically reference those tokens.

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Krenko’s Guide to Creature Types: Oyster

What is an Oyster (flavorfully)?

Oysters are saltwater molluscs with two shells, similar to clams or mussels. There's no evidence they're any different in Magic: the Gathering.

What is an Oyster (mechanically)?

Another one-hit-wonder creature type, the sole Oyster is Giant Oyster, a blue creature that taps and stays tapped to tap down another creature and give it an increasing number of -1/-1 counters.

Can I make an Oyster deck?

There’s one Oyster. Moving on.

Is Oyster a good creature type?

Oyster is a weird creature type in that I think it's too narrow, but I’m not sure you can make it much more diverse. If you jump up to bivalve you can add clams and mussels, but their general immobility means that’s still a basically useless creature type. Upping to mollusk adds gastropods like snails and slugs, which is great, but also squid and octopi, which is starting to feel weird. I said with Octopus that I think Cephalopod should be their creature type. Oyster as a type including Clam and Mussel probably works fine, but other than the Clamfolk in Un-sets becoming Oysters I just don’t see anywhere for this to really go. Oyster is Oyster and that’s all it is.

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Krenko’s Guide to Creature Types: Pegasus

Art by Leanna Crossan

What is a Pegasus (flavorfully)?

In Greek mythology, Pegasus was the son of Medusa, a gorgon, and Poseidon, god of horses. He was a white, winged horse, because that’s just the sort of thing that can happen when your father’s a god and your mother is cursed. Pegasus aided the hero Bellopheron in slaying the chimera, but when Bellopheron decided to fly Pegasus to Olympus, Zeus slew Bellopheron and stole Pegasus for himself. Pegasus is henceforth tasked with following Zeus and carrying his lightning bolts. At some undefined point, Pegasus died and Zeus placed him in the stars as a constellation. 

In Magic: the Gathering, Pegasi are winged horses. They’re usually white, but not always. They appear on many planes, with a higher-than usual population on Ravnica. Pegasi are often wild, and it is unclear how intelligent they are, but they seem to have some sense of heroism. As a rule, only the honorable and pure are permitted to ride a Pegasus. (Though Park Heights Pegasus allows a burglar to ride it, New Capenna’s law-challenged society necessitates honorable and pure burglars.)

What is a Pegasus (mechanically)?

Pegasus is an extremely tight creature type, reliably being small white creatures with flying. There’s only a single non-white Pegasus, only one with power greater than 3, and only one with toughness greater than 3. Pegasus tokens are 1/1 white creatures with flying on five cards, though Archon of Sun’s Grace makes 2/2s instead.

In addition to having flying for themselves, a significant amount of Pegasi have some sort of mechanic to enable another creature to ride them. With only 23 black-bordered Pegasi at time of writing, 5 of them granting another creature flying is a clear and rather consistent mechanical identity. Putting it all together, Trusted Pegasus becomes “the” Pegasus, a 2/2 Flying creature that grants another creature Flying when it attacks. As a bonus, we see it depicted allowing an honorable and pure hero to ride it.

Can I make a Pegasus deck?

Most Pegasi are weak. They're usually commons and the creature type has never really been pushed. That said, Thurid, Mare of Destiny, is a powerful Legendary Pegasus that could enable a fun kitchen-table deck. If you are just going casual, you can also try Princess Twilight Sparkle for further Pegasus Power.

Both Thurid and Twilight are interesting in their abilities affecting not just Pegasi, but Horses and Unicorns as well. Thurid locking you into mono-white can be an issue in commander, but you’ve suddenly got a real option for a Pegasus-heavy deck. Your other “choose a creature type” cards get weakened by this option, but it’s a tradeoff.

It is definitely possible to make a Pegasus deck, but at The Moment it seems doomed to be sub-par.

Is Pegasus a good creature type?

Pegasus is clear, mechanically tight, has a strong identity, has good flavor, and really, really needs to properly get batched with Horses and Unicorns. This is the sort of creature where I feel Magic’s entire concept of creature types hits its biggest flaw. The Pegasi are clearly Pegasi and are doing Pegasus things that mean their creature type is doing its job well for most purposes… but it would be better and cleaner mechanically if Pegasi, Horses, and Unicorns were a single type, enabling them to share not just specific support cards but all the “choose a creature type” support cards. But should they be attached to Horses? Or should Horses be with Goats and Sheep? We need more batching, I think, but these things get really complicated in paper.

But, really, as the child of Medusa and Poseidon, Pegasi should be listed as God Gorgons. That would clear up all confusion.

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Krenko's Guide to Creature Types: Pest

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.

Pest doesn’t mean anything in any real sense, and the Mirrodin Pests aren’t even remotely the same sort of thing as the Strixhaven Pests. It’s a useless creature type that could have been something else entirely in design, and could have been Salamander or something else even after all the art assets were in. It’s vague and pointless, and the only card that even cares about the type specifically is Blex, Vexing Pest, who also supports Bats, Insects, Spiders, and Snakes, any one of which could have been Witherbloom’s mascot creature.

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Krenko's Guide to Creature Types: Peasant

Art by Bryan Sola

What is a Peasant (flavorfully)?

Peasant is a recently introduced “class” creature type that probably would’ve been heavily errata’d into older cards if Wizards wasn’t moving away from updating old creature types. The peasant type is for people without formal combat training who live in feudal or unincorporated areas. It’s contrasted with Citizen, which is a similar type for people with rights and representation. The clearest sign of this difference is that Frodo Baggins, a wealthy landowner, is a Citizen, while Samwise Gamgee, his gardener, is a Peasant. 

What is a Peasant (mechanically)?

Mostly a placeholder for people without class, the Peasant creature type intentionally lacks a mechanical identity. That said, the Peasant type is most heavily featured in Lord of the Rings and Eldraine, both of which have Food subthemes, which LotR heavily puts on its non-combatant Peasants. This means there’s already 12 peasants mechanically tied to food, which is honestly a pretty high percentage when you compare it to, say, the percentage of Goblins with Haste or Elves that tap for mana. They also lean heavily white.

Can I make a Peasant deck?

Making a decent deck filled with peasants is entirely reasonable, but you’re going to get more mileage out of those peasants if you play a Halfling deck instead… or, more specifically, if you play a Food token deck that happens to run a bunch of peasants. Using LotR cards as a base to make a 60 card GW food deck would be easy. For commander, there are a whopping 11 Legendary Peasants already, plus at least one already revealed from the future, with either Samwise Gamgee or Sam, Loyal Attendant and his partner Frodo being great choices for peasant-heavy decks.

Is Peasant a good creature type?

As a placeholder for classes, Peasant is fine. It’s a bit awkward that Innistrad: Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow are full of peasants while the first two Innistrads don’t have any, and while I disagree with Wizards being less aggressive about putting in new creature types on older cards, I understand it. Whether Peasant on its own is good is going to come down to a few factors that will require further sets to see. First off is the question of whether Peasants interacting with food is a real part of their identity or mostly a Halfling thing.