Ask a Magic Judge

It was a dark and stormy night: Perfect weather for animating skaabs. Each of the young stitchers waited with patient apprehension for their turn on the rooftop as the Head Stitcher carefully examined the projects one last time to make sure that all of the amalgamated flesh was truly dead and carried no signs of Emrakul’s corruption.

Meanwhile in the library, students and researchers worked in near silence with only the occasional scratch of a quill, a muffled cough, or the turn of a page to distract from the storm raging outside.

In the sea of madness and delirium that Innistrad had become, somehow this place had survived as a sanctuary.

Welcome to Nephalia Academy.

I am absolutely thrilled to be able to introduce you all to Nephalia Academy, which is the Magic Judge program’s official preview card for Eldritch Moon.

(Keep reading! Lots of information below the cut!)

Magic has never quite had an effect like this before, but of course it’s going to make some of you think of Library of Leng:

The replacement effects of Nephalia Academy and Library of Leng are almost identical, but there are two important differences:

• Nephalia Academy’s replacement effect only applies to cards that you discard because of spells or abilities an opponent controls, whereas Library of Leng applied to any card that wasn’t discarded to pay a cost.
• Nephalia Academy’s replacement effect causes you to reveal the cards if you put them on top of your library, whereas Library of Leng has you put them there without revealing the cards.
  

So, comparisons to an Old Weird Card™ aside, 
How does Nephalia Academy actually work? 

Let’s look at a basic case where your opponent targets you with Mind Rot while you control Nephalia Academy:

When Mind Rot goes to resolve, you’ll choose two cards in your hand and discard them. (Nephalia Academy doesn’t change the fact that the cards were discarded.) For each of those two cards, you can choose to discard it to your graveyard as normal, or to apply Nephalia Academy’s effect to it and reveal it then put it on top of your library instead. If you choose to put both of the cards on top of your library, all players will know which one is on the top and which one is second from the top.

All right, simple enough, but I can already hear the “but what if…”s from the audience, so let’s get to some of the less simple situations: 

“What if I discard a card with Madness?”

Well, it depends on how you’re discarding it, because Nephalia Academy only works with cards that your opponent causes you to discard. If you discard Fiery Temper to your own Heir of Falkenrath, then Nephalia Academy has nothing to say about the matter.

If we assume that you’re discarding it to your opponent’s Mind Rot or Duress or the like, then we have two separate replacement effects each wanting to modify the discard. If you choose to apply Nephalia Academy’s replacement effect and send it to the top of your library, then Madness will never trigger and you won’t be able to cast Fiery Temper for R since it never ends up in exile.

“What if the discard is optional? Or what if I discard instead of doing something else?”

Excellent questions! It doesn’t matter if you could have done something other than discard the card, like letting that Murder you targeted Reality Smasher with get countered by the triggered ability, for example. You can still use Nephalia Academy’s effect and discard to the top of your library since your opponent controls the spell or ability that caused you to discard the card. The same holds true for making choices for your opponent’s Remorseless Punishment.

“What about cards that trigger when I discard? Or cards that care about what I discard?”

Wow, you’ve got all the right questions today, hypothetical reader! So, you’re still discarding the cards, even if they go to the top of your library because of Nephalia Academy, so cards like Liliana’s Caress will still trigger. The card is revealed as it moves to the top of the library, so effects that look to see what kind of card you’re discarding, such as Waste Not, will be able to trigger appropriately. Similarly, this means that you’ll be able to discard cards of a specific type if the spell or ability asks you to do so. For example, you’ll be able to discard an artifact card from your hand to the top of your library to satisfy your opponent’s Wrench Mind.

“But what can I do with it that’s really weird?”

All right, we’re through the more common stuff, but there’s one particular class of cards that have a cool and weird interaction with Nephalia Academy. Cards like Guerrilla Tactics and Metrognome have abilities that trigger when a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard them. If you discard these cards to your library with Nephalia Academy, they’re revealed on the way and so those abilities will trigger and you’ll get to deal 4 damage or get four Gnome tokens. Huzzah!

So I’ve said about all I can say regarding this fine little utility land. I’m sure some of you will have more questions about specific interactions, and so I encourage you to send them to my inbox.

Thanks for reading!