Nephalia Drownyard MTG Card
2011-09-30 - Number 245
2022-06-10 - Number 905
2023-11-17 - Number 344
2019-12-02 - Number 351
| Card sets | Released in 4 setsSee all |
| Rarity | Rare |
| Type | Land |
| Abilities | Mill |
Key Takeaways
- Nephalia Drownyard offers sustained card advantage through its graveyard milling ability.
- Activation at instant speed allows strategic mana use and threat management.
- The mill strategy can be countered through graveyard shuffling or aggressive play.
Text of card
: Add to your mana pool. , : Target player puts the top three cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
"Some see a coastal disaster. I see a fully-stocked seagraf." —Jadar, ghoulcaller of Nephalia
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Nephalia Drownyard provides sustained card advantage, allowing players to repeatedly place the top three cards of an opponent’s library into their graveyard. This incremental advantage can lead to disrupting your opponents’ strategies and gaining the upper hand over the course of a game.
Resource Acceleration: As a land card, Nephalia Drownyard taps for colorless mana, which contributes to your resource pool without sacrificing your land drop for the turn. The ability to use the Drownyard’s secondary function while still having access to mana supports both your board presence and your offensive strategies.
Instant Speed: The power to activate Nephalia Drownyard’s ability at instant speed gives players the flexibility to wait until the most strategically opportune moment—perhaps during an opponent’s end step—to mill. This allows for intelligent mana management while keeping potential threats at bay without interrupting your own turn.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: One of Nephalia Drownyard’s limitations is its requirement for a card to be discarded, which may force players to lose valuable hand presence. If your deck relies on maintaining a substantial hand size, this card’s discard effect could put you at a disadvantage against opponents.
Specific Mana Cost: Nephalia Drownyard requires not just one but three types of mana to activate its ability – one colorless, one black, and one blue. This specific mana requirement can limit the card’s inclusion to only certain types of decks that can consistently provide blue and black mana.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: The activation cost for utilizing Nephalia Drownyard’s milling ability is high compared to other milling cards. With a cost of three mana, you might find that this investment hampers your ability to play other important spells during your turn, potentially slowing down your game strategy.
Reasons to Include Nephalia Drownyard in Your Collection
Versatility: Nephalia Drownyard serves a dual role in both enabling self-mill strategies and disrupting opponents’ tactics. Its ability to fit into various deck types, including control or graveyard-centric decks, makes it a multipurpose asset for your collection.
Combo Potential: This land has great synergy with cards that benefit from putting cards into a graveyard. It can set up powerful plays, fuel reanimator strategies, or combine with abilities that trigger off of milling—unleashing potent combos in both casual and competitive play.
Meta-Relevance: In metas where long games are prevalent, the incremental advantage provided by Nephalia Drownyard can be decisive. It’s a valuable tool against control decks and can strategically remove key cards from opponents’ libraries, making it relevant in an ever-shifting MTG landscape.
How to beat
Nephalia Drownyard serves as a strategic card in Magic: The Gathering, primarily used in control decks aiming to manipulate the opponent’s library. As a land, it comes with the key advantage of not using up a spell slot while still providing utility. Its ability to mill an opponent, sending the top three cards of their library into the graveyard, can be a slow but sure path to victory.
Countering this strategy involves a few different approaches. One effective way is by employing graveyard shuffling effects, such as the artifact Elixir of Immortality, which allows you to reset your library and gain life. Another is using cards like Gaea’s Blessing, resurrecting your spells and thwarting mill strategies. Additionally, incorporating cards that benefit from having a stocked graveyard can turn Nephalia Drownyard’s effect into an advantage for you. Decks featuring mechanics like Dredge, Delve, or cards that trigger upon creature cards entering your graveyard from the library can actually gain value from being milled.
Recognizing the slow nature of Nephalia Drownyard’s milling, players can also focus on speeding up their gameplay with aggressive decks or strategies that put pressure on control opponents, often making the mill strategy less effective.
Cards like Nephalia Drownyard
Exploring the depths of mill-themed strategies, Nephalia Drownyard stands as a notable land card within the landscape of MTG. What makes it similar to cards like Ipnu Rivulet is the ability to target a player’s library and strategically dismantle it. However, Nephalia Drownyard is distinctive in its focused mill functionality, requiring no sacrifice compared to the Rivulet’s demand of sacing a land.
Duskmantle, House of Shadow presents another parallel, offering the same mill potential but at the cost of mana rather than tapping an additional land. Although Duskmantle enables repeated use within a turn, Nephalia Drownyard is preferred for its colorless activation cost, making it more versatile across various deck builds.
When considering their integration into a control deck, Nephalia Drownyard’s incremental and inevitable mill effect can often outpace its counterparts, especially when coupled with defensive plays, shaping a more resilient board state against a variety of MTG deck strategies.
Cards similar to Nephalia Drownyard by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Nephalia Drownyard MTG card by a specific set like Innistrad and Secret Lair Drop, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.
For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.
Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.
Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Nephalia Drownyard and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Printings
The Nephalia Drownyard Magic the Gathering card was released in 4 different sets between 2011-09-30 and 2023-11-17. Illustrated by 2 different artists.
| # | Released | Name | Code | Symbol | Number | Frame | Layout | Border | Artist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2011-09-30 | Innistrad | ISD | 245 | 2003 | Normal | Black | Cliff Childs | |
| 2 | Secret Lair Drop | SLD | 351 | 2015 | Normal | Black | Kerby Rosanes | ||
| 3 | 2022-06-10 | Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate | CLB | 905 | 2015 | Normal | Black | Cliff Childs | |
| 4 | 2023-11-17 | The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander | LCC | 344 | 2015 | Normal | Black | Cliff Childs |
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Nephalia Drownyard has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Penny | Legal |