Callum just responded to
this other thread, like so:
Originally posted by Callum Milne:
If you attempt to manifest the top card of your library while Grafdigger's Cage is on the battlefield, nothing happens. At all. The top card of your library is completely unaffected in any way by the attempt to manifest it.
I am pretty sure that this is currently incorrect per the CR, though it is likely the intention of the rules team that it be correct. The CR for Manifest reads:
Originally posted by CR 701.32a:
To manifest a card, turn it face down. It becomes a 2/2 face-down creature card with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost. Put that card onto the battlefield face down. That permanent is a manifested permanent as long as it remains face down. The effect defining its characteristics works while the card is face down and ends when it’s turned face up.
Manifest very explicitly goes out of its way to turn the card into a creature card before moving it to the battlefield. So at the very least, it momentarily becomes a creature card.
The more important issue, though, is that since the card fails to move, the effect does not end. In accordance with the bolded sentence, it is face down, and has not been turned face up. Thus, it remains a creature card face down on top of the library indefinitely, which is basically not OK – in particular, it can get shuffled, and then it's impossible to know when to stop revealing cards for an effect like
Evolutionary Leap.
For this reason, this is pretty certainly a bug, and the behavior Callum describes is most likely the intended behavior.
If my understanding of all this is correct, I think a small amendment to 701.32a along the lines of replacing both instances of “face down” with “face down on the battlefield” would resolve the issue.
If my understanding is not correct, there are two possibilities:
A) Callum is correct under the CR as written. In this case, my question is: what is causing the effect to end?
B) Callum is incorrect, and it's
not a bug. In this case, my question is: why is it ok to have an unknown card be a textless 2/2 creature card at a random position in the library?