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I control Lich and Words of Worship . During my upkeep I activate Words of Worship twice. How many cards will I draw during my draw step?

My thought is this:

1) As my draw step begins, I attempt to draw a card.
2) "Draw a card" is replaced by WoW#1 with "Gain 5 life."
3) "Gain 5 life" is replaced by Lich with "Draw five cards."
4) "Draw five cards" is replaced by WoW#2 with "Gain 5 life, then draw four cards."
5) Lich's replacement effect has already applied, so it doesn't apply again.

End result: Gain 5 life and draw four cards.

That looks right to me, assuming the ad-hoc definition of "event" most of us use rather than the rulebook's definition.

WotC really needs to expand on section 701 so we have a working definition of "event."

That sounds good.  The event being replaced is the initial card draw, first it's being replaced by the Words of Worship's effect, then that gets replaced by the lich.  Since Words of Worship's ability was activated again that is a seperate replacement effect so it can still apply to that event, and does so by replacing one of the 5 draws of the lich with a 5 point life gain.  After that all the replacement effects have been applied and you'd gain 5 life and draw 4 cards.

According to Oracle Lich says if you would gain life draw that many cards instead so why is it not replacing the second instance of life gain?

A replacement effect can only apply once to any given event. There is only one event here (the initial "draw a card"), that gets modified by several replacement effects, the Lich's is one (1) of those effects, so it can only apply once and that happened in step 3). It therefore cannot apply to further modifications of that event.

Ah I see now, thank you.

Question: Can Lich apply to the subsequent draws as separate events?

For example: If there was a third activation of Words, it would apply to the second draw which should be a separate event so Lich should be able to apply to it, right?

Jan 2, 2013 -- 2:58PM, 2goth4U wrote:

Question: Can Lich apply to the subsequent draws as separate events?

For example: If there was a third activation of Words, it would apply to the second draw which should be a separate event so Lich should be able to apply to it, right?

The concensus would be no, because it still stems from the initial card draw. That's why I was saying we need a better definition for "event" in the CR. "Anything that happens" is a very subjective phrase.

The first draw would still be the same event, however, the subsequent draws should be distinct from the initial event, shouldn't they?

Initial Event: {Draw a card}

Apply first Words: {Gain 5 life}

Apply Lich: {Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card} 

Apply 2nd Words: {Gain 5 life}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}

do first event and gain 5 life

Apply 3rd Words: {Gain 5 life}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}

Apply Lich as it's a new event: {Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}{Draw a card}  

No.

Imagine a card like Well of Lost Dreams but with a replacement effect. That card combined with Lich would cause the game to enter a neverending loop of replacing life gain with card draw and vice-versa, all stemming off a single "event."

We had a similar discussion concerning Parallel Lives a week or two ago. Sub-events can't be sunject to replacement effects already applied to a parent event.

yeah, I came to the same conclusion as I pondered it some more.

if Thought Reflection could apply to the second draw event that it created, it'd make an infinite loop.

on the other hand, anything that applied to the initial draw like say a Sages of the Anima would apply to both the resulting draws as they are separate events, yet born from the same initial event

so Lich couldn't possibly apply to anything resulting from the 5 life gained converted to draws just as Thought Reflection can't apply to either of the resulting draw events