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Suppose I have Sidisi, Brood Tyrant out:

Whenever one or more creature cards are put into your graveyard from your library, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

I also have Underrealm Lich:

If you would draw a card, instead look at the top three cards of your library, then put one into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.

I then play Concentrate:

Draw three cards.

Because of rule 120.2, I do this by drawing one card three times, each of which is replaced by Underrealm Lich's replacement effect:

120.2. Cards may only be drawn one at a time. If a player is instructed to draw multiple cards, that player performs that many individual card draws.

So, three times I will look at the top three cards of my library, put one into my hand, and put the rest into my graveyard.

Let's assume for simplicity that every card near the top of my library is a creature card. In this situation, does Sidisi create:

  • only one zombie, because of the single "draw three cards" instruction putting creature cards into my graveyard, or
  • three zombies, because of three separate instructions from Underrealm Lich putting creature cards into my graveyard?
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2 Answers 2

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You get 3 Zombie tokens.

Each card draw is processed separately from the others:

120.6b If an effect replaces a draw within a sequence of card draws, the replacement effect is completed before resuming the sequence.

As you already noted, you can only draw one card at a time:

120.2. Cards may only be drawn one at a time. If a player is instructed to draw multiple cards, that player performs that many individual card draws.

The draw replacement effect ultimately causes you to move cards from your library to your graveyard ("move" for brevity). Since you can only draw one card at a time, and the replacement effects works on each draw individually in sequence, you also move 2 cards at a time, and Sidisi triggers on each of those moves.

Since the card draw is the event that, together with Lich's replacement effect, ultimately triggers Sidisi's ability, consider an analogous situation: Underworld Dreams triggers on each card draw. If you were to draw 3 cards, you would get 3 separate damage events, as the ruling on that card's gatherer page confirms. Therefore, any ability that is triggered by a replacement effect that replaced a card draw would react the same way.

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  • This answers how Underrealm Lich's replacement effect interacts with the multiple card draws from Concentrate. But it doesn't really answer how Sidisi's triggered ability is going to work. Does it trigger once for all 3 card draws or does it trigger once for each draw?
    – Becuzz
    Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 12:02
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    @Becuzz It triggers once for each draw, assuming there's at least one creature card in the two cards you put in the graveyard each time. If you failed to find a creature card on one of those sequences, it would create one less zombie.
    – chif-ii
    Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 13:08
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    @chif-ii I believe that is correct, I just think the answer would be better if it addressed that more directly. The OP didn't seem to be confused about how the replacement effect interacted with multiple card draws. It seems the question stemmed more from if each separate card draw/replacement puts a trigger on the stack or do they all only cause one triggered ability to be placed on the stack? If they each cause a triggered ability, you get 3 tokens. If the game looks at all those draws as one event and only gives you one triggered ability, you would only get one token.
    – Becuzz
    Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 13:57
  • @Becuzz That is an exactly correct summary. 👍
    – doppelgreener
    Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 15:35
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You make 3 zombie tokens

120.2. Cards may only be drawn one at a time. If a player is instructed to draw multiple cards, that player performs that many individual card draws.

Based on previous answers (Is drawing multiple cards an atomic action?), we can treat "Draw three cards" as "Draw a card. Draw a card. Draw a card." As separate instructions, they result in separate triggers for Sidisi.

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    While I agree with the conclusion, I am not sure that "Draw 3 cards" is really equivalent to "Draw a card" repeated 3 times. There are, after all, abilities that trigger or replacement effects that happen when someone draws 2 or more cards, e.g. Alms Collector. So while a sequence of card draws is handled card by card, one sequence of 3 card draws is not the same as 3 sequences of 1 card draw.
    – Hackworth
    Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 22:38

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