Effects that would replace having you gain life with some other effect won't be able to be applied because it's impossible for you to gain life. The same is true for events that would replace having you lose life with some other effect.
Effects that replace an event with having you gain life (like Words of Worship's effect does) or having you lose life will end up replacing the event with nothing.
If this is how the rules work, then how is it possible for a card like Laboratory Maniac to work at all? It's impossible to draw a card, so Laboratory Maniac has nothing to replace. Is it just, "well, the card obviously wouldn't do anything if it worked like everything else, so we have to make an exception here."
Technically this is wrong, you win the game from lab maniac during the resolution of the draw effects, but losing due to attempt to draw a card from an empty library is a SBA.
if we look at
120.6a An effect that replaces a card draw is applied even if no cards could be drawn because there
are no cards in the affected player’s library.
Effects that would replace having you gain life with some other effect won't be able to be applied because it's impossible for you to gain life. The same is true for events that would replace having you lose life with some other effect.
Effects that replace an event with having you gain life (like Words of Worship's effect does) or having you lose life will end up replacing the event with nothing.
If this is how the rules work, then how is it possible for a card like Laboratory Maniac to work at all? It's impossible to draw a card, so Laboratory Maniac has nothing to replace. Is it just, "well, the card obviously wouldn't do anything if it worked like everything else, so we have to make an exception here."
It should be noted that the rulings you are referring to are that way because a replacement effect can only ever replace something that can happen. The golden rule of magic is that cards can override magic rules. For instance in this case, the normal rules of magic allow you to gain life. However, with Platinum Emperion in play, you cannot gain life, therefore there is nothing to actually replace, since you can't gain life.
If this is how the rules work, then how is it possible for a card like Laboratory Maniac to work at all? It's impossible to draw a card, so Laboratory Maniac has nothing to replace. Is it just, "well, the card obviously wouldn't do anything if it worked like everything else, so we have to make an exception here."
if we look at
120.6a An effect that replaces a card draw is applied even if no cards could be drawn because there
are no cards in the affected player’s library.
we have our answer.
It should be noted that the rulings you are referring to are that way because a replacement effect can only ever replace something that can happen. The golden rule of magic is that cards can override magic rules. For instance in this case, the normal rules of magic allow you to gain life. However, with Platinum Emperion in play, you cannot gain life, therefore there is nothing to actually replace, since you can't gain life.
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