I’m sure you’re all looking at the title of this post with confusion. “What do you mean it’s a weird interaction? I just get two zombies from Kalitas instead of one now, right?” Well… sometimes you do. And sometimes you don’t. It’s complicated…

The complication here comes from the wording of Anointed Procession, specifically the fact that it’s watching for an effect to create tokens. When a card like Anointed Procession refers to an effect, it means something that happens as the result of a spell or ability resolving.

“But isn’t Kalitas’s second ability an effect? It’s a replacement effect, right?” Yes, it’s a replacement effect, but a replacement effect isn’t the kind of effect that Anointed Procession means. Replacement effects modify things that happen in the game, so sometimes the thing that’s modified is an effect and sometimes it’s not. (In this way, the name “replacement effect” is definitely misleading.)

Enough beating around the bush, let’s get to the point.

When will Kalitas + Anointed Procession give me two tokens?

You’ll get two tokens when your opponent’s nontoken creature would die as a result of a spell or ability resolving. This includes normal destroy effects like Fatal Push as well as effects that make your opponent sacrifice the creature, like on Trial of Ambition.

When will Kalitas + Anointed Procession give me only one token?

You’ll get only one token when your opponent’s nontoken creature would die as a result of anything that’s not the result of a spell or ability resolving. The most common example of this is dying from lethal damage, be it combat damage or damage from a spell or ability or from a fight. In all of these cases, it’s the game rules that are causing the creature to die, and the game rules aren’t an effect. The other main case that’s not an effect is when the creature is sacrificed as a cost to cast a spell or activate an ability.

So yeah, it’s a bit weird and convoluted, but that’s what you get from weird templating on two cards clashing. Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed that Anointed Procession uses the “effect” wording, since the last new card of this type (Primal Vigor) uses the “if you would create” wording instead, which works a lot more cleanly and avoids all of these wrinkles.

Follow-up: Read more about how Replacement Effects work here: http://magicjudge.tumblr.com/post/160504484909/how-do-replacement-effects-even-work