Discard question

[Grexis]

So I activate {jace's archivist} and I have {liliana's caress} on the field do they lose life?

[BlackJester]

If they had cards in their hand, sure they do.

[Grexis]

If they had cards in their hand, sure they do.

Awesome, because ive wanted this combo to work, but because of the wording discard your hand it made me weary of playing it

[Gorzo]

My brother has a deck based on this + {unsummon} effects, it's pretty brutal.

[Grexis]

My brother has a deck based on this + {unsummon} effects, it's pretty brutal.

I was thinking of altering my mill deck for the combo. My mill is mono blue that uses {jace's archivist} and {jace's erasure}

[Jdogtoocool]

How does the archivist actually work? Is it by who has the greatest number of cards amongst all players or just yourself?

[Gorzo]

How does the archivist actually work? Is it by who has the greatest number of cards amongst all players or just yourself?

The top # among all players. Say joe uses his archivist, he had 3 cards. Fred has 3 also. Jimmy had 6. Angela had 5. All players will discard their hands hand and draw 6, equal to the number of cards Jimmy discarded, as he discarded the largest hand.

[BlackJester]

How does the archivist actually work? Is it by who has the greatest number of cards amongst all players or just yourself?

It wouldn't be "the greatest number of cards you discarded."  You only discarded one amount of cards. 

[Jdogtoocool]

How does the archivist actually work? Is it by who has the greatest number of cards amongst all players or just yourself?

The top # among all players. Say joe uses his archivist, he had 3 cards. Fred has 3 also. Jimmy had 6. Angela had 5. All players will discard their hands hand and draw 6, equal to the number of cards Jimmy discarded, as he discarded the largest hand.

Right on right on the wording was throwing me off