Rad counters: how radiation works in MTG

Rad counters came with the Fallout Commander decks in March 2024. They’re a slow, grinding kind of damage: every turn they mill you, and every spell they hit costs you life.

The rule

Rule 728.1 of the Comprehensive Rules gives rad counters one ability that belongs to the game, not to any card:

At the beginning of each player’s precombat main phase, if that player has one or more rad counters, that player mills a number of cards equal to the number of rad counters they have. For each nonland card milled this way, that player loses 1 life and removes one rad counter from themselves.

It happens at the start of your precombat main phase, not your upkeep. That’s after your draw step.

A worked example

You start your main phase with 5 rad counters. You mill 5 cards: 3 spells and 2 lands.

• You lose 3 life, one for each nonland card.
• You remove 3 rad counters and keep 2.
• Next turn you mill 2 more and do it again.

The more lands in your deck, the longer rad counters stick around. A deck with 38 lands keeps rad counters for a lot longer than a 30-land deck.

How rad counters go away

Unless a card says otherwise, only through that trigger. Every nonland card it mills removes one counter. There’s no limit on how many you can have, and nothing in the rules makes them go away at end of turn.

Rad counters and proliferate

Rad counters sit on players, so proliferate can add one to every opponent who already has some. That’s one more card milled and possibly one more life lost per proliferate, every turn.

Cards that hand out rad counters

• Nuclear Fallout. Every creature gets twice -X/-X until end of turn, and every player gets X rad counters.
• Struggle for Project Purity. In Enclave mode, a player who attacks you gets twice as many rad counters as creatures they attacked with.
• Feral Ghoul. When it dies, each opponent gets rad counters equal to its power.
• Mirelurk Queen. Two rad counters when it enters, then a card (once each turn) whenever nonland cards get milled.

Life loss, not damage

Radiation makes you lose life. It isn’t damage, so damage prevention doesn’t stop it and it doesn’t count as commander damage. Some Fallout cards refer to life lost “from radiation,” and that means this trigger only.

Keeping track at the table

Rad counters are easy to forget because the trigger happens at an odd moment, after the draw step instead of in the upkeep. In a 4-player game where everyone has a few, someone always forgets to mill.

Lotus has a rad counter you can turn on for each player, next to life, poison and commander damage. When the trigger happens, tap the counter down once for each nonland card you milled.