In What Order Do these Effects Occur?
Asked by DemonDragonJ 6 months ago
If a player controls both Nekusar, the Mindrazer and a Mindcrank, what will happen on their opponent's draw step? Will the other player draw two cards, take 2 damage, and then mill two cards, or will the draw their first card, take 1 damage, mill a card, and then repeat the process?
DemonDragonJ says... #2
DragonMaster420, thank you, very much, as I actually was playing a game with my Nekusar, the Mindrazer EDH deck, recently, and I encountered that exact scenario, and I was uncertain of the order in which the effects would occur, so it is nice to know exactly how they work.
March 22, 2026 3:02 p.m.
wallisface says... Accepted answer #3
It’s not “repeat the process”. Nekusar‘s first ability is a replacement effect. The opponent draws two cards.
That will then put two copies of the “takes 1 damage” from Nekusar‘s second ability of the stack. As each one of those resolves, Mindcrank will add its own ability to the stack.
The whole process in order happens as so:
Draws 2 cards
Takes 1 damage
Mills 1
Takes 1 damage
Mills 1
March 22, 2026 8:49 p.m. Edited.
Rhadamanthus says... #5
@wallisface: Nekusar, the Mindrazer's first ability is a triggered ability. You can always tell a triggered ability by it starting with one of the words "when", "whenever" or "at". Replacement effects can be identified by their use of the words "as", "with" or "instead" (or a few other rarer constructions). Nekusar doesn't have any replacement effects. The sequence here goes draw, damage, mill, draw, damage, mill.
March 23, 2026 9:05 a.m. Edited.
Rhadamanthus says... #6
I thought about this some more, and the Nekusar player has some choice here about the exact sequence, if it matters to them. The "normal" draw for the turn is a turn-based action that happens at the beginning of the draw step without using the stack, so any triggers from that draw or from the step beginning wouldn't go onto the stack until after the first card is drawn. This means Nekusar's draw trigger and damage trigger are trying to go onto the stack at the same time, so Nekusar's controller can choose the order. If Nekusar's controller puts the draw trigger on top, then the sequence will go draw, draw, damage, mill, damage, mill. If they put the damage trigger on top instead then it will go draw, damage, mill, draw, damage, mill.
March 23, 2026 12:05 p.m.
wallisface says... #7
Rhadamanthus great stuff! Your answer is definitely the correct one! For some reason i’d ingrained in my head that additional draws were effectively the same as treating a draw-1 as a draw-2. Very nice to have that misconception quelled :)
DragonMaster420 the OP has a very specific description/series-of-events for their “repeat the process” scenario - which my answer was different to. To say they’re both the same isn’t helpful. You’ll also see from Rhadamanthus‘s excellent answer that player-agency is part of this also, adding further nuance.
March 23, 2026 2:33 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
wallisface, Rhadamanthus, thank you, very much, for your answers.
DragonMaster420 says... #1
repeat the process. nekusaur gets 2 separate triggers that resolve independently.
March 21, 2026 4:34 p.m.