Struggle for Project Purity

Rad counters are a kind of counter that a player may have. They’re not associated with any specific permanents.

There is an inherent triggered ability associated with having rad counters. This triggered ability has no source and is controlled by the active player. The full text of this ability is “At the beginning of the precombat main phase of a player with rad counters, that player mills 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.”

Rad counters don’t go away as steps, phases, or turns end. They only go away when an effect instructs a player to remove rad counters from themselves.