sinister vs mirage of nightmare

Quick question. Last night in the tournament one of the players was telling me you can activate sinister serpent numerous times in your standby phase. I agree with that part. He said what this meant was when he discarded randomly, his opponent pick each card to discard one at a time. If the card was sinister it then came back to his hand, he mixes the cards up and then his opponent picks the next card to discard. I told him this was incorrect. The discard was one action which place all at once. Then if sinister was one of the cards discarded it could return to his hand. Does anybody know anything different than the way I ruled?
 
You would be correct in your ruling. The discard 'effect' or 'action' or whatever would need to completely resolve BEFORE the effect of 'Sinister Serpent' would be allowed to activate and resolve. This is because you can't start a new and separate effect chain in the middle of another effect chain resolution. The new effect must wait until after the first one resolves, then it will begin a new chain.
 
Back
Top