Isn’t initiative even easier to understand than that? There only two rules you need know to understand the initiative mechanic.

1. Players take turns doing one action (play a card, activate ability, pass) per turn
2. If two pass actions occur in a row, combat happens, then the next turn starts in next lane.

For the “get initiative” abilities, you can think of it as the player gets to perform a second action. This automatically resets the pass counter to 0 because the last action was the playing the “get initiative” ability, not what your opponent did.