Kitchen Finks + Thermopod + Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Kitchen Finks

Thermopod

Heliod, Sun-Crowned

How it works

1. Activate Thermopod by sacrificing Kitchen Finks.
2. When Kitchen Finks dies, its persist ability triggers, returning Kitchen Finks from your graveyard to the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it.
3. When Kitchen Finks enters the battlefield, it triggers, causing you to gain 2 life.
4. Heliod triggers, putting a +1/+1 counter on Kitchen Finks.
5. Repeat.

This clever loop turns life-gain into a self-sustaining engine by utilizing the counter-canceling interaction between persist and +1/+1 counters. When you sacrifice Kitchen Finks to Thermopod, it generates red mana and triggers its own persist ability to return with a -1/-1 counter. However, the life gained from that entry triggers Heliod, Sun-Crowned, which places a +1/+1 counter on Kitchen Finks; game rules cause the +1/+1 and -1/+1 counters to annihilate each other, leaving the Finks fresh and ready to be sacrificed all over again.