Doomgape + Serra Avatar + Defiant Bloodlord

Doomgape

Serra Avatar

Defiant Bloodlord

How it works

1. At the beginning of your upkeep, Doomgape triggers, causing you to sacrifice Serra Avatar and gain life equal to its toughness.
2. Defiant Bloodlord triggers, causing an opponent to lose life equal to the life you gained.

This gruesome loop turns Doomgape's forced upkeep sacrifice into a self-sustaining engine by using Serra Avatar's unique nature—since its toughness scales directly with your life total, sacrificing it yields a massive chunk of life that immediately gets pumped back into the board. That sudden surge of life triggers Defiant Bloodlord, draining an opponent for that exact same massive amount and punishing them for your creature's cyclical demise. Best of all, because Serra Avatar's replacement-like graveyard trigger shuffles it right back into your library, you can safely draw and redeploy it to repeat the spectacle turn after turn.