Umbral Collar Zealot + First Day of Class

Umbral Collar Zealot

First Day of Class

How it works

1. Cast First Day of Class by paying 1.
2. Activate Umbral Collar Zealot by sacrificing the persist creature.
3. When the persist creature dies, its persist ability triggers, returning it from your graveyard to the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it.
4. When the persist creature enters, First Day of Class triggers, putting a +1/+1 counter on the persist creature.
5. Resolve the Umbral Collar Zealot ability.
6. Repeat from step 2

This clever loop transforms any standard persist creature into a self-sustaining engine by relying on First Day of Class to counteract the creature's native drawback. Whenever your persist creature returns to the battlefield, the passive enter-the-battlefield trigger from First Day of Class immediately grants it a +1/+1 counter, which annihilates the -1/-1 counter it arrived with due to state-based actions. From there, you can feed that same creature back into Umbral Collar Zealot's sacrifice ability to surveil your library indefinitely, generating an endless stream of enters-the-battlefield, leaves-the-battlefield, and death triggers.