Thermopod + Rendclaw Trow + Hardened Academic

Thermopod

Rendclaw Trow

Hardened Academic

How it works

1. Activate Thermopod by sacrificing Rendclaw Trow.
2. When Rendclaw Trow dies, its persist ability triggers, returning it from your graveyard to the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it.
3. Hardened Academic triggers, putting a +1/+1 counter on Rendclaw Trow.
4. Repeat.

This clever loop turns Thermopod and Rendclaw Trow into a self-sustaining sacrifice engine, feeding you infinite red mana along with endless entry, exit, and death triggers. The magic that keeps this cycle going indefinitely relies on Hardened Academic: whenever Rendclaw Trow leaves your graveyard to return via persist, the Academic steps in with its triggered ability to place a +1/+1 counter on the Trow. Because Magic's state-based actions cause +1/+1 and -1/+1 counters to annihilate each other in pairs, the Trow is stripped of its -1/-1 counter just in time to persist all over again when sacrificed.