Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Safehold Elite + Phantom Train

Melira, Sylvok Outcast

Safehold Elite

Phantom Train

How it works

1. Activate Phantom Train by sacrificing Safehold Elite.
2. When Safehold Elite dies, its persist ability triggers, returning it from your graveyard to the battlefield without a -1/-1 counter on it due to Melira.
3. Resolve the Phantom Train ability
4. Repeat.

This clever loop relies on Melira, Sylvok Outcast and her passive ability to prevent -1/-1 counters from ever being placed on your creatures, which fundamentally alters how persist interacts with the battlefield. When you feed Safehold Elite to Phantom Train as a sacrifice cost, the Elite's persist ability triggers upon its death, returning it to the battlefield. Normally, it would enter with a -1/-1 counter that locks it out of future persist triggers, but Melira's static protection ensures it returns completely clean and ready to die again. Meanwhile, Phantom Train happily soaks up all those sacrifices by stacking infinite +1/+1 counters onto itself, turning a simple recursion loop into an unstoppable engine of endless triggers.