Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn // Isilu, Carrier of Twilight + Shilgengar, Sire of Famine + Virtuous Variant

Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn // Isilu, Carrier of Twilight

Shilgengar, Sire of Famine

Virtuous Variant

How it works

1. Activate Shilgengar by sacrificing Virtuous Variant.
2. When Virtuous Variant dies, its persist ability triggers, returning it from your graveyard to the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it.
3. When Virtuous Variant enters, it triggers, putting a +1/+1 counter on it.
4. Resolve the Shilgengar ability.
5. Repeat.

This ingenious resurrection loop relies on Isilu, Carrier of Twilight's passive grant of persist to your other nontoken creatures, allowing Virtuous Variant to return from the dead with a -1/-1 counter whenever it meets its end. Shilgengar, Sire of Famine fuels the engine by turning those sacrifices into Blood tokens, which can later be cashed in en masse, while Virtuous Variant's own entry trigger places a +1/+1 counter that immediately cancels out its persist-generated -1/-1 counter via state-based actions. Because Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn is the night-facing half of that same card (and provides convoke for your creature spells, though it isn't directly needed once the cycle is spinning), this back-and-forth between Shilgengar and Virtuous Variant generates an endless stream of artifact tokens, sacrifices, and enter-the-battlefield triggers.