Woe Strider + Hardened Academic + Persistent Constrictor

Woe Strider

Hardened Academic

Persistent Constrictor

How it works

1. Activate Woe Strider by sacrificing Persistent Constrictor.
2. When Persistent Constrictor 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 Persistent Constrictor.
4. Resolve the Woe Strider ability.
5. Repeat.

This clever loop uses Woe Strider to repeatedly sacrifice Persistent Constrictor, whose own persist ability would normally doom it to stay dead after its second trip; however, Hardened Academic's triggered ability steps in every time a card leaves your graveyard, placing a +1/+1 counter on the Constrictor to immediately nullify its incoming -1/-1 counter. Because these opposite counters annihilate each other as a state-based action, the Constrictor is effectively cleared of all counters and ready to persist all over again.