Patience and Persistence

Inevitability is its own form of pressure.

*Kitchen Finks* (left) illustrated by Kev Walker; *Sphinx's Revelation* (right) illustrated by Slawomir Maniak

Congrats to TimJressel and justqroughsketch for going 3-0 this week! Both decks were on opposite sides of the spectrum, yet shared a sense of inevitability: Selesnya Persist acts as an unstoppable force and Azorius Control remains an immovable object.

With little to update on Azorius Control, let’s focus more towards what makes Selesnya Persist tick.

justqroughsketch’s List

TimJressel's List

Selesnya Persist - justqroughsketch

*Kitchen Finks* illustrated by Kev Walker

The Combo

Combo pieces as creatures allow Persist Combo to block against faster matchups and attack against slower ones.

Selesnya Persist requires three pieces to combo off: 1) a +1/+1 counter generator, like Metallic Mimic; 2) a persist creature, like Kitchen Finks; and 3) a sacrifice outlet, like Ashnod’s Altar or Yahenni, Undying Partisan. When set up, the Kitchen Finks will never die with a -1/-1 counter on it, allowing it to be sacrificed any number of times. This loop results in the Combo player ending up with “infinite” life and mana, allowing it to inevitably cast a large Walking Ballista to end the game by as early as turn four.

Being a slightly aggressive combo deck forces the opponent to split its attention between staying alive and preventing Selesnya Persist from going off. Holding up interaction means that Metallic Mimic and Kitchen Finks will continue to beat in, but spending mana on blockers for the board means that Selesnya Persist is clear to go for the combo win.

Resilience

If fact, Selesnya Persist has a fair amount of resilience that allows it to grind through removal. Its recursion being attached to creatures lets Selesnya Persist continue to pressure the opponent’s life total while threatening to combo.

Restoration Specialist can fetch Metallic Mimic, Ashnod’s Altar or Walking Ballista from the graveyard after they are answered once. If none of the needed artifact combo pieces are in the graveyard, Restoration Specialist can grab a Mishra’s Bauble and an Unbridled Growth to draw towards more pieces of the combo.

Renegade Rallier can return a Metallic Mimic if it’s working towards the combo, a Restoration Specialist for combat and grind value, a Wall of Blossoms if it needs a blocker, or Unbridled Growth if needs some fixing. With how the sideboard is built, Renegade Rallier can return many of the silver-bullet cards Selesnya Persist chooses to bring in.

Worldly Tutor and Enlightened Tutor act as extra copies of all of the combo pieces, except Enlightened Tutor cannot grab a persist creature. These tutors make finding answers to the opponent’s interaction more consistent, especially in sideboarded games.

The Cantrips

Besides reducing the number of lands needed, the deck’s 16 cantrips provide more than just a couple of redraws for combo pieces.

Wall of Blossoms keeps aggression at bay, blocking turn after turn. It can act as a lightning rod for removal against faster decks, giving Metallic Mimic and Kitchen Finks a greater chance to stick around. Once Ashnod’s Altar hits the field, the Wall of Blossoms can then be cashed in for some mana.

Manamorphose is essentially a free redraw, but is best utilized with proactive plays that utilize the mana immediately. Persist Combo is looking to spend all of its mana each turn while continuing to develop its combo, and being able to find some action or an extra land drop without going down on mana allows it to keep up its speed. The color-fixing filters colorless mana from Ashnod’s Altar, which is important since the deck gets pip-hungry. It also helps cast the only black card in the deck, Yahenni, Undying Partisan.

Mishra’s Bauble may be the worst cantrip to top-deck, as it’s delayed draw means that it can’t be chained into other spells right away, but it still has many uses. In most decks, it is sacrificed to look at the opponent’s top card and gain some insight into the opponent’s plan. In Persist Combo, it is more often used to look at the top card of its own library. Having knowledge of its own top card allows Persist Combo to more accurately predict what mana it wants to produce with Manamorphose or if it needs to sacrifice Unbridled Growth to cast that top card right away. A powerful synergy involves casting a Worldly Tutor or Enlightened Tutor to shuffle away an irrelevant card seen by Mishra’s Bauble.

Ubridled Growth is a mix between Manamorphose and Mishra’s Bauble. Like the former, it helps fix mana and can threaten instant-speed draw in response to mill. Like the latter, it can trigger revolt and be picked up with Restoration Specialist or Renegade Rallier.

Key Card

What hasn’t been said about Kitchen Finks? The Wrath-of-god-surviving-Double-tap-demons-flying-Send-red-home-crying creature can also enable combo wins. Paired with Metallic Mimic, the creature never fully dies, making Kitchen Finks a truly persistent specimen.