Absurd Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander Creates Standard-Legal Infinite Combo

Last updated on January 29, 2026

Isilu, Carrier of Twilight | Illustration by Lucas Graciano

Lorwyn Eclipsed, released last week, has unleashed new insane commanders, bucketloads of new faeries, a precon with an unexpected infinite combo…

… and has brought back to Magic's Standard format one of the most broken keywords in Magic: Persist.

And it has taken MTG players very little time to show how easy persist is to break, with a new infinite, kill-you-on-the-spot combo.

Breaking Persist in Commander

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed – Illustration by Chris Rahn

Lorwyn Eclipsed adds two persist cards: Rhys, the Evermore and Isilu, Carrier of Twilight, the backside of Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn. The black elemental god, giving persist to all your other nontoken creatures, is exactly the type or template that's ready for the breaking…

… with anything that gives +1/+1 counters and a free sacrifice outlet. That's why, in Eirdu Commander Decks, you find sac outlets Ashnod's Altar and Viscera Seer as two of the most popular cards…

… alongside effects that grant undying to your creatures, like Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, for an infinite combo giving you infinite enter triggers, death triggers, sac triggers, and infinite mana.

Mathematically speaking, a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter cancel each other in the sense that your creature's toughness and power won't change. But that's not exactly the interaction on display here. Rather, when a creature with both persist and undying actually dies, you can stack the triggers to bring the creature back with a relevant counter, then alternate the triggers each time it dies again. So if a creature returns with a +1/+1 counter thanks to undying, and it dies again, undying won't trigger, but persist will, and the creature returns with a -1/-1 counter.

The creature will always have some sort of counter on it, but Mikaeus will grant undying while it has a -1/-1 counter, and Isilu will grant persist when it has a +1/+1 counter, so you can repeat this loop Ad Nauseam.

Free sac outlets are easy to find in Commander, there's tons of ways to place +1/+1 counters, and that makes persist very easy to break…

… But how can we break persist in Standard, where free sac outlets are a lot less common?

Isilu's Infinite Combo In Standard

Fanatical Firebrand – Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

A goblin, a pirate and a vehicle walk into a bar…

… well, actually it's a goblin pirate and a vehicle: Fanatical Firebrand, which returned to Standard thanks to Foundations,  and Aetherdrift‘s Thunderous Velocipede, to be specific.

In this case, rather than a sac outlet (like Ashnod's Altar) what we have is a creature that can sac itself right after it enters, Fanatical Firebrand.

And since there's no undying in Standard right now, we also have an effect that puts a +1/+1 counter upon entering, Thunderous Velocipede.

If you have Fanatical Firebrand, Thunderous Velocipede and Isilu, Carrier of Twilight on the board, then that's pretty much it!

• You sac Fanatical Firebrand, pinging your opponent,
• Isilu, Carrier of Twilight‘s persist brings it back, technically with a -1/-1 counter on it…
• … but Thunderous Velocipede‘s ability also places a +1/+1 counter on it at the same time, so both counters are removed.
• Now you can sac Fanatical Firebrand and ping your opponent again, and again, and again.

Here's a Best-of-One deck by MTG_Creative_Combos showing the concept: full playsets of the three cards you need for the combo, plus ramp and tutors.