Slappybob - Guttural Response could be a sideboard card as a 3 of and sided in against control decks.

amhood thank you for your comment, much appreciated. However, I feel Guttural Response is too specific for what's out there in the current meta. Besides countering alone, which I have Vexing Shusher for, there's also an insane amount of non-blue removal to worry about: Anguished Unmaking, Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay, Path to Exile, Declaration in Stone, and Lightning Bolt, just to name a few. Relying on only going up against blue in the current modern meta would be insane. The sideboard is already set up to handle literally every deck strategy in the game, from gy hate to silver bullets. No need to change it just to include anti blue.

Maybe I'm missing something, and if so, please clarify, but how does Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit remove the -1/-1 counters from persist? I believe it simply adds +1/+1 counters, resulting in the creature having both -1/-1 AND +1/+1 counters. It seems as though it cancels them out, but does not remove them, resulting in the infinite loop not happening because the -1/-1 counters remain, canceling the persist ability.

You cannot have both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter. The cancel each other out. So when you sacrifice a creature such as Kitchen Finks It comes back with persist. It will be a 3/2 with a -1/-1 counter. Since the kitchen finks has a the lowest or tied for lowest toughness you can apply the +1/+1 to it and remove the -1/-1 allowing you to sacrifice it over, and over, and over, and over. You effectively can gain infinite life using the 2 cards. Same goes with Murderous Redcap for infinite damage. 3 card combo wombo.

704.5r If a permanent has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters are removed from it, where N is the smaller of the number of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it.

Couldn't have said it better myself haha, thank you, amhood

Let's say you had a battlefield with Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit and Cartel Aristocrat. You play Murderous Redcap and then infinitely sacrifice it, or so you think. When persist activates it adds a -1/-1 to the redcap, and anafenza adds a +1/+1 to the redcap, effectively canceling out the loss from persist, but it doesn't remove the -1/-1 counter, it just removes the loss of stats(or so I think). If this is wrong, feel free to correct me and this doesn't affect the combo if Melira, Sylvok Outcast is in play, but it could pose a problem if you don't have melira in play.

No that is not correct. See the previous comments, which includes the official MtG ruling on the matter. If something has a -1/-1 counter, then gets a +1/+1 counter, the -1/-1 counter is removed. That's why the combo works. That's why variants of this deck are played by thousands of people all across the world in all sorts of official MtG tournaments. This is just my version of this deck.

So, My favorite combo on this is Kitchen Finks, Viscera Seer, Melira, Sylvok Outcast , and Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit. You essentially get infinite life + Infinite Bolster!!! Just because how Melira and Anafenza work together.