As of 3/22/23, this entire deck can be had for under 100 dollars on TCGplayer, after TCG player Optimization and allowing for any condition of card. Damaged cards need a home too. If that criteria is good enough for Mitch, it's good enough for me
This deck is based off abusing a simple mechanic: Persist (When this creature, dies, if it had no -1/-1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a -1/-1 counter on it). Basically, the point is to sacrifice a creature with persist to trigger some kind of beneficial effect (a point of damage, life drain, scrying 1, getting a +1/+1 counter on an evasive creature, etc.) and then automatically negating that -1/-1 counter on the persist creature as soon as it etbs, setting you up for an infinite combo.
***I have organized the deck into several categories.
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Persist : Creatures with persist, simple enough
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Enabler : A card that enables cards with persist to go infinite, by either removing -1/-1 counters or adding +1/+1 counters
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Sac Outlet : A card that allows you to infinitely sac a persist creature as soon as it comes back and that pesky -1/-1 counter is scrubbed off of it.
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Sac Payoff : There are very many 3 card combos in this deck that will win you the game. These usually involve sac outlets like Blasting Station, Altar of Dementia, etc. Other less effective sac outlets can still win you the game with 3 cards on the spot with a win con like Murderous Redcap, or even Mazirek if the opponent cannot block a flyer. However, sometimes you will still assemble an infinite combo that doesn't really win you the game, or do anything but spin its own wheels. I've added these cards to pad out the deck and increase likelihood of a surprise win in this case.
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Legendary : Some of these cards have a special synergy with Sisay and her tutoring ability. Examples include Rhys, which will increase her power by 2 and is available without any additional setup, allowing you to tutor for a 3 cmc legendary card next turn. Other legendary creatures provide some extra insurance in case you don't draw into a category you need, like: Instrument of the Bards (1 cmc tutor), Elas il-Kor (2 cmc sac payoff), Melira (2 cmc enabler),
Varolz (3 cmc sac outlet), etc.
***THOUGHT PROCESS
The idea I had when building the deck was to cram so much redundancy that even if combo plan 1 is blown up, you're given a 2nd, 3rd and 4th chance by the time everybody else's board state is looking way scarier than yours. This means that in many games, you don't need to necessarily cast Sisay. Or if you do, it's purely for insurance in case your combo is foiled. I've had some lucky games where I win turn 4 (there are a few combinations of cards in the deck that make this possible), but a full combo can often be assembled by turn 5 or 6
The lands in the deck, despite mostly coming in tapped, provide great color fixing and extra card selection. I decided to use tapped color fixing lands, partially due to price, and partially because it frees up valuable space in the deck for redundancy by removing the need to add extra color fixing ramp. The 10 scrying lands (temples), while not strictly the best at color fixing, also really help smooth out early draws and get cards you don't need to the bottom of the deck, where they belong ;)
***TIPS AND TRICKS
*Aerie Ouphes serves both as a persist creature and infinite sac outlet, needing only an enabler and a sac payoff to win the game
*Murderous Redcap serves both as a persist creature and sac payoff, needing only an enabler and sac outlet to win the game
*Don't be afraid of Grumgully's 'non-human' clause, all persist creatures are non-humans!
*Viscera Seer and Woe Strider can be used to effectively 'see' the order of your library, scrying every card to the bottom until you come back to where you started. You can effectively flip through your entire deck, and find the combination of cards that best suits your needs, and then flip through again until it ends up back on top.
-Remember, Sisay can tutor for Rhys or Instrument of the Bards without ANY additional setup to increase Sisay's power.
-Rhys is valuable because on the field, he makes Sisay an immediate 4/4, which allows you to tutor for 3 cmc legendary cards (notably sac outlets, which are not available at a lower legendary mana cost)
-Instrument of the Bards is valuable because it can tutor for persist creatures. Personal advice is to leave the harmony counters at 2 until you run out of options.
-Dimir Infiltrator can tutor for any 2 cmc card, making it very flexible for persist creatures, enablers, payoffs, or an Altar of Dementia.
-Dimir House Guard can be transmuted into various 4 cmc cards with persist. It can also be transmuted into several enablers, and a sac payoff in Murderous Redcap.
-Elvish Harbinger can tutor a persist creature (Safehold Elite), an enabler (Master Biomancer), or another tutor (Rocco) to the top of your library. Rocco is the only way to access a sac outlet using Elvish Harbinger.
-Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer, is a bit pricy as a tutor, but he tutors creatures directly to the battlefield. Paying 1 into X allows you to find a sac outlet (viscera seer), and paying 2 into X can net you any category you need from among the 2 cmc creatures.
-Imperial Recruiter can be used to tutor up most creatures in the deck across all categories directly to your hand, making him one of the most flexible tutors in the deck. Also, how could you resist that smile :)
-Signal the Clans is very effective, given the redundancy of the deck. Simply grab 3 of the lowest cmc creatures of the category you need, and you're only down 2 mana with a game winning combo piece in your hand, or you can leave mana open to do it on your opponent's end step if you're low on mana.
-Gatecreeper Vine and Open The Gates: It is often tempting to use these cards to tutor for one of the Baldur's Gates, giving you access to two colors you need. But these cards also tutor for basic lands to your hand, and it is all too easy to forget that basics come in untapped, allowing you access to the color you need this turn if you haven't played a land yet.
***HISTORY:
I made this deck as a passion project. When I first started playing EDH, my first deck was one my friend made for me with a bunch of shoebox cards, headed by the then new Grumgully, The Generous. I had fun playing, even with no synergy and no real way to win other than pure, uncoordinated brute force. And then, searching for noncreature removal, I found Woodfall Primus (sadly, due to his high cmc he didn't make it into the final iteration of the deck). I found the synergy between persist and +1/+1 counters, and was hooked.
Eventually, I dismantled the deck and made others, but never forgot about old Grumgully. I tried to make infinite persist combos work consistently in RG, but became frustrated because I often wouldn't draw into any persist creatures. After a period of time of the deck sitting on the back burner, I decided to go 5 color to have access to all of the persist creatures, and found Sisay to be the perfect commander because of her tutoring ability.
EDIT: 3/22
Decided to replace Gatecreeper Vine and Bala Ged Recovery for Expedition Map and Memorial to Folly. This allows for some extra creature recursion, while retaining the same amount of color fixing. Gatecreeper Vine and Bala Ged Recovery are still strong options, and I will test to see if Memorial to Folly screws me in game where Bala Ged Recovery would've saved me. If it happens often enough, I'll revert the changes made.
