Do creature buffs or +1/+1 counters cancel persist and allows for the creature to come black to the field again when it dies?
Asked by Ethan_Wallace 4 years ago
Lets say I have Cauldron of Souls and vampire creatures who are geting +1/+1 counters on them. I use the Cauldron to give any number of creatures persist untill end of turn, and I have an sac outlet like Ashnod's Altar . Can I keep on sacrificing and bouncing them to the battlefield until they have an -1/-1 taking from the original, unbuffed stats?
Ethan_Wallace says... #3
Token creatures. Or do they go disappear when they leave the battlefield?
December 9, 2019 3:12 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #4
Token creatures will cease to exist after they go to the graveyard.
Kogarashi says... Accepted answer #1
It depends on how you're getting +1/+1 on the vampires, and would require more moving parts than you've mentioned here.
Persist checks when a creature dies to see whether or not it had a -1/-1 counter on it. If it didn't, then the creature returns to the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter. If it dies again while that counter is on it and it had persist, the ability won't trigger (due to the counter).
If you have something like Cathars' Crusade in play putting counters on each creature as it re-enters the battlefield, then the +1/+1 counter from that and the -1/-1 counter from persist would cancel each other out (you'd remove both, due to state-based actions), and then persist could trigger again. However, if you have something like Glorious Anthem giving +1/+1 to your creatures, that bonus is not a counter. You would instead have a creature with a -1/-1 counter from persist and a +1/+1 bonus from the Anthem, and persist could not trigger again while that -1/-1 counter is on the creature.
It's important to remember that the persist granted by Cauldron of Souls won't apply to newly-entering creatures, even if they're returning to the battlefield because of having persist previously. They are new objects with no memory of their previous existence, including being given persist by the Cauldron. You would need a way to consistently untap the Cauldron in order to grant persist again.
So if you have a vampire, give it persist with the Cauldron, and then sacrifice it to a sac outlet, the creature will die and then return with the -1/-1 counter, but it will no longer have persist due to being a new object. You will need a way to grant persist again, as well as a way to actually remove that counter (rather than just having its effect balanced by an Anthem).
This is why most combos that try to abuse an ability like persist actually use Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and the undying it grants to do something similar, since Mikaeus' undying-granting ability is a static effect that applies to all your creatures all the time, rather than a one-time activated ability like the Cauldron's which needs to be reactivated to apply it to new creatures.
December 9, 2019 1:12 a.m.