Rendclaw Trow

Two abilities that share no rules text, welded to the same small body, and the way they reinforce each other is tactical rather than mechanical. Wither makes its combat damage permanent: anything that blocks or trades takes -1/-1 counters that never heal, so this little troll reliably eats a creature several sizes larger over the course of a fight. Persist makes its own death temporary: it returns weakened but intact, ready to deal more lasting damage on the next swing. The link is that you want it in combat, because trading it away is the cheap half of an engine whose expensive half (the wither damage) stays stapled to the board. Even returning at reduced power, it remains a wither creature, still able to shrink whatever stands in front of it. The friction lives inside persist's own clause: each return adds another counter, so left alone the troll dies for good after the second pass, and any wither damage it absorbs along the way (uncommon for an attacker, but possible) ends the loop early by failing the no-counters check. That same return clause makes it a natural sacrifice-loop body: feed it to an outlet, get it back for free, then send it back into combat to collect more permanent damage on the next attack. It is built to be spent rather than protected, where the cost of dying is also the cost of doing business.