Woodfall Primus
Persist is the wrinkle that turns a one-shot Naturalize into an engine. The enter trigger destroying a noncreature permanent is already a respectable rate stapled to a 6/6 trampler, but the persist clause gives the card real teeth: kill it once and it returns, smaller by a -1/-1 counter, ready to blow up a second permanent. Any sacrifice outlet that can offer it up, any way to feed it to combat and bring it back, doubles the destruction before the body ever stays in the yard. And because the return is a fresh enter, every recursion fires the trigger again, so a board that can recycle the Primus eventually grinds an opponent's entire noncreature half off the table one permanent at a time. The counter is the pressure valve: the second death sticks unless something strips the -1/-1, and there the loop ends. That single restriction reins in what would otherwise be an infinite Vindicate machine, turning it instead into a deliberate two-for-one that asks you to do a little work to unlock the second half. Eight mana is a real cost, but green's whole pitch is reaching that number reliably and converting it into a creature that answers any noncreature artifact, enchantment, planeswalker, or land while trampling for six. It remains the cleanest expression of persist as removal: a value piece whose value is measured in permanents destroyed, not cards drawn.
