The Game That Never Ends

Picture the scene: you're at the table, turn five, and one of your opponents has just announced they're about to close out the game with their combo. You smile. Not because you have an answer in hand — you have something better. You've already won.

On the battlefield: Solemnity, Ashnod's Altar, and Kitchen Finks. None of the three is scary on its own. Together, they make you immortal.

The Mechanism, Step by Step

Let's start from the beginning, no rush.

Kitchen Finks enters the battlefield with two +1/+1 counters and gains you 2 life. Nothing extraordinary so far.

Enter Solemnity: from this moment on, no non-land permanent can receive counters. When the Finks die, the Persist mechanic brings them back to the battlefield — but Persist works by placing a -1/-1 counter, and Solemnity prevents that. The Finks return to the battlefield with no counters, clean, gaining you another 2 life.

Now add Ashnod's Altar: sacrifice the Finks for two colorless mana. They die, return via Persist (with no counter, thanks to Solemnity), you sacrifice them again. Again. And again.

The loop goes like this:

1. You have Solemnity, Ashnod's Altar, and Kitchen Finks on the battlefield.
2. Sacrifice the Finks to the Altar → get colorless, gain 2 life.
3. Persist returns them to the battlefield with no counters (blocked by Solemnity).
4. Repeat as desired.

The result: infinite colorless mana and infinite life. With the mana you can activate abilities, cast spells from your hand, or simply declare a life total that no one will ever be able to chip away at.

Color identity: Solemnity is white, Ashnod's Altar is colorless, Kitchen Finks is green-white. The combined identity is White-Green (GW).

Where to Put It: Recommended Commanders

The combo works in any deck with access to white and green. Here are five natural homes:

• Atraxa, Praetors' Voice — The obvious choice if you already have a proliferate deck. Solemnity seems counterintuitive in a counters deck, but it can be included as an "alternate axis" with dedicated win conditions.
• Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn — A commander that rewards life gain: here every loop accumulates real resources, not just theoretical life.
• Karametra, God of Harvests — Aggressive ramp in GW, and you need to get three permanents onto the battlefield. Karametra's consistency helps.
• Rhys the Redeemed — Tokens and sacrifice synergies: the Altar feels right at home here.
• Willowdusk, Essence Seer — Turns infinite life into infinite power. Combo closed within a single turn.

Lines of Play and How to Protect It

The weak point of this combo is its spread across three pieces. Any opponent with a removal instant can interrupt the loop.

How to protect it:

• Keep mana open for Veil of Summer or Heroic Intervention at the moment you put the third piece on the battlefield.
• Teferi's Protection does the dirty work if the table sees you assembling it.
• Alternatively, try to give Solemnity some resilience: enchantments with additional protection or a commander with ward.

The optimal line: cast Solemnity first. It's the least "threatening"-looking card and often passes without a response. The Altar is well-known but generic. The Finks, finally, seem harmless. The table often doesn't react until it's too late.

Budget vs. Premium

The good news: this combo is already cheap at its core.

For a budget version: no problem — you're already playing budget. You can supplement with affordable green tutors like Finale of Devastation if the budget allows, or simply rely on the deck's natural consistency.

For a premium version: invest in tutors. Enlightened Tutor for Solemnity, Eladamri's Call for the Finks. The combo doesn't change, but you'll find it on turn three instead of turn seven.

An Invisible Chain

Go back to that imagined game. Your opponent watches you sacrifice the Finks for the third time and finally understands what's happening. Too late.

This combo doesn't shout. It doesn't arrive with a legendary commander with an impossible name or a four-piece interaction that nobody wants to sit through an explanation of. It arrives in silence, with a small green creature that dies and is reborn endlessly, on an altar of stone that is never satisfied.

Bracket 3, seventeen euros, a life total that stops being a number.