First printed in Modern Horizons 3 (2024)
Obstinate Gargoyle 
Artifact Creature — Gargoyle
This creature has flying as long as it's modified. (Equipment, Auras you control, and counters are modifications.)
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.)
2/2
- Illustrated by
- Craig J Spearing
Legality
- Legal in
- Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Pauper, Historic, Timeless, Penny Dreadful, Gladiator, Commander, Duel Commander, Pauper Commander, Tiny Leaders, Oathbreaker, Brawl, Competitive Brawl
- Not legal in
- Standard, Pioneer, Future Standard, Alchemy, Premodern, Old School 93/94, PreDH, Standard Brawl
Rulings (7)
- A creature with a counter on it is considered modified no matter what kind of counter it is or which player put it on that creature.
- If a card with persist is removed from the graveyard after it dies but before the triggered ability resolves, it won't be returned to the battlefield.
- Once Obstinate Gargoyle has been blocked, causing it to gain flying by modifying it won't cause it to stop being blocked.
- If a creature with persist that has +1/+1 counters on it receives enough -1/-1 counters to cause it to be destroyed by lethal damage or put into its owner's graveyard for having 0 or less toughness, persist won't trigger and the card won't return to the battlefield. That's because persist checks the creature as it last existed on the battlefield, and it still had -1/-1 counters on it at that point.
- An Aura controlled by another player does not cause a creature you control to be modified.
- A creature that is equipped is considered modified no matter who controls the Equipment that's attached to it.
- If a creature has +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters on it, state-based actions remove the same number of each so that it has only one kind of those counters on it. A creature's persist ability can bring it back again if its -1/-1 counters are removed this way.
Prices
MTGO price: 0.002 TIX, the cheapest non-foil print (average sell price on GoatBots, 29 Oct 2026).
In Limited on MTG Arena
Win rates in Arena drafts and sealed, retrieved from 17Lands (CC BY 4.0).
| Set | GIH WR | vs set | IWD | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modern Horizons 3 (MH3), Premier Draft | 51.1% | -4.0 | -0.5 | 19943 |
| Modern Horizons 3 (MH3), Sealed | 50.1% | -6.0 | -2.1 | 863 |
- GIH WR
- win rate of the games in which the card was in the opening hand or drawn
- vs set
- points above or below the average win rate of all decks in the set
- IWD
- improvement when drawn: GIH WR minus the win rate when the card stayed in the library
- Games
- games in which the card was seen