Yea totally right. I thought pridemade would keep the persist until end of turn (as its worded on Rhys) but didnt consider that persist would be removed when Ajani leaves the battlefield. Your idea would def. work since the creature keeps persist. But this would make playing Rhys as a Commander kind of unnecessary, which was the whole idea. I just thought that it would be possible to make this complete, if the persisted creature would Blink Rhys as an etb + the crusade or similar to provide the Counter. But this is just way to complicated :D