Consider Retreat to Kazandu. It pushes Hardened Scales over the edge and multiples of Evolutionary Leap become dead cards anyway.

Sure Retreat to Kazandu would be cool, I used to play four Citadel Siege, Retreat to Kazandu is way easier to cast, but not nearly as reliable to get triggered every turn.

The ultimate reason against any cards like that though, is that they would have to replace Evolutionary Leap, and then what's the point??, without four Evolutionary Leap and four Hardened Scales, you might as well just play Siege Rhino's and Abzan Charm's.

The only ways I can think of to defeat Evolutionary Leap are [...] situations where you only have one untapped land, when you try to sac a creature they respond with instant speed removal.

Nope. They cannot respond you saccing a creature to Evolutionary Leap as the sacc is a cost. The creature is already in the graveyard when they receive priority and can respond to the ability already being on the stack.

Thanks minder, that's much better for this deck! Why do other cards say 'as an additional cost to cast __ sacrifice a creature'. I guess they just ran out of room for text on this card??

So I guess the , followed by : tells us both things are part of the casting cost of Evolutionary Leap

Is there anything that can prevent me from sacrificing a creature to Evolutionary Leap then?

"If enough -1/-1 counters are put on Hangarback Walker at the same time to make its toughness 0 or less, the number of +1/+1 counters on it before it got any -1/-1 counters will be used to determine how many Thopter tokens you get. For example, if there are three +1/+1 counters on Hangarback Walker and it gets four -1/-1 counters, youll get three Thopter tokens. Thats because Hangarback Walkers triggered ability checks the creatures existence just before it leaves the battlefield, and it still has all those counters on it at that point." Rules

I am kinda new but I wonder if this would work: use Bioshift to move all of Hangarback Walker's tokens to another card. Would it kill him and spawn the thopter tokens of the amount of moved counters? (see rules above)

I believe it would be legit, moving them lowers the amount of counters when his ability triggers. Thus giving them 0 tokens

But the rules state you should take the original amount of counters if counters are removed and resulting a 0 thougness.

vdlluca, I believe is thinking about getting double value from hangarback's counters. Bioshift moves the counters though, it's different then the negative +1/+1 counters the rules mention.

If the opponent does anything that uses the stack, you can sacrifice the creature in response.

I just thought of one exception, Hidden Dragonslayer. Morph abilities don't use the stack!

vdlluca Totally wrong, sadly. The rule checks to see how many +1/+1 counters were on it when it died. If you remove all of its +1/+1 counters, it has 0 left and produces 0 tokens. The difference is that -1/-1 counters are separate entities. Even it has enough of those to kill it, it may still have +1/+1 counters on it, in which case it still produces the appropriate amount of thopter tokens.

Hidden Dragonslayer's kill ability is a triggered ability that does use the stack. His flipping face up doesn't, the ability that triggers on his flip does.

I recommend cutting down to 3 Evolutionary Leap and down to two Abzan Falconer. leaves you room for some Endless One, which are extremely good threat in the G/W scales deck. You don't want to see multiples of leap or falconer, and some times you just won't need/want a falconer to win a game. for example an Abzan Falconer is actually not ideal against a deck like esper dragons where all of their creatures are already flying. Endless One is good because it fills whichever part of your curve isn't present in the hand you have. your sideboard also needs some work, Feat of Resistance is an awesome card against control or abzan, stopping removal spells is a good thing, it also works decently against G/W megamorph because it gives you a way to profitably block Deathmist Raptors.

all good advice asasinater13. I've tried pretty much exactly what you described and it was good.

I made the decision to go with 4 Evolutionary Leap's for a number of reasons. This deck can be way too slow if your unlucky, it needed some card draw and a way to survive long enough to draw some key cards. It makes Hangarback Walker and Servant of the Scale much more reliable, It slowly 2 for 1's removal... Anyways, going this direction, protection spells seem to take the deck in a different direction. Even though these creatures get huge, your not really investing much in any of them. The forth Evolutionary Leap makes it much more likely to be drawn every game, which to me outweighs the risk of a dead card. I'll play a second one to buff a Managorger Hydra, and be glad I have it if the first one's destroyed.

Abzan Falconer is about the same. I want this every game, and the second one is only tempararily dead if you expect a board wipe. I'll put two on the table otherwise. With a Hardened Scales the outlast ability is very relevant. This is also a prime target for removal so it's rare you'll regret having multiples. This card can win on its own, it's easy to get it up to 4/5 or much bigger.

Endless One is cool. I bought three of them for way to much money and would like to play them, but it doesn't really fit this strategy. there is usually something worth spending one or two mana on every turn, so tapping out for this is problematic. This is the most likely card to find its way back into the deck.

The sideboard does need some work, I haven't played against enough decks with this newest list yet to know what will work. I had four Feat of Resistance before.

I've playtested with Scales a lot, and I can promise Feat of Resistance is awesome and belongs in your 75 in some number. I run 1 main 2 side. They're very good at stopping removal spells and making your opponents combat math messed up. A lot of people forget the spell exist and specifically play around Dromoka's Command, being able to grant protection offers you beneficial combat against deathtouch creatures. Deathmist Raptor and either silumgar both exist for that.

PlagueRats answering your previous question - no, there is no way to answer you saccing a creature.

Activation cost is everything that is written before the colon (:), so paying and saccing a creature is something that no one can respond to. The phrase "As additional cost to cast XX sacrifice a creature" exists only on spells, not abilities - because you cannot place the requirement of saccing a crit in card's casting cost :D

The correct procedure goes like this: when you have priority you declare that you want to activate Leap's activated ability. There are no targets, so everything you need to do is to pay the costs. After you pay the costs the ability is placed on stack and active player receives priority. So as you see there is no way to respond the sac as priority is given after costs are paid and the ability is placed on stack.

24 lands seems like a lot for a deck with a curve this low. Maybe add Abzan Charm? It might be a bit awkward with turn two avatar but the versatility is too good to pass up.

The problem with Abzan Charm is that once you decide to go with those three colors you're also deciding to add 4 Siege Rhino's, and then you might as well just play whatever Abzan deck topped the last pro tour instead.

The problem with cutting lands in this deck is that it plays much better with four or more lands. You can play every card with 3 and all but 8 with only two lands, but you want to make multiple plays every turn. You need to be able to play any creature and hold a to activate Evolutionary Leap, ideally you also play Dromoka's Command or tick up some Hangarback's and Falconer's. I've had some success with 23 lands, but wouldn't want to go lower then that.

I think you should cut down on your Radiant Purges in favor of Surge of Righteousness. In my experience with this deck, Purge will be better vs Hangarback Walker but really, your creatures with trample should negate the value of up to 3 thopters and after that you are too big to fail anyway. The other multicolor spells that are trouble are either red or black anyway, Dragonlord Atarka, Dragonlord Silumgar, Siege Rhino, Mantis Rider. Not to mention all the Drana, Liberator of Malakir shenanigans and the Atarka Deck Wins that are hurt bad by Surge of Righteousness.

Edit: Radiant Purge doesn't even target Hangarback Walker, so even more value towards Surge of Righteousness. (I promise I knew that, just been a long day :P )

Good idea atksheep. Surge of Righteousness is what I need against the new red aggro decks and it still hits all the Abzan creatures.

I just changed my mind about Rot Shambler. I really liked it, but it is only conditionally great. Too often I'd be in a position where the only good choice was between chump blocking with it or letting damage through. Late game it's often useless as well.

So it's going to be 4x Endless One's. This will give some reliable stability to the deck. You just need to except that it's usually not the best idea to tap out for it, because you usually want to keep at least one land open for Evolutionary Leap, Hangarback Walker's, or any 2-drop instant.

that's exactly what I like about Endless One, you get options with him about what you want to play with him. also on rare occasion it can be right do play him for 0 to tick up a managorger hydra for the last one-two points to win (assuming you know your opponent has no out to that)

That's a really good point on Endless One.

I did really good at FNM last night, 2nd place. Went to game three against first place. Won 5 of 7 games

Match 1) Abzan mid-range, an easy two games, granted the opponent was still putting his deck together for ten minutes into our match because he didn't realize M15 rotated out.

Match 2) Mardu - A good variety of aggro creatures burn and 4-5 drop dragons and Ob Nixilis Reignited. Ob Nixilis is really good! The highlight was having a Managorger Hydra along with Hardened Scales and Abzan Falconer in play, with only three lands. He had Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury and Thunderbreak Regent. I played Evolutionary Leap, then both a Hangarback Walker and an Endless One for zero mana which got the Managorger Hydra out of range of him double blocking with the dragons and left an open just in case. I won the match next turn.

Match 3) Temur - I won the first game fast with 2 Hardened Scales, a Servant of the Scale, a Managorger Hydra, and an Abzan Falconer. He attacked with an Heir of the Wilds into my 3/3 Servant of the Scale and I gladly traded to put 5 counters on the hydra. He played a creature, I played the falconer, and he conceded once I attacked turn four with a flying 12/12 with trample! Game 2, I mulligan'd to 6, kept a bad hand and he won quick. Game 3, I went on the offensive too early, took enough damage that he was able to Icy Blast for the win. This deck should be played more defensively against this deck, because my creatures just keep getting bigger. I think his biggest creature was Savage Knuckleblade, although it's dangerous to let him build up a big board presence with Crater's Claws and Icy Blast. I didn't side anything in against him. What would help?? Playing defensively and a well timed Tragic Arrogance I think.

I added Tragic Arrogance to my SB just for that reason.

I would go down to 3 Evolutionary Leap, since it's really bad in multiples. Maybe move one to the sideboard for something else? (I don't really know what goes in a deck like this, sorry)

Maringam Other similar decks would run two or less, but I'm going for a different strategy here. I don't have any protection spells and since this deck kinda relies on likely, but conditional combo's, it's all about living long enough to actually play them. Evolutionary Leap is very important to this deck. It is very reliable card draw, so even when you draw another, it usually doesn't matter because you are so unlikely to run out of creatures, unless something goes horribly wrong. Note that it is pretty much the only card in the deck that you'd not always want to play and with everything costing 3 or less you can almost always cast every card.