Hardened Scales

Enchantment

If one or more +1/+1 counters would be placed on a creature you control, that many plus one +1/+1 counters are placed on it instead.

Combos

• Hardened Scales + Scrounging Bandar + Scrounging Bandar
• Clamavus + Hardened Scales + Kyler, Sigardian Emissary

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (44)

SaberTech on Animar & friends!

1 week ago

Well, with the new additions it looks like you are aiming to improve the deck's speed and consistency. With that in mind, potential cuts that I could suggest are:

• Palinchron: I used to run this but cut it after Ancestral Statue was printed. Even with a full discount from Animar, Palinchron still needs a lot of lands on the board to net you infinite mana without help. The deck should be able to win before you get that many lands out in a lot of instances. Peregrine Drake is much more mana efficient and can combo with other creatures for infinite mana. You also already have a number of different ways to rack up infinite counters on Animar so Palinchron is more of a liability since it can clog your opening hands.

• Outcaster Trailblazer: This is what I would swap out for the Dour Port-Mage. Your deck doesn't really run many creatures with a power of 4 or higher to trigger this. If you take out Palinchron then the Trailblazer is mostly there for working with Ancestral Statue. The Port-Mage works with Statue just as well, is cheaper to cast, and can be triggered with a wider variety of creatures and effects in the deck on top of being able to trigger its own draw effect with its other ability.

• Aluren: You already have a bunch of more efficient combo lines in the deck. You can't tutor for Aluren and Animar can't discount it. It also opens up potential plays for your opponents that they can use against you. You have so many more efficient combo lines that I'm pretty confident that you can cut this and not miss it, even if it might enable combo lines with the Port-Mage and cards like Shrieking Drake.

• Prime Speaker Vannifar: I know that I run Birthing Pod so this might be a bit of a hypocritical suggestion, but the big difference in my mind in that Birthing Pod doesn't have summoning sickness. I think that having to spend the mana to cast Vannifar and then wait until your next turn to use her ability is a bit too slow for what Animar aims to do.

• Kami of Whispered Hopes: This is basically just in the deck for Animar since you don't have ways of throwing around +1/+1 counters. Effects like this aren't even really necessary for Animar because you only need two counters on it to enable most of your combo line setups. 3 mana for a mana dork that makes you wait to produce mana with it is also too slow in my opinions.

• Hardened Scales: This is cheaper than Kami of Whispered Hopes but I think the same reasoning applies. Animar just doesn't need the effect that badly. I think that it would be better off as a 1 CMC mana dork that helps you either cast Animar on turn 2 or triggers Animar to get a counter later in the game. Having this card slot be a creature also means that you have one more card in the deck that can trigger cards like Beast Whisperer.

kamarupa on Budget +1/+1 Counter / Proliferate Deck

2 months ago

Thalia's Lieutenant and Champion of the Parish are just so good. Hard to beat the Human tribe when it comes to +1/+1 counters.

Luminarch Aspirant is pretty decent, too.

Tezzeret's Gambit is nice card draw with Proliferate. Especially nice that you don't really need blue at all if you can life with paying 2 life.

You can check out my deck Cocaine which is mono-white Human +1/+1 counter themed. I don't bother with Proliferate except Tezzeret's Gambit because the deck is so fast. I used to play a mono-green +1/+1 counter deck with Hardened Scales, Avatar of the Resolute, and Inspiring Call but I found my mono-white deck was just so much better - faster, cheaper removal, better protection/evasion. So ya, white is where it's at for +1/+1 counters!

Cloudy2024 on Golgari Scavengers

3 months ago

cool deck, one word Hardened Scales

Balaam__ on Counter Deck G/W

6 months ago

Just a heads up, not sure if this was intentional or not but you linked to someone’s deck called Harden Scales instead of the card Hardened Scales in your description.

legendofa on Rules Committee Gives Up Managing …

7 months ago

Caerwyn My take on that angle is that this is the first time when WotC has directly stated that one card may be more competitive or less fun than another. Sure, nobody's going to use Shock in a match when Lightning Bolt, Play with Fire, and so many other cards exist. And WotC has also freely said that some cards are strictly better than others. But this is the first time that direct measures and comparisons of competitiveness have been made between cards and decks.

As far as I know, WotC has never sat down with a bunch of Modern decks or whatever, ran them against each other, then specifically said that for the next six months, Boros Energy will be a high Tier 1 deck because it has Amped Raptor, Gruul Hardened Scales will be low Tier 1, Dredge is Tier 2, and Dinosaurs is Tier 3. In fact, they've kind of done the opposite with bans and counterplay tech to reduce the amount of striation. They've collected and reported tournament results, but this is the first time that they've openly planned to set a boundary between "competitive" and "casual", or "high power" and "low power" or however it's ultimately going to be broken down. Modern, Standard, Pioneer, Brawl, Vintage, none of those formats have attempted to give cards an objective score from one to four stars on competitve and fun axes. And that's what they're about to do with (how many?) cards.

At this point, I think it's at least worth trying and seeing what happens, but I think it's not entirely accurate to say that this isn't a new reality. The new reality isn't the striations themselves, it's trying to objectively rank (a few? some? lots of?) cards within those striations.

SinBlade on Harvest Festival

7 months ago

Love the theme~

Do Hardened Scales (Not as viable compared to an enchantment you already use, I suppose) or Solidarity of Heroes help in any way?

Beyond that, I do feel Bioshift is a beautiful finisher, but perhaps a stretch for the theme?

TheRavenOne on Will Hardened Scales effect Mazirek …

7 months ago

I had Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest and Hardened Scales on the battlefield. Then I cast Wave of Vitriol forcing my opponents to sacrifice and also make myself sacrifice the Hardened Scales. Would Hardened Scales see itself and the other permanents effected be sacrificed, and would I get its replacement effect on the following Mazirek triggers? Wondering that if a card like Teysa Karlov can double death triggers even if it itself dies, would this not work in a similar way?

TheMadRocketeer on Who's Counting?

7 months ago

Craeter, Great suggestions! Thanks.

I do already have Hardened Scales and Primal Vigor in the deck.

I have Fertilid and considered it for this deck but didn't put it in the Maybe list. I'll add it now and may swap it in. Very useful.

Ozolith, the Shattered Spire and Branching Evolution are exactly the kind of cards I'd like to have more of in the deck.

Heroic Intervention is terrific protection, and I have my eye out for some.

Doubling Season is nutso good and, as you say, super expensive. I've not done proxying and mainly just play kitchen table games, but . . . Yeah. Wow.

Hooded Hydra is great. I don't think I have any, but I'm going to go digging to make sure.

Tribute to the World Tree, Forgotten Ancient, Devoted Druid - You've given me a lot to think about and look for. :-)