Hardened Scales
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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
Freeform 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

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.

hyalopterouslemur on Ode to the old Commanders: Xerox, Mimeo?

2 days ago

Why are you running Reliquary Tower? Graveyard-based strategies don't want Reliquary Tower; if you have 8 or more cards, dumping a few of them in the graveyard is great.

Okay, that out of the way. Some suggestions for cards you could use:

Life from the Loam and cycling lands. This is a simple loop: Cast LFTL getting a cycling land out of your graveyard, cycle that land, dredge LFTL instead of drawing a card, repeat. Not infinite. (You still need a minimum of 3 mana each run through.) Speaking of dredge, you might want Golgari Grave-Troll.

Kami of Whispered Hopes A mana dork that also acts as a Hardened Scales. Nice.

Brawn, Wonder, and Genesis These you should know. They have abilities in the graveyard which may be useful to you.

Living Death Just...try it. That's all I can say.

Mulch Another one to fill your graveyard.

ehuez on Hoppin to YOUR DEMISE

2 months ago

Awesome deck mate! I feel that Hardened Scales might be usefull for your +1/+1 counter strategy.

DemonDragonJ on Nature's Bounty

4 months ago

SaberTech, those are some great suggestions, but I am not certain if I can make room, for them, and both Doubling Season and Forgotten Ancient perform very similar functions to Hardened Scales and Conclave Mentor.

SaberTech on Nature's Bounty

4 months ago

Marath is a good commander for a deck like this because it looks like the strat is to push to the late game where you can start dropping your larger creatures. Marath is good for keeping opponents' early game creatures in check. There are a few cards that I think could help it do its job though:

  • Hardened Scales and Conclave Mentor let Marath remove one +1/+1 and then put two more back onto itself.

  • Basilisk Collar and Bow of Nylea give Marath Deathtouch so that it can ping even large creatures to death.

  • Heliod, Sun-Crowned gives Marath lifelink and essentially turns Marath into a machine gun. Just make sure to only activate Marath's damage ability for 1 mana each time.

Crow_Umbra on Terror Forming Terraforming [Primer]

5 months ago

You're def on the right track KBK7101, since God-Eternal Bontu was included in the stock precon list (along with Korvold, Fae-Cursed King and The Gitrog Monster).

Bontu is solid for sure. I've used it in a couple of Aristocrats decks before. I'll reconsider it as I play-test more, especially if I feel like I need another pseudo-evasive beater.

I want to put this deck together in paper, but am weighing my options on picking up the last 7 cards I don't currently own:

I'm considering which proxy service is fastest, or maybe picking up a couple of the cards listed here, and swapping the other slots for cards I already own in the next accordion block:

These are all prime candidates for swaps, until I figure out how and which of the others to pick up:

Other candidates for consideration:

Mortlocke on Phyrexian Opera : Atraxa

6 months ago

I do have some ideas in mind when it comes to closing out a game with Poison counters. But you don't have to make it through a couple times - all it takes is once and it's the beginning of the end. Some traditional combo pieces would be:

And other spells of that ilk. Another synergy are +1/+1 counters. Forgotten Ancient, Hardened Scales, Branching Evolution, Ozolith, the Shattered Spire and The Ozolith are real powerhouses if you wish to go that route. This synergy does telegraph your moves more and you'd be less explosive.

But what to do when the table goes against you? I recommend stax. Tying up the resources of the table, forcing slower and less impactful turns on your opponents while the clock continues ticking. Cards like Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice help break parity as you will likely have access to more mana than your opponents while they're being held back. Some oldies but goldies would be:

  • Winter Orb
  • Static Orb
  • Ensnaring Bridge (This has good synergy well with the aforementioned pump spells as you can still attack with low power infect creatures)
  • Tangle Wire (A personal Fave as you can proliferate these counters)
  • Parallax Wave (A personal Fave as you can proliferate these counters)
  • Parallax Tide (A personal Fave as you can proliferate these counters)

Playing pretty much any of these cards will likely earn you some ire - but the idea is to only play these when you have poison counters on your opponents and you can reliably proliferate them at least once or twice a turn. The idea is that you've already got your opponents where you want them, all you'd need to do is simply wait while the Poison counters end them.

SaberTech on To What Mechanic is Mark …

6 months ago

I'm inclined to agree with legendofa that the printing of more support cards that increase +1/+1 counters could be part of it. If you have something with a Hardened Scales type effect on the board then a Spike creature can remove a counter targeting itself to put the now increased number of counters back on itself, gradually make it bigger and bigger.

I think that another part of the issue from WotC's standpoint is that Spikes can move their counters around at instant speed. The ability to redistribute counters at instant speed as the defending player is a strong advantage that can really discourage the opponent from attacking into you in a number of circumstances. Not knowing for sure where the counters will go in conjunction with not knowing what removal the defending player has means an attacking player could be risking a complete blowout if they attack, so they may end up being a lot more hesitant. WotC isn't the biggest fan of stalled out games because they can make for boring tournament play.

The currently printed Spike creatures don't have particularly great stat lines when compared to current power standards. As useful as their ability can be, aggro decks these days have much more potent creature options at their disposal. If new spikes were to be printed, does WotC keep to the old model cost/power ratio and risk them not see much use outside of draft or do they get scaled up to current standards and risk putting a major hamper on other creature strategies? It's a tough line to navigate, so I'm not surprised that Mark Rosewater would basically say "Eh, we're not really interested in bringing them back."

legendofa on To What Mechanic is Mark …

6 months ago

I'm going to take a guess and say that someone on the design team doesn't really like moving counters around. The Spikes don't specifically use the word "move", but it's functionally the same most of the time. If you treat the Spikes as moving counters, they make up almost a quarter of all counter-moving cards. No other set has more than two (although Ikoria + Commander 2020 has three, and those introduced keyword counters). I can find only two other cards with an ability similar to the Spikes, in Benevolent Hydra and Salt Road Quartermasters.

While it's not a bad mechanic, and it's simple enough in a vacuum, it gets more complicated with Hardened Scales/Branching Evolution/whatever, and those kind of effects have been on the rise. So my guess is that's the source of the tension with Spikes.

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