Yeah, I thought the same thing. Undergrowth Champion is really expensive and we all know creatures die which does help Rot Shambler. Just personal preference I suppose. I do really like it for a 2 cost though.

The problem with Rot Shambler and Endless One is that even though they may get a little bigger then the other creatures here, they don't really do anything else. I would likely play these creatures if I had room for more creatures though.

great deck! I am working in a +1/+1 deck as well, but using landfall triggers. i think your looks much better than mine! =)

+1 vote!

Gleam of Authority could be an all-star in this deck if you attach it to Managorger Hydra or Avatar of the Resolute since they have trample.

I love Gleam of Authority, I was playing four of them here before the last changes. The problem is that it loses 2 for 1 against any removal and takes up the spot of a good creature. It was always the first thing to sideboard out. I am considering it for the sideboard against decks without much removal, but there aren't too many of those and against them I already want Valorous Stance and Tragic Arrogance.

PlagueRats What do you think of Warden of the First Tree instead of Endless One?

I've seen other g/w counter decks with way more white cards where Warden of the First Tree looks good. Here the double and triple white are tough.

I really like how Endless One always has counters on it. So it always combos with Hardened Scales, Avatar of the Resolute, and Abzan Falconer. Without a ton of white mana Endless One is going to be better late game too.

Hey Plague I got a question I have been running G/W Growing Pains counters deck and I just recently brewed a Abzan Abzan Growing Pains counters deck. I am curious as to why there a Flooded Strand and Wooded Foothills in the land base? I have never know or have yet to realize why i see it in peoples decks if you could enlighten me that would be super great thanx +1 from me

The fetch lands are all about the new dual lands. Canopy Vista is a forest and a plains. I went with one of each Flooded Strand and one Wooded Foothills just because I had to buy them and want to be able to use them in a EDH deck later, otherwise Wooded Foothills is a little better because this deck needs more forests then plains.

OK i see benefit now XD not a bad idea thanks plague

PlagueRats
Have you done testing? I'm trying to see how much better Evolutionary Leap is than protection such as Valorous Stance in the main board. It might be my meta, but I find I need more protection than what Evo. Leap can give.
I do love the synergy it has with Servant of the Scale & Hangarback Walker. Like, that's what WotC made the card for, I'm sure. Lol.

In regards to Endless One I do like that it gives the option of a 1 drop if absolutely needed, and also a mana dump in the end. I'm just not sold because of the "it doesn't do anything else" thing. All my other cards seem to do other things, but it's a good card. Maybe Rot Shambler is better in its place. Have you tested both?

syandell86 So far I've only played some casual games with this current list, I've spent a lot of time trying stuff out with Tappedout's playtest program. When I decided on all four Evolutionary Leap I actually had Rot Shambler in place of Endless One. It is really cool to sacrifice a Servant of the Scale to Evolutionary Leap with a Hardened Scales and a Rot Shambler in play! The problem is Rot Shambler sucks to top deck late, and is worthless if your already winning. I'm going to try it out some more, it may be worth it just for style. I wish I could have both, but I don't want to cut anything and I think you want four or nothing. It's good played early and in multiples.

I played a few games that went really long that I would have most certainly lost without Evolutionary Leap. I was chump blocking and sac'ing a creature or two every turn to stay in the game against big Eldrazi. I finally got an advantage and won with only two life and two creatures left in my library.

I played three games in a row without drawing a single Hardened Scales I still won, but it was tough. I feel like this deck needs to get lucky to really go off, but Evolutionary Leap lets you get away with chump blocking when needed to buy yourself turns if you don't draw cards in a good order.

Oh lord, you changed it to Rot Shambler. Do more testing?

I'm going to try out my current list. A bit updated.

I run something similar, and recently found a speed bump to get around playing abzan. When trying to combo hangarback with evo leap anafenza foremost and any exile removal shuts it down.

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.