Seems like you just copied my deck almost exactly. If you did, please give me credit... http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/hardened-drana-of-jund/

@ MenacingBunny Acknowledgment given for the original deck concept. I like the idea and I am building a modified version that I feel is more streamline. Since it is in the draft stage, you'll notice I didn't bother with a description yet. I usually apply that when I write my description. However, as per your request, credit is given for the concept.

With Hardened Scales Endless One will enter the battle field with x counters + 1. It isn't going to add on for each counter. With Hangarback Walker, every time you add a counter you are going to get two counters. Which means that it is going to be bigger then Endless One in the end.

But beyond that, 1/1 Ornithopters have great synergy with Shaman of the Great Hunt and Drana, Liberator of Malakir since you are going to have a bunch of them out after your opponent kills the lightening rod that is Hangarback Walker.

The only real reason to play Endless One in this deck is so you have a 1 drop creature. You are better off with Servant of the Scale if you want a creature 1 drop, but you should be aggressively mulliganing for Hardened Scales anyway, so that will be your 1 drop.

My suggestion would be to drop Endless One and 2x Scab-Clan Berserker (which is cool as a alternate win con but not a 4 of) and add 4x Hangarback Walker and 1x Ruinous Path (removal or big creature with haste, can't go wrong).

@ Silight

The reason I opted to try the Endless One was because I could drop him earlier, and his X correlates directly to the mana I spend +1 with hardened scales. So a 2 becomes a 3, a 3 becomes a 4, which is a great early creature to block and attack with. Although, I am more impressed with the concept of the Hangarback Walker. I think the evasive tokens offer a better win con. I dropped the 4th Ruinous Path to the sideboard in favor of at least one instant speed removal spell, which was Ultimate Price. I will probably keep the Ruinous Path mainboard, and just side in the Ultimate Price when I am up against a mono colored deck. I like the suggestions and appreciate the input. Thanks dude!

Atarka's Command as a 2 of taking out 2x Scab-Clan Berserker just for the sheer utility of it. Den Protector makes an excellent edition to this deck. Just enough recursion to be awesome. Maybe drop an Endless One unless you plan on replacing those with Hangarback Walker, in which case, drop a Shaman of the Great Hunt. Shaman of the Great Hunt is a game winning card but getting two in your opening hand is a problem. Running a three of may be a better choice in any case.

In the end, I fully support a push toward raising that two-drop part of the curve. Waiting to draw that third land loses games when you don't have anything to put pressure on the battlefield.

Murderous Cut is another good removal option considering it can usually only cost 1 black. So its basically a free removal spell.

Salt Road Quartermasters and Inspiring Call should be in your maybe board. Both would be amazing in the deck, if you can find the room.

If you take a look at your mama curve, you have very very few 1 drops, nothing in the 2 drop slot, but then your 3 drop spot is huge. I'd recommend taking out a large amount of them and replace them with cheaper 1/1 counter creatures, such as Goblin Glory Chaser. You're playing an aggro deck that essentially can't get out any threats until t3, which isn't good.

edit: Hangarback Walker is essentially a 2 drop, but still. Maybe consider something like Endless One. It's very flexible in where it can go.

Thanks for the suggestions Silight, Bevo90, & Nixin72.

I think I've settled on the second or third draft of this deck. It is a bit faster, and I may yet tweak it a little more. For now though, it playtests on a solid curve and I'm happy with it. Detailed Description to come soon.

How about hangarback?

@ liu3bei

As I said in the description, I toyed around with Hangarback Walker, but I found that it didn't give the flexibility that Endless One does in terms of early game protection. Don't get me wrong, I will try him out again, but for now, Endless One is the more solid pick.

@Nixxava

Thanks. The original idea was floating around, so I picked one and started working to improve it. Thanks for +1. Glad you like it.

ah sorry, i skimmed the description so i didn't see it. i still think hangarback is better if you arent facing against trample guys. if it is early game you are worried about, a single removal spell will deal with a low endless one while it takes at least one turn more to deal with hangar if not exiled.

@ liu3bei

Don't get me wrong Hangarback Walker is a great card, and it is tough to deal with, and exile is really the only thing that shuts it down. I like the card, but I just feel like if I don't have that turn one Hardened Scales, then it becomes far too slow. I'm considering that many folks will be running aggro red decks, to compete with the slower decks. A 2/2 or 3/3 Endless One can at least clear a threat and buy me some time. A 1/1 Hangarback Walker can buy me a turn, and then the Thopter Token can buy me a turn. i just feel that Endless One has a better early game solution for aggro decks, whereas Hangarback Walker essentially costs double.

However, with the addition of Honored Hierarch, that may have resolved the slow issue of Hangarback Walker, so I still need to test it out and see. Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate the suggestions, as they give me a view I had not previously considered.

I like this deck, one of the coolest builds I've seen using Drana. After playtesting it a few times, I would recommend more lands. Have you tried 25? Playing the full four of both Bloodstained Mire and Wooded Foothills will help make both Murderous Cut and Undergrowth Champion better.

@magusoffarts

I've considered using 8 fetch lands, but decided against it for a more consistent land base. Using the new tango lands requires that I have basics in play so it doesn't come in untapped. It does combo very well with Undergrowth Champion though, so I may re-evaluate this after a few FNMs and revisit going to 4 of each. The plus side to those tango lands are they are fetchable, which is very nice. Thanks for the suggestion.

@TheGodofNightI see your train of thought. Let me know how your play testing goes!

@liu3bei

Thanks, I'll keep you posted on my playtesting. I just don't want to fall behind the curve on against an aggro deck, so there is still a spot for the Hangarback Walker if I can get him 2 or 3 counters on turn 2 or 3 consistently.

There isn't any loss of consistency by cutting 2 Forest, 1 Swamp and 1 Mountain for 2 Wooded Foothills and 2 Bloodstained Mire. If anything, the mana is more consistent. Each fetchland can serve as either of two different basic lands in the early turns, depending on what you need at the time. AND each fetchland can find either of your tango lands later on, making them a source of any of your three colors. The only drawback is the life loss, which rarely affects the outcome of a game.

I started building a similar deck (aka copying your deck) when I noticed that you are running 4x Collected Company along with only 15 creatures with CMC 3 or less. I would advise against this. Having 15 CoCo targets in your deck means CoCo will hit 2 creatures about 48% of the time, and miss about 16% of the time. If we don't count Honored Hierarch (since its basically the last creature we would want from CoCo) then we hit 2 creatures only 31% of the time and miss 27% of the time.

To put those numbers in perspective, a deck with 23 targets for CoCo misses only 4% of the time and hits 2 creatures over 75% of the time. A deck with 29 targets misses 1% and hits 2 creatures 90% of the time.

@magusoffarts

Your point on the lands is noted. I can't argue with that point. I designed the deck based on available cards. I will look into the remaining fetches. I thought in your original recommendation, you were suggesting I drop basics to add more fetches and tango lands, which seems a tad bit slower. Just adding the additional fetches makes more sense now that I reread your comment.

As for your math with CoCo, what your saying makes sense, but what would you add that has synergy with the deck? What would you take out? And why?

@magusofarts

This really isn't so much a Collected Company deck as it is a Hardened Scales deck that happens to use Collected Company for cycling. That said, more targets would make the deck better if you could find a way to get them in without compromising the deck. The obvious target is Endless One. We need to find something better then that that is a target but still provides a early bomb with Hardened Scales.

Maybe replace Collected Company with Evolutionary Leap and Endless One with Rot Shambler?

This deck is fun. There are so many directions you can go with it.

@TheGodofNight
There are some different ways you could go, either leaving CoCo in and adding more creatures, or cutting CoCo and playing something else. Here are some ideas:
Servant of the Scale: Comes with a counter at the start, when it dies you get a bonus one. Plays well with hardened scales though. It makes Avatar of the Resolute a better option.
Tuskguard Captain: Gives the team trample, could be good with Drana and Shaman, otherwise pretty underwhelming.
Retribution of the Ancients: Could be a decent card against decks with small creatures, maybe just a sideboard option though.
Den Protector: Has a little synergy with the deck, but is just a solid card on its own.
Hangarback Walker: Picture three or four 1/1 thopters attacking with Drana, and all getting counters. I agree that you could probably side it out against very aggressive red decks, but it is so good against midrange and control decks. Only problem is that everyone is prepared for it these days.
Inspiring Call: Draws cards and saves your creatures from sweepers/removal. Probably worth running at least one copy.
Warden of the First Tree: Doesn't really get counters until way later, but it attacks for 3 on turn 2.
Atarka's Command: It's nice to have a combat trick or two to keep your opponent guessing. No real synergy here, just a good aggressive card.

@Silight & magusoffarts

Thanks, these are some great suggestions. I'll tinker with them and see what I can do with them.

I think Collected Company needs to go and Hangarback Walker needs to take its place.

There are really only 11 creatures that you want to hit with CoCo in this deck: 3 Drana, Liberator of Malakir, 4 Managorger Hydra, and 4 Undergrowth Champion. Everything else is a miss (Endless One dies immediately, Honored Hierarch is pitiful on any turn except turn 1, and Shaman of the Great Hunt is one CMC too much).

Hangarback Walker, on the other hand, does everything you want this deck to do. You've indicated that you don't think it does enough against aggro, but it's one of the best anti-aggro cards in standard. An aggro deck will Wild Slash your Endless One that you cast for 1 or 2 and then swing through with a pumped up Monastery Swiftspear. Abzan Aggro has plenty of spells to kill Endless One regardless of what you cast it for. A single Hangarback, on the other hand, (usually) requires two cards to deal with or negates anywhere from 2-10 damage just by blocks. On top of that, with Hangarback it's ok to topdeck a Hardened Scales, since he can repeatedly add two counters instead of one. Normally a turn 5 Hardened Scales doesn't do much, but Hangarback alleviates that and mitigates one of the biggest risks of this deck.

And, of course, if you manage to get 2-3 tokens out of a Hangarback death and pair them with Drana or Shaman of the Great Hunt, now you have 4-6 damage flying to attack with next turn, distributed across multiple bodies. Nothing short of a board wipe will keep you from winning after that.

I'm not a fan of Honored Hierarch. Way too much has to go right for him to be good. The best case scenario (turn 1 Hierarch, turn 2 attack on an empty board and get renowned) only works reliably if you have him in your opening hand and are on the play. This makes him more of a sideboard card, if that. Servant of the Scale is another 1 drop, if you want one. He's not exciting either but at least he's ok turns 2-4 should you topdeck him. Especially if you transfer his counter(s) to an existing Hangarback Walker after chump blocking with him...

Been playing G/W Scales for a long time now, before it was even kind of viable, so here are my personal thoughts looking at this:

I agree with others in regards to Collected Company, I see it missing a lot more in this deck than not, and a deck like this can really just curve out on its own pretty well.

I think Servant of the Scale and Hangarback Walker are pretty much auto-includes in a deck like this.

If you're playing the aforementioned cards, Avatar of the Resolute becomes quite good. Even when he doesn't trigger off, he's a 3/2 that trades with Mantis Rider, which isn't nothing, but when he gets more triggers, he becomes a beast... For 2 mana.

I don't like Honored Hierarch at all after testing a ton with it. Sure, he's okay on the play, and maybe in this format, he gets in a lot more than previously, but sometimes he's just a dud, and a worse top deck than Servant of the Scale almost always.

Evolutionary Leap is a must in the sideboard, and if you run Servant of the Scale and Hangarback Walker, it can even probably be played in the main. It's just gas against 1-for-1 removal.

Also, I run 2 Den Protector at the top end of a deck like this, but maybe it could even be in the sideboard. Really helps in the grindier games, and if she can get pumped, she is so potent. It doesn't take much in a deck like this for her unblockable text to become relevant. I've taken games and killed many a Plansewalker just with a pumped Den Protector.

EDIT: Sweet deck though! I really like the idea of Hardened Scales in a Jund shell!