no Ajani's Pridemate? there are a lot of others like it as well that you might want to consider

king-saproling I did consider it, but that counts instances of life gained rather than amount. In my mind I've set the deck up for a few occurrences of large amounts of life gain so I do think it'd be worth the return on investment but I'll keep it in mind, thanks.

I mean it's infinite damage if S&H has lifelink

Good point

Ring of Kalonia and/or Ring of Valkas nothing crazy but serious potential.

Sword of Truth and Justice all gas. Pure power.

Phantom Nantuko a jank rare turns into an efficient engine piece.

Renegade Krasis serious engine. Was surprised it wasn't in your solid list of creatures.

Afiya Grove this janky reserved list rare might be worth a spot.

Branching Evolution and Hardened Scales not janky and both are worthy a spot.

Tribute to the World Tree card draw or counters. Seems good.

Ordeal of Nylea an upgrade to one of your sorcery speed ramp spells.

SufferFromEDHD, thanks for the suggestions.

I like the rings but not sure what I'd potentially drop to fit them in yet, still heavily play testing the deck. Whilst the regular counter addition is good the existing equipment is either to prevent against removal of S&H (and/or one of the heavy hitters this deck develops) or to give things lifelink which then more consistently enables some of the infinite combo's in the deck.

Sword of Truth and Justice is beyond my budget so would have to pass on that.

Not sure Phantom Nantuko is strong enough to displace any of the current creatures in the deck but can see it would be nice to declare it as a blocker, tap it which then replaces the counter it would lose as it prevents the damage to itself.

I think Renegade Krasis didn't make the cut as I didn't think it would be a good return on investment as it wouldn't reliably evolve enough times with the other creatures in the deck. This deck also went from a go-wide style deck which Krasis would be better in I think to a voltron style-deck where I've only got 2 or 3 heavy hitters out there which only get bigger after being played, hence Krasis would only add a couple of counters in a limited number of situations.

Afiya Grove falls prey to my dislike of old art cards unfortunately, lol. It's also quite situational as you wouldn't want to play it early game if you don't have a creature out pre-turn 3 and also needs 'additional' counter effects to be on the board to be effective.

Branching Evolution also falls foul of my budgetary limits but Hardened Scales should really be on my maybe board with some play testing in the near future.

Tribute to the World Tree is a good shout, I just need to figure out where to fit it in (and just scrapes under my budget cap :-))

I don't think Ordeal of Nylea is a upgrade to a sorcery speed ramp spell due to all the caveats that it comes with, not only would I need a creature out to play it on but then depending on fast I can get counters on that creature might be 3 turns, provided I can attack without the creature dying, until I see the lands. Think I'd rather stick with plain ramp spells with less situational restrictions for the sake of consistency.

Hope that covers the thinking behind adding some of these to the maybe board and leaving some out. Happy to be corrected if I've missed some really powerful combo some of these cards might enable.

Ring of Kalonia might be a decent substitute for Behemoth Sledge unless lifelink is better than +1/+1 counter triggers.

You are probably right about Afiya Grove being lackluster triggers for S&H but "falls prey to my dislike of old art cards" made me physically cringe.

I respect your budget decisions and reasoning on every suggestion but would ask you to reconsider Phantom Nantuko. The scenario you described is an impenetrable wall that triggers S&H once a turn. Not as powerful as Mikaeus, the Lunarch but still useful.

Spike Feeder would be an inexpensive option that would create infinite life-gain and +1/+1 counter combos with Sunbond and Light of Promise. It's also really good in this deck for non-infinite combo reasons.

Thank you for the upvote and comment on my Shalai and Hallar deck!

Wondering about the exclusion of Heliod, Sun-Crowned in your list. It not only fits the lifelink theme, but it is a two card infinite combo with your commander!

greyninja, it's absence is purely based on budget restrictions otherwise it would be in there, lol.

My play group has a rough €5-7 limit on a single card to prevent it becoming an expensive arms race (unless you happen to pull a card from a booster).