An apparatus may be configured to receive a polar-encoded transmission comprising at least one intermediate node associated with a first configuration of frozen leaf nodes and information leaf nodes. The apparatus may further be configured to apply an FHT to a first set of values associated with a first intermediate node of the at least one intermediate node to generate a second set of values associated with the first intermediate node. The apparatus may also be configured to select, based on the second set of values, one or more paths associated with the first intermediate node for a SSCL decoding. The apparatus may further be configured to calculate a path metric for each of the selected one or more paths associated with the first intermediate node.