Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A wireless device, such as a user equipment (UE) may monitor for a decoding candidate of a codeword, wherein the codeword corresponds to a set of received bit metrics, and the decoding candidate corresponds to a plurality of information bits encoded using a polar code, determine a composite detection metric for the codeword for the decoding candidate, where the composite detection metric is derived from a subset of bit metrics for an intermediate polarization layer of the polar code, and determine a classification for performing a list decoding process on the codeword according to the decoding candidate based at least in part on the composite detection metric.