Borderland Explorer – Soundwave, Sonic Spy
Ezra SassamanApril 3, 2025
Shock opponents into submission with your artifact Transformer army!
(Soundwave, Sonic Spy|Art by Volta Creation)
Moving to Three-Color Shard Commanders
Welcome to Borderland Explorer, the EDHREC series that takes a closer look at commanders right on the border of popularity – not too obscure, but nowhere near the “Top Commanders” front page either.
I've just finished out a five-part series highlighting allied two-color commanders and now I'm moving on to three-color "shards" known by their iconic names in Alara – Esper, Grixis, Jund, Naya, and Bant.
Although we are increasing from two to three-colors, the rest of the series will pretty much stay the same. I’m still looking at commanders helming around 1,200-decks as a grounding point (but commanders with as few as 1,000 or as many as 2,000 decks are fair game if they look promising!)
Our general plan is still to:
- Identify a commander that falls into this medium range for each allied three-color shard
- Highlight unique and interesting game plan(s) for this commander
- Outline the advantages and challenges of these strategies
- Build a budget-friendly "Core" power level deck following these plans
- Walk through important card categories and use EDHREC synergy numbers as a starting point to discuss notable inclusions and exclusions
- Go over upgrades for readers interested in investing more money into this strategy
The goal is to find commanders with some established traction but lots of room for exploration and innovation, so let’s get into the brewing spirit!
The first shard is WUB, or Esper. Filtering by number of decks, we see Soundwave, Sonic Spy leading around 1,500 decks. This commanders fits all our criteria – it isn't too pricey, it has a clear set of abilities to build around, and offers a few interesting directions for us to take.
Also, we have to highlight Soundwave, Laserbeak, and Ravage on a basketball court while March Madness is going on!
The Game Plan(s)
There are two primary directions other deckbuilders have taken this commander: mill and tokens. This makes a lot of sense because the front face does best when opponents have stocked graveyards, while the back face offers the ability for recurring token generation.
Advantages and Challenges
Like many of the commanders I've chosen in this series, there is a lot going on with Soundwave (not to mention there are two sides to choose from!)
This commander lets us lean into strategies that care about having a lot of artifacts, having a high token density, getting your opponents' instants and sorceries into their graveyards through mill and/or discard, and even cards that care about legendary creatures like Laserbeak and Ravage.
A deck built around this commander will do well to ensure they have a healthy balance of these different effects that also have as much synergy with each other as possible. So let's dive in!
Artifacts Matter
As seen building around Inquisitor Eisenhorn earlier in this series, decks without green often already have a high density of artifacts for mana sources, so leaning into an "artifacts matter" strategy make a lot of sense. With Soundwave, both sides of the commander and the tokens it creates are all artifacts.
A large number of tokens also means there will often be creatures for all-star equipment like Cranial Plating and Nettlecyst to enhance. (Ok you got me, I started at the conclusion of wanting to play Cranial Plating and argued backwards until I got there!)
Artifacts can work as cost reduction – Creatures like Thought Monitor and Urza, Chief Artificer alongside sorceries like Organic Extinction, Thoughtcast, and Voyage Home.
Artifact synergies can also make tokens more powerful – Grand Architect, Unctus, Grand Metatect, Urza, Prince of Kroog alongside Tempered Steel and Adaptive Omnitool (a new third option to complement the equipment mentioned above).
Creating Tokens
There is a lot of token generation that also creates synergy with artifacts, including Digsite Engineer, Chrome Host Seedshark, Sai, Master Thopterist, Sharding Sphinx, Dalek Squadron, Malcator, Purity Overseer, Alela, Artful Provocateur, and Thopter Spy Network.
Getting Instants/Sorceries into Opponents' Graveyards
While some versions of this deck go more all-in on this mill-based strategy, I'm choosing just some light inclusions as a nod to Soundwave's "Memory Plunder" ability.
With so much support for artifacts and tokens, sorceries like Maddening Cacophony, Fractured Sanity, and Cut Your Losses do not provide a ton of synergy.
The deck will instead largely rely on opponents casting instants and sorceries as the game progresses instead of devoting a lot of extra mill support. With that being said, there are some mill cards that are too good to pass up!
Tinybones Joins Up has great synergy with Soundwave, Superior Captain's robot spies, repeatedly milling more fuel for the front face of the commander. The Cyber-Controller combines all three of the deck's main strategies, providing artifact synergies, tokens, and mill.
Finally, I wanted to try out Hair-Strung Koto as another way to tie artifacts, tokens, and mill together with one card. Is it bad? Probably – but there's only one way to find out – and rediscovering a 20+ year old card that is relevant to a new commander is what makes this format so exciting!
Inclusions
Foundry in 7% of low-budget decks, Sword not on page. This old-school combo fits really well with this commander, especially with the artifact-heavy strategy I've chosen to build around.
All not on low-budget page. I find it fun to find strategy-dependent removal spells instead of just slapping Swords to Plowshares, Despark, and Generous Gift into every deck.
Hour of Reckoning is a high-synergy tokens-matters card in 57% of low-budget decks, but I wanted to include other convoke spells to continue the theme.
Not on low-budget page. I love sneaking this equipment into all sorts of Commander decks, and this Soundwave build cares about artifacts and produces legendary creatures with evasion. Sign me up!
Not on low-budget page. This is my Challenge the Stats pick and is a slam dunk for this particular blend of artifacts matter and tokens matter. Being able to convoke into either face of your commander is the icing on the cake!
Exclusions
Because of the artifacts matter theme, this deck is leaving many cards that generate nonartifact tokens by the wayside. Company Commander, Prava of the Steel Legion, Space Marine Devastator, Nadir Kraken, and Chasm Skulker are all examples of cards that are popular with Soundwave that didn't make the cut because they don't create or particularly synergize with artifact tokens.
Some version of the deck try to make multiples of Laserbeak and Ravage with cards like Mirror Box and Mirror Gallery.
Because Soundwave converts every time it makes one of these tokens, it seems like a lot needs to go right over multiple turns to ever worry about making too many robot spies.
I think cards like these are better suited for a strategy that creates legendary tokens much more frequently and easily, like Esix, Fractal Bloom or Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes.
Decklist
Soundwave, Sonic Spy
Deck Checklist
- 52 mana sources (36 lands, 13 artifacts, 2 creatures, 1 mdfc)
- 10 card draw
- 21 token producers
- 8 removal spells, including 3 mass removal
- ? finishers (largely Cranial Plating-style cards that care about a critical mass of artifacts)
Mid-Budget Upgrades
If you want to lean more into the mill strategy, cards like Altar of the Brood, Mesmeric Orb, Mindcrank, and Sword of Body and Mind are artifacts that also have some token/combat damage synergies.
Cards like Illustrious Wanderglyph, Stridehangar Automaton, and Skrelv’s Hive improve your artifact token production, while cards like Bennie Bracks, Zoologist, Caretaker’s Talent, and Skullclamp allow you to turn these tokens into card advantage.
Finally, Sunfall and White Sun’s Twilight are powerful sweepers that also create artifact tokens.
Conclusion
Thanks for tuning in for this week's article! Whether you're a fan of artifacts, tokens, milling, casting your opponents' stuff, or all of the above – I think you'll enjoy building around Soundwave, Sonic Spy! Join me next week when I find a Grixis commander that is on the border of popularity. See you then!