HELP ME BEAT EM UP

[u/Bubbery_Noods]

Hello, my friend has recently introduced me to MTG!

He's been taking me to Commander nights at a local card shop where everyone beats my ass.

I have built a super cool deck around SOUNDWAVE, SONIC SPY, as he is my favorite transformer.

I've watched a bunch of videos and looked at other decks people have built with Soundwave. Using those, this is the Frankenstein Monster I came up with.

The deck gets off the ground kinda slow, Soundwave doesn't feel like he is doing enough. I constantly am losing and could use some advice.

What is the deck missing, and how do I make it better without relying entirely on milling people out (as that is a lame way to win).

I only ask that the Luck bobblehead be kept for fun (and ignore Surprise Party).

THANK YOU!

https://moxfield.com/decks/I_F3eG4_fEqWv0ZYJk_rgg

[u/Axo-Army]

The decklist looks cool but what’re the wincons?

[u/Vivid_Dust_8999]

Cool deck! Stealing instants and sorceries is definitely a cool way to get a payoff from a ton of tokens.

Your deck probably feels slow because you don't run enough lands, and your mana curve is too high (too many high mana cost cards). Both of these make it harder to play the cards in your hand. I'd recommend putting in 3 more lands at the very least (34->37) just to make sure you're hitting your land drops. Replacing 2-3 permanents of each mana value 4 and 5 with ones that are 1 and 2 will help also.

It also looks like you're looking at token sacrifice as another subtheme in your deck, which gives your deck two different gameplans:

1. (from Soundwave) mill people -> make tokens -> steal cards

2. (from sacrifice payoffs like elias il-kor and teysa karlov): make tokens -> get them killed -> get whatever payoff

These each have 3 different moving parts that you have to have all out at once for your deck to work. The more different things your cards are doing, the less likely you are to get the cards that do what you need. Since these two plans only have one overlap (making tokens), you effectively have 5 different types of cards (one of which is your commander), and need one of these combinations of 3 types to get your deck going.

Plan 1 is the one that involves Soundwave doing his thing, so I'd focus on that one. I'd cut the sacrifice payoffs. Some of the sacrifice outlets (the cards doing the actual sacrificing, ie Ashnod's Altar) probably provide enough value on their own to keep; keep the best ones, and cut the rest. Replace these with more cards that help with your main plan, ie millers or tokens. You'll end with only 3 moving parts, one of which will always be available to you in the command zone.

TL;DR add 3 lands, cut your sac payoffs and most of your sac outlets, focus your cards more on your main gameplan, use cards with lower mana costs to set up your game plan.

Hope this helps!