Breaking Wave
Sorcery
You may cast this spell as though it had flash if you pay 
more to cast it. (You may cast it any time you could cast an instant.)
Simultaneously untap all tapped creatures and tap all untapped creatures.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Invasion
- Price
- $0.71
- EDHREC rank
- #21413
Breaking Wave taps or untaps every creature on the board — your choice — which means it either locks opponents out of blockers or resets your entire attacking force for another swing. The X cost keeps it flexible, but the real ceiling is pairing it with creatures that care about tapping or untapping: that's when it stops being a combat trick and starts ending games.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Breaking Wave belongs in tap-synergy decks — merfolk tribal, Derevi stax, or any shell that monetizes mass untap — where the X cost scales into late-game relevance and the political flexibility of choosing tap or untap gives it situational range. Legacy and Vintage have access to it but almost never want it; combat-centric blue tricks compete poorly against the card quality available in those formats, and the sorcery speed hurts. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander 60-card variant where Breaking Wave could see niche play in a planeswalker-plus-signature-spell shell built around untap abuse, though the card sees essentially zero competitive play there in practice. Everywhere else, it's not legal and not a loss.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.71 bulk tier
At $0.71, Breaking Wave is firmly bulk — low enough to throw into any blue tap-matters build without a second thought. It's a single-printing card with a narrow enough use case that the price is unlikely to move significantly in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.