Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy

Recently on a Command Zone's “Game Knights” episode, Hawk from Cobra Kai made a guest appearance, wielding the commander of every player's night terrors: *Koma, Cosmos Serpent. It was not only a great game of magic, but also held a hidden gem for fans of Cobra Kai. In the show, Hawk is aggressive, relentless, and goes hard with everything he does. It was oddly fitting that his deck's color aesthetic not only matched the season 3 mohawk, but his personality on screen as well. This inspired ya boy, and we back like Chancelor Bennett with another theme deck. 

Today's theme deck is based on the Netflix show, Cobra Kai. Cobra Kai is the spiritual sequel to the hit movie franchise Karate Kid from the 80s. If you don't know what it is, I highly suggest you check out the show! 

The Commander 

 Similar to the Batman deck tech, our commander has to be the most on theme card in this deck. When it comes to building themed Commander decks, I feel as though this aspect vitally helps the vibe. Since the build is based on Johnny's vision of Cobra Kai, I want our commander to be a vessel for a Johnny-like presence. *Shu Yun, The Silent Tempest delivers in both flavor and functionality. Not to mention, the fact that he is characterized as silent makes the match up ironic gold.

He is a warrior monk, one of many we see skilled in hand-to-hand combat in the MTG universe. Shu Yun has the ability to gain double strike as well. Giving our creatures advantages such as first strike is going to be a cool way to be aggressive, while also delivering on the Dojo's Core motto: Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy. I used this to structure the deck's strategy. First Strike and unblockability will let us "strike first," prowess triggers and buffing creatures will sure as hell make them "strike hard," and there's some tasty spells to cement a lead in order to show your opponents "no mercy”! 

Strike First 

If you'd like a true breakdown of my thought process going into a theme deck, refer to my last theme deck post you can find here. 

With that being said, let’s start with the first aspect of this deck: striking first. Luckily for us, MTG has made this dynamic very easy to achieve using in-game mechanics. Not only do we have cards like Shu Yun or *Coiled Tinviper who have first strike attached, we can give our creatures the ability to strike first against the opponents, AND sometimes, even gain value. *Slip Through Space, *Taigam's Strike, and *Aerial Maneuver are great examples of that. Take note as well, I have been trying to even keep card names on theme with hand-to-hand combat. As we go along, pay close attention to the choice of card names, as it is another way to boost the validity of your theme. Not every card in the deck could work, but most did. After all, maybe there's some way to stretch out a BS meaning. Fight me in the comments below over the use of the card *Spirit Mantle.

Strike Hard 

Next line of the motto is Strike Hard, and yet again this is achievable with MTG mechanics. Combat tricks that greatly increase attacking power, and adding abilities such as trample can make the attack step brutal for opponents. *Fists of Flame, *Brute Strength, and *Unleash Fury are flavorful ways amongst many in the deck to achieve this goal. I see this working well with the order of the motto as well. Since we are using a ton of instants and sorceries, similar to martial arts, you can pace the order of every move you make. For example, playing *Tormenting Voice, followed by Slip Through Space, then Fist of Flame not only makes a big unblockable beater, but the card draw feeds into Fist of Flame. Strike First, Strike Hard, and now, we show No Mercy.

No Mercy

No Mercy is an aspect of the motto that seems to be a bit more nuanced in MTG terms. This could translate to many things, but I am gonna translate it to finishing the opponent off. Combat trick decks have a notorious reputation for finishing off an opponent out of nowhere during the combat step. However, it most likely is directed at a singular opponent versus the whole table. So, let's embrace that and see how we can close games out. All of the game enders I list here are situational, but absolutely deadly with the right plays. *Insult // Injury and *Relentless Assault are two ways to directly kill an opponent through combat damage. Those two cards paired with the right board state and the right turn can knock a player out of the game like Miguel doing the flying kick. Then, using your spell retrieval spells like *Pull From the Deep, you grab those bastards right out of the grave and do it again. Deflecting Palm is a card my friend has killed me with twice in his Shu Yun deck. This card is straight up a Yu-Gi-Oh trap card printed in MTG, but it’s also the perfect solution to an opponent out of control  towards the endgame. 

*Inspired Ultimatum and *Past In Flames are the last cards I want to include in this section. With this kind of deck, you'll be casting a lot of spells, which may result in running low on cards that are in your hand. No Mercy has a second meaning for this deck I didn't even realize until writing this blog. Keep your metaphorical boot on your opponent's metaphorical neck, and make sure you are drawing and recycling cards, maintaining card advantage. As stated earlier, these moves are just as deadly the second time around when your opponents are doing all they can to simply survive. 

There we have it– the ultimate guide to becoming an MTG karate master! I had a blast brewing this deck, and I will be building my own version of this strategy using a budget *Sidar Kondo build. Unlike the Batman deck tech, I found a few cool ways to go about applying this theme, meaning there is a good chance two Cobra Kai builds could be in completely different colors. Maybe there's a way to make it specific to the Cobra Kai dojo, using white and black to represent the black and yellow color scheme. Another example could be a Hawk specific deck using Rakdos colors (black and red). Try it out, and see what you come up with! Regardless, using this strategy means you're in for a fun treat.

You can find a build of the deck here

-Harland

Editor: Gemini Díaz Velázquez

IG: @_Harleys_Angels_

Twitter: @TyronicTheTrill

NEXT TIME IN FLAVOR TOWN:

The Results are in! Wanda and Vision are moving into the neighborhood!