Zada's Commando

First strike wants this Goblin swinging; Cohort wants it parked. That contradiction is the whole read on the card. Every ping costs two tappings, its own and an untapped Ally's, so pushing a point at an opponent or planeswalker means keeping bodies out of the red zone. The design rewards a wide, parallel board: some Allies attack while a few stay home to convert the swarm into reach that creature combat alone cannot always deliver. First strike is the concession that keeps the Commando pulling weight on the turns you do choose to attack, so it is not dead when the ping engine sits idle. Across a mono-Ally build the ability adds up to an incremental clock: no single point of damage decides anything, but a board that can both attack and tap out a handful of pings closes games from an angle a wall of blockers never touches, and because the damage hits opponents and planeswalkers directly, blockers do not slow it at all. The tension is deliberate. Cohort asks you to weigh pressure now against a slower inevitability, and the Commando embodies that choice more sharply than most of its tribe, because its own first-striking body is exactly the resource the ability wants you to hold in reserve.