{"id":2018,"date":"2026-10-31T06:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T06:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/krakenthemeta.com\/blog\/mtg-first-strike\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T08:06:58","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T08:06:58","slug":"mtg-first-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krakenthemeta.com\/blog\/mtg-first-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"First Strike MTG: How It Works, Deathtouch and a $73 Odric Deck (2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"

First strike<\/strong> is a Magic: The Gathering keyword that lets a creature deal its combat damage before creatures without it. When a creature with first strike is in combat, the game adds an extra combat damage step: first strikers deal their damage in the first one, and everything else deals damage in the second, but only if it is still alive.<\/strong> A 2\/2 with first strike that blocks a 2\/2 without it kills the attacker and takes no damage at all.<\/p>\n\n

That makes first strike the oldest defensive keyword in the game. It was printed on White Knight, Black Knight and Elvish Archers in Alpha in 1993, and it has been on a new card every year since. Scryfall lists roughly 390 cards with the keyword and another 400 that give it to something else. The angle most guides miss is how much of the creature pool a small first striker beats<\/strong>: we counted 17,920 Commander-legal creatures, and 8,435 of them (47%) have toughness 2 or less. A 2-power first striker kills almost half of all creatures ever printed before they deal a point of damage, and more than half of the first strike creatures in Commander have power 2 or less.<\/p>\n\n

This guide covers the first strike rules (including what happens if you gain or lose it mid-combat), the question everyone searches, does first strike beat deathtouch<\/strong>, how it differs from double strike, the most played first strike cards and commanders, legality in every format and a $73.05 budget Odric, Lunarch Marshal Commander deck<\/strong> that shares first strike and a dozen other keywords with the whole team.<\/p>\n\n

What is first strike in MTG?<\/h2>\n\n

First strike is rule 702.7 of the Comprehensive Rules. Rule 702.7a calls it “a static ability that modifies the rules for the combat damage step”, and rule 702.7b (repeated word for word in rule 510.4) says how: if at least one attacking or blocking creature has first strike or double strike as the combat damage step begins, only those creatures assign combat damage in that step. Then the game adds a second combat damage step for “the remaining attackers and blockers that had neither first strike nor double strike as the first combat damage step began”, plus anything that has double strike.<\/p>\n\n

So a combat with a first striker in it has two damage steps instead of one:<\/p>\n\n