Welcome to the third installment of Leaving A Legacy, a column honoring the incredible people engraved in the Halls of Fame of their specific army. Today, we pore over Cobra, a handle deeply embedded within the legacy of the Elite Guardians of Club Penguin.
Designed by Master DS
From Diplomat to Acting Leader
SavageCobra‘s story with the Elite Guardians did not begin and end with ranks, it was founded on relationships. In late 2017, he befriended Cookky, fostering a strong relationship with his army, the Dark Knight Empire, and EGCP. After his tenure in the Romans as a leader, Cobra officially joined as third-in-command in the Elite Guardians. However, his actual involvement saw its initial kick-off during World War VII. During that period, he was a high-level advisor while also leading the Templars. He then transitioned to a role in EGCP’s High Command, where the informal influence he wielded from the back end of an alternate account slowly became a value-added strategy. This is why many in the EGCP community referred to him as an acting leader.
What set Cobra apart was his ability to diplomatically and politically build alliances. He co-founded the Red Dawn Alliance in World War VII, bringing armies together against the United Armies of Club Penguin Online. The UAC itself was an alliance between the Rebel Penguin Federation and Elite Trackers and Activities, mainly led by the acting RPF leader at the time Chip. Unsurprisingly, Cobra played a pivotal role in gaining support, planning the strategy, and leading the diplomatic efforts in the war. After the war, he began to transition into focusing on negotiating and alliance-building as opposed to directly leading battles. He had relationships with armies like the Templars, the Pizza Federation, and the Winged Hussars. He helped said armies find allies in times of intense army politics.
Red Dawn Alliance during WWVII
How Cobra Helped Change the Game
Cobra helped revive the New Viking Alliance, originally intended to challenge the Pirates. Under his guidance, the alliance redirected its efforts against the Templars after a dramatic internal rebellion by the Winged Hussars. He continued to work with leaders like Edu and Cookky. During this period, not only did EGCP establish itself as a dominant force, but it also laid the groundwork for leaving the Club Penguin Online Army League. Nevertheless, this pivotal moment led to the recreation of the Club Penguin Army Syndicate by Cobra, Flen, and Hexxer in February 2019. First established in early 2018 by Nardo and Twitchy, CPAS was an early league that initiated a small boom in early 2018. This recreation introduced many great assets and features, including league benefits and a legends induction.
Through harmless trolling, making memes, and coding the first Guardian Bot, Cobra became a key player in forming the organizational culture within EGCP. Afterwards, he took a step back for a time to help advise Yellow with the army’s AUSIA division, working on developing strategies for war and tournaments, and conceiving the inclusion of a university-style system. His unique insights would help propel EGCP’s organization relevantly in competitions later on such as the Around The World Cup.
The Around The World Cup
From Leader to Legend
In 2024, the Elite Guardians formally announced Cobra as their new leader. He immediately began the rebuilding stage of internal structure, diplomacy, and leadership in the battles ahead. Afterwards, he co-designed an AUSIA training system alongside the Water Vikings and developed a staff review process. He was a key player in victories over the Templars and the Water Vikings. The reworked Guardian Bot he developed became integral to EGCP’s preparation and training before every battle, including the Legends Cup and the war against the Army of Club Penguin.
After leading EGCP through all of the turmoil and extensive campaigns, Cobra stepped down due to burnout and personally decided to step down in late 2024. Regardless, he constantly reminds the community that all his contributions were not on his own. He shared the diplomacy with Edu and Cookky and trained alongside Lass. Cobra was meant to receive his EGCP Legend status in 2019. However, delays pushed the official title induction to October 2020, where Cobra got the title for his enduring loyalty to EGCP and the work and ideas he brought.
Cobra in the EGCP Hall of Fame
Club Penguin Armies spoke with former EGCP leader Cobra to reflect on his legacy.
You played a pivotal diplomatic role during World War VII. How did that experience shape your leadership style?
World War VII was probably the last time during my original run of armies that I was insanely involved in a lot of the direct affairs when it comes to battling and such (at least until 2020). I’d say it definitely was the testament and peak of a lot of the diplomatic and warfare work that I did early on in my CPA career throughout late 2017 and early 2018. Developing the strong connections with armies really paid off.
In terms of how it shaped my leadership style, I’d say it definitely was a big catalyst in me becoming a director and planner, as this war was where (at times months worth) a lot of plans I worked in were implemented effectively. I’d say it definitely showed my capability as a planner and diplomat, which laid the foundation for my work as one of EGCP’s premiere diplomats for the rest of 2018 and 2019. It also showed my effectiveness in assembling an alliance of armies, and definitely laid the work for the New Viking Alliance later.
Although I don’t care much for diplomacy nowadays due to the meta being quite depressing compared to how it was as a kid, my work during WW7 showed I can be both a director and a strong implementer, which I have used in a few leaderships since then (namely Templars in 2020 and my WV work for the past few months, especially as a director; I wouldn’t say I was a “director” in 2024 in the pure sense of the word, as there was a lot of nuance in how our leadership functioned).
The My Little Pony power of friendship image fits the RDA/NVA quite well.
You were instrumental in building alliances like the RDA and reviving the NVA. What was the biggest challenge in uniting different armies under one cause?
In terms of uniting armies against the RPF via the RDA, it was quite difficult. I helped lead and essentially co-found the first New Viking Alliance back in December 2017, which was made to combat the Romans/RPF sphere of influence (even though we also destroyed UMA, sorry Bret), but it was quite difficult to actually get people to unite against RPF as a force, due to manpower issues. There were a few attempts, one in January 2018 and one in March 2018, both led by Eden to unite armies, but again, it was difficult due to manpower. We just weren’t super confident that we could do it, especially in early 2018 when RPF was managing to hit sizes of 60+ at a lot of events (or so they claimed). It would require a lot of organization, and it’s been attempted since the summer of 2017 (namely a Tubas-RPF battle which was just the army community vs RPF), but every attempt ultimately failed.
Things were a bit different by the time summer 2018 came around. RPF pretty much burned every bridge that they had after the turned their back on their only alliance, the Romans, that at least was a bigger motivating factor for me since I was very upset that they did that to us (I was a Romans leader when they did). Fortunately, though, when Templars returned in 2018, they had Elmikey who definitely brought a lot of nationalism. Elm, Xing, and I managed to pull a lot of strings and got Templars to a small major status, and that allowed us to beat back the RPF early on in WW7 (at least, to a degree), which showed the viability of warfare.
I also was the chief advisor and became the owner of the Pizza Federation after helping them modernize and such, so I had influence there to help bring them into the war. I had close connections with EGCP, and they already wanted a piece of RPF during that summer. RPF and EGCP fought in a battle and EGCP was said to be tactically superior by Riley, which again showed viability. So, things fell in place and it just required rallying people, which ultimately was very easy after people saw the viability of the war, and the developed connections. The community for a while was very angry at the RPF (especially due to them being the biggest army), and when you had them attacking an innocent army like PZF at the time it really did help lol. Getting armies like CPSM and the Sharks I think just involved some persuasion really, but when you had numerous armies backing the war cause against RPF it made it easier. Edu14463 called a council of the founders of the RDA (a meeting between EGCP, Templars, and some Wild Ninjas), we discussed the development of an alliance, gathered the other armies, and the rest is history.
In terms of the NVA, that was easy, lol. EGCP, again, had strong connections with various armies when the NVA was first revived. Templars and EGCP were already very upset cause of Pirates cheating during Christmas Chaos, so, it was quite easy to convince Templars to join a new NVA. In addition, getting armies like PZF and the other armies at the time (I’m not gonna lie, I forgot some of the names since a lot of them were just simple names like “EPF”, “Wizards”, etc.) was also easy because nobody liked the Pirates! And then we kicked Templars out, and that had the whole Templar Exodus debacle (bringing in WH) and what not.
Getting the armies to rally against RPF again via the NVA, again, was also quite easy. The NVA moved back to the CPR side in late January 2019, and RPF was back on the rise and trying to compete in armies again, so naturally competition just occurred. But, since we already had an establishment, it was pretty easy, plus they liked to bully some armies around. Especially when the later parts of 2019 came, it was quite easy to get armies like GSG, RFCP, and Pretzels to join us to combat the RPF sphere, especially since LGA was also bullying armies a part of that sphere.
What inspired you to develop cultural tools like the Guardian Bot and the university-style training system?
The first instance of the Guardian Bot was created because I was learning programming and wanted some practice and felt that a bot would be cool to create. It was mainly made to help with events (we had something known as the “flood”. If you guys thought you got a lot of pings in 2023-2024, this era of EGCP was much more insane). I had a lot of side things, though, such as commands to make fun of people and just post memes. It was a lot of fun and people really enjoyed it. I brought it back in 2024 not to boost culture (but it did in some ways), but to instead refine our formation creation, and which is succeeded when we weren’t burnt out. I just wanted to make EGCP tactically superior that time around. The bot is currently being adapted for Water Vikings, but this time with a lot more in depth features.
The university idea actually originates from Dino, Zamb, and I when we led UMA. We created the idea of a training academy to train officers/HCOM in-depth. I brought this up to EGCP in 2023 as I wanted to help develop a professional staff force for the army, one that will work hard and be passionate. EGCP already had a university program to essentially tutor people on IRL subjects, so we rebranded it basically. We worked extensively among each other, primarily Fitsuki, Lass, Yellow, Edu, and I to develop a system. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was effective during it’s initial run. I have since adapted it for Water Vikings, with the help of DrQueen (who brought in the principles and ideas from the IW training program) and Trails as my staff ministers, and Rye as my co-leader.
Looking back, what do you think your lasting legacy is within EGCP and the wider army community?
I mean, in a non-arrogant way, I am one of the core four legends of EGCP. That is the legacy. I was the gringo, the one who spoke broken Portuguese with Google Translate who would bully the troops but also get made fun of. The one who created the goofy Guardian Bot. The one who did a lot of work to help forward EGCP diplomatically and help us dominate the army community diplomatically from late 2018 to late 2019. The one who would lead offensive tactics when we got bored at events. The only American leader in EGCP. One of the most pragmatic voices there. The one who made sure they didn’t get hacked back in 2019 (that was stupid).
Admittedly, early on in my EGCP career, a lot of the impact I made within the army that people knew of was almost entirely cultural. People knew I had quite a lot of power (I wouldn’t get accused of being a dictator if I didn’t), but I exercised it almost entirely in my niche. It’s really hard to see direct records of my work on the EGCP site at that time, because inside of EGCP I did silly cultural stuff and on the outside I worked on diplomatic/warfare related stuff. So, honestly, it’s quite a funny legacy because in the army I was that one guy with an absurd amount of admin power that kept instigating people, but was working extensively behind the scenes to help make EGCP the equivalent of the United States (ironic) in the community. I definitely brought that into my actual EGCP leadership, but I obviously had to take a lot of other things more seriously outside of just war and diplomacy. I did a lot of stuff for EGCP in 2023-2024, and I’m quite proud of what we managed to achieve within that time. So, honestly, it’s hard to say what my lasting legacy is because it’s best to let time tell and let it marinate. I can say confidently I am one of the top diplomats and war leaders from EGCP, and one of the only leaders to win a tournament (officially) for the army (one of our three official wins. We def won CC2018 though).
In the wider community, that’s also hard to say. I can say confidently in my 2017-2019 I was a very big voice and probably one of the most notable and successful diplomats from that era. I don’t mean that arrogantly, it’s just how it is. But, really, it’s impossible for me to say what the lasting legacy is across the entire community itself, as things need time to age and at the end of the day, it’s subjective and relative to the eras.
At the end of the day, I never did armies to leave a lasting legacy per se. The most important things to me were my friends, and leading the armies that I was at to success – achieving our goals. Especially in the sense of EGCP, I was absurdly nationalist throughout my career there and was always proud of my work there. However, I didn’t care so much about tying my name to a legacy at EGCP. I just cared about helping make EGCP successful, which is why I try to give credit to the others whenever I can because the success of EGCP can never be attributed to just one man. I think a lot of us can agree that the only thing we cared about was making this beautiful creation from October 2017 successful, and THAT is the only legacy I cared about leaving in armies. I hope to do similar at WV, but I will never forget and cease embracing my roots at EGCP.
SavageCobra’s involvement with the Elite Guardians is defined by initiative, innovation, and faithfulness. While he was actively involved with many behind-the-scenes diplomatic initiatives and transitioning from one officer to the leader during several significant wars, he acted as both a strategist and cultural pillar. He was either an ambassador, an independent supporter of armies, who worked with them to gain independence and allied with them, or an engineer of systems supportive of the way EGCP trained with each other, and supported engaged armies. However, what might be most indicative of his legacy is his humility, an unwavering belief in the idea that success is born from teamwork. What legacy will you leave behind in the armies you serve? What will your story say about you?
Zenishira
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