Are you a Quiet Speculation member?
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
The question will be, is this a combo card, an aggro card, or something else entirely? Pre-sales have already broke 20 dollars a card on eBay, so they really don't represent a bargain at this stage of the game. There are far too many ways to abuse a card like this, and the only question will be what format and what deck will do so. Combos with Scapeshift in Extended will be a part of the conversation, as well as chain-casting Rampant Growths. The real question is, what do you DO with the mana once you get it? When that question is answered, we'll know just how good Lotus Cobra is.
I think its okay. It does function as a combo enabler, but it dies to everything. In a world where removal like Bolt, Fallout, Doomblade and Path are in nearly every deck, it becomes difficult to keep the Cobra around long enough to make a difference. If it stays alive, its going to win the game. I don't think this will be Baneslayer level prices, but even $20 seems a little too expensive imho. I see it settling somewhere around $15 as the presales for cards like this sometimes are inflated by the hype and if the card turns out to fall short in the practical sense, it'll settle lower in price.
This card is just Birds of Paradise 2. It usually accelerates for 1 mana, but sometimes it can go for 2 if you have a fetch land. The occasional turn 3 Baneslayer, and the fact that you can attack with it mean is almost always better than Birds. Birds does allow you to make 3 mana on turn 2, and it doesn't die to removal as easily, since it comes down a turn earlier. Birds also continues to make mana when you stop playing lands.It should be noted that Birds is $5 right now, probably because the only deck that could use it would rather have Noble Hierarch, which is $15. Since the Cobra is mythic, which is on par with the lower frequency of Conflux packs being opened, I predict that the Cobra will cost around $15 if it finds a deck.Trade them away at the Prerelease, since people seem to think this card is the Baneslayer Angel for this set or something. Mike Flores might have had something to do with that.Try to get 2 fetchlands if you manage to crack one of these.