Unwinding Lotus Cobra’s Arrival In Zendikar Rising

We heard you liked fast mana, so we got you some fast…

I’m not gonna do the whole meme.

Point is, Lotus Cobra’s back, but it isn’t just back — it’s legal in more places than ever before.

Previously only printed in a regular set in original Zendikar, Lotus Cobra saw some play in its Standard format alongside Titans, and finds itself in Modern meme decks from time to time. Now? It gets to play wherever it wants, alongside another Titan:

For those keeping track at home, with Lotus Cobra involved, Uro is almost free to cast with a Lotus Cobra on the battlefield because of the extra mana generated by the land it puts there. This is going to make dedicated ramp decks look incredible, even without the “fair” angle in their gameplans:

                                                           

Post-rotation ramp deck doing ramp deck things, right? There are a few things here worth noting that showcase everything Lotus Cobra can actually do to impact a manabase:

A larger impact that Lotus Cobra will have on Standard is the fact that it offsets the drawback that comes with having enters-the-battlefield-tapped lands. Normally, these multicolor lands are kept in check by the fact that they can’t produce mana the turn they enter the battlefield. That isn’t the case when Lotus Cobra has anything to say about it.

This means that Lotus Cobra could come down on Turn 2 and Cultivate will still be online for the following turn with a hand full of Triomes.

For anyone who hasn’t played with Lotus Cobra before, one of the strongest things it could do the first time around was get to work with fetchlands to make some seriously powerful turns happen out of nowhere. Each fetchland doesn’t come with a Lotus Petal attached — it gets a Dark Ritual. In this deck, Fabled Passage isn’t the only land that can seriously skip around the curve:

Castle Garenbrig has been known to be Temple of the False God’s more handsome younger brother, but when combined with Lotus Cobra, the jump in mana can be an even bigger surprise. Imagine an opponent with a Lotus Cobra and three lands being able to play Castle Garenbrig and go straight up to six mana. It’s no joke.

The biggest hole in this deck for now is that there isn’t a wide array of green or colorless creatures to crank out with Castle Garenbrig, but I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled this preview season for ways to abuse this synergy in particular.

Shooting for the moon with Ugin and the like isn’t the only way to ramp, however:

Temur Mutate was a Standard deck that got a ton of hype right after the release of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths before falling off a bit. With a card like Lotus Cobra cranking things onto the battlefield and the format slowing down a bit with rotation, it’s the perfect time for it to make a comeback.

Lotus Cobra not being a Human for the sake of mutate itself is incredibly attractive. It being a mana enabler as well as a mutate enabler makes some great starts possible; Migratory Greathorn and Lotus Cobra just get the deck out so far ahead that it’ll be difficult for any deck to keep up. Single-mana Rampant Growths? Sign me up.

The top of the curve in the deck also ensures that there’s always a way to spend its mana, offsetting a classic downfall of decks that put all of their points into enablers. One payoff can simply find several more.

That being said, Standard isn’t the only exciting place for Lotus Cobra:

The deck I submitted for this week’s Historic What We’d Play gets a major facelift on the back of having another reasonable two-drop to crank out Vivien and Karn early. The deck itself is completely centered around its planeswalkers, and Lotus Cobra is one of the best conceivable tools for skipping from development to business spells in a single turn cycle.

Cobra also enables some backdoor lines that involve getting Fabled Passage with Golos in order to build a Lotus Petal on the following turn.

But on the less-cute-lines side of things, what Cobra mostly does for this deck is provide a level of redundancy that is necessary for these archetypes to thrive. On top of redundancy equating to resiliency in the face of interaction, it also means consistency. Opening hands that start on Llanowar Visionary instead of Mind Stone aren’t really defensible in older versions.

Starting on Lotus Cobra? A completely different story.

The deck also plays in older formats, albeit more explosively:

Lotus Cobra and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx are a match made in heaven.

In a play pattern not entirely dissimilar from the Castle Garenbrig interaction I touched on earlier, only needing one mana in addition to the Nykthos itself is a huge upgrade over something like Wolfwillow Haven in the Lotus Cobra slot.

Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic are great ways for the deck to have a single mana left over, and when so many of the lands in the deck are mana sinks that produce more mana, having cards that help you get off the ground is perfect.

Slithering Up the Curve

The sweet spot for Lotus Cobra decks will be decks that are trying to skip ahead on the curve at multiple points and also want to play cards that put extra lands onto the battlefield. The Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath and Migratory Greathorn decks are the places where Lotus Cobra will feel like Goblin Electromancer for ramp.

Finding the best ways to abuse Lotus Cobra while it’s at its best (in the early-game) while also having great gameplans late is critical. The decks with a pile of four-drop planeswalkers will do a great job of squeezing opponents, necessitating early removal to answer Lotus Cobra before blanking said removal with Karn, the Great Creator and Nissa, Who Shakes the World.

Lotus Cobra has done a ton of messed-up stuff over the years, and it being legal in just about every format save Pauper will give it even more avenues to abuse.