Live Play Data

Lotus Cobra

· Creature — Snake · Zendikar Rising (ZNR)

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1211

Decks Running

616

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

78%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

78% of drawn Lotus Cobras are cast before the game ends, and games where it resolves show a +9.7 percentage-point win-rate lift over games where it stays in the library.

Lotus Cobra sits in 7% of the 8985 tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, showing up across 616 distinct lists. That's a niche card, not a universal staple, but its player base is deliberate: every top commander pairing leans on landfall synergy.

The most telling number is draw-to-play rate. 78% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, the highest signal that players want it in play the moment they find it. Median first cast lands on turn 4, with the mode at turn 2, matching its two-mana cost. Once it resolves, 61% of cast copies survive through the end of game, directionally strong for a two-mana creature in a removal-heavy format.

Win rate when cast sits at 34%, against 24% when the card never leaves the library. That +9.7 percentage-point gap is backed by a sample of 223 cast instances and 743 library instances, giving it enough weight to read as a consistent signal rather than noise. Green landfall commanders dominate the top-pairing list, with Bello, Hearthhull, and Aesi leading the count.

At a glance

7% of tracked Commander decks include Lotus Cobra
78% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T4 median first-cast turn, with a mode of turn 2
61% battlefield stickiness after a successful cast
+9.7pp win-rate lift in games where Lotus Cobra resolves vs. stays in the library
515 distinct players have brought Lotus Cobra to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=243

24%

14%

12%

27%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4 P25 2 · P75 6 · max 12

On curve 30% (59 / 243 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 49%

The "good card" funnel

1212 brought · 515 players

Brought to game

1212

Ever drawn

311

Reached battlefield

243

Still on board at game end

148

78%

Of 1212 Lotus Cobras brought to games, 311 were drawn, 243 of those were cast, and 61% of cast copies remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ +3.5pp

Players who cast this card win 34% of the time (n=223) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=743).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 38% (n=65) — about the same as leaving it in the library. Those players survived long enough to draw it, so the gap above is about the card resolving, not just about surviving.

Observed gap +9.7pp; 95% confidence interval +3.5pp to +15.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

356 instances

2.8%

Library

41.6%

Battlefield

32.9%

Graveyard

7.6%

Exile

Most Lotus Cobras end games on the battlefield or in the graveyard after combat, a sign the card stays relevant rather than getting stranded in the library as a 100-card singleton often would.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The top-commander list spans Gruul, Sultai, Simic, and mono-Green shells, confirming that any landfall or ramp commander with Green in its color identity is a natural home for Lotus Cobra.

Card text

Lotus Cobra

Creature — Snake

Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, add one mana of any color.

2 / 1

Zendikar Rising (ZNR) · Rare · Illustrated by Sam Rowan

Frequently Asked

How often is Lotus Cobra drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1144 tracked multiplayer games, Lotus Cobra was drawn 26% of the time. That's consistent with expectations for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 311 instances that reached a player's hand, 78% were cast before the game ended. The median delay between drawing and casting is 1 turn, and 49% of cast copies were played on the same turn they were drawn.

Does casting Lotus Cobra actually help you win?

In 223 participations where Lotus Cobra was cast, the win rate is 34%, normalized to a 4-player baseline. In 743 participations where it never left the library, the win rate is 24%. The +9.7 percentage-point delta has a lower confidence bound above zero in our current data, so what we see so far is a consistent positive signal. As always, better decks cast more cards, so correlation and causation aren't the same thing.

What turn does Lotus Cobra usually come down?

Median first cast is turn 4, and the mode is turn 2, exactly on curve for a two-mana card. The distribution has a meaningful cluster at turns 5 through 7, reflecting copies drawn in the mid-game. The p25 is turn 2 and p75 is turn 7, so the interquartile range spans quite a few turns. Only 30% of first casts land exactly on curve, mostly because many copies are drawn after turn 2 rather than held intentionally.

Which commanders play Lotus Cobra most often?

Bello, Bard of the Brambles leads with 23 decks in the tracked dataset, followed by Hearthhull, the Worldseed and Toph, the First Metalbender at 18 each, then Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait and Flubs, the Fool at 15 each. The spread is broad: the top 10 commanders cover a wide range of Green-touching landfall and ramp strategies, from Sultai to Gruul to mono-Green. That range reflects how universally useful free mana from land drops is across different game plans.

Is Lotus Cobra legal in Commander?

Yes. Lotus Cobra is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, Pauper Commander, or Alchemy. It has never been banned in Commander, though its ceiling in landfall-heavy decks with fetch lands can be very high.

How concentrated is the Lotus Cobra data among a few players?

The data is well-spread. 515 distinct players have brought Lotus Cobra to a tracked game on Playgroup Live, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 4% of all instances. That's comfortably below the threshold where one player's habits could skew the numbers, so the stats reflect a broad sample of real playgroups rather than one prolific pilot.