COBRA

"Update 2.0 - Featuring exclusive content!

Get ready for a brand new exclusive tower - the COBRA, also known as Covert Ops Battles Response Agent. Armed with a very particular set of skills and trusty sidearm, the COBRA can affect the course of a game in many different ways. Good luck."

- Ninja Kiwi's Apple App Store update description

 (Covert Ops Battles Response Agent) is a tower appearing in Bloons TD Battles Mobile and Steam as well as Bloons Adventure Time TD. It was added in the update on August 18, 2014. The tower costs 5000, tallying the third most medallions to get an item in BTD Battles, only overcome by the Silver and Golden weapon skins. However, it can be bought for USD $4.99 or equivalent (still more than all the other towers, for USD $3.99). Winning battles in Battle Arena is essential to be able to afford the tower, given the classic mode's rewards are only a fraction of the cost of the tower.

Its upgrades are generally focused on changing game mechanics in ways that were previously impossible. However, it must be used in combination with good grouped popping power and camo popping power as it possesses neither. Also, it is sometimes banned in Bananza Battle Arena.

Update History
The COBRA is capable of highly influencing the outcome of a game. Ever since the COBRA was added to the game, it has almost always been nerfed in updates. Most of these nerfs are to some of its most powerful upgrades.

The only popular loadouts that uses the COBRA right now is COBRA-Bomb-Mortar and COBRA-heli-farm. Previously Boomerang-Village-COBRA and Dart-Farm-COBRA (way back before 3.1) were popular but both eventually fell out of use due to unknown reasons.

Trivia

 * The COBRA is the most expensive tower to unlock in BTD Battles, costing 5000.
 * This tower is the first in Bloons TD Battles where all upgrades are unlocked with the purchase of the tower.
 * This is the only tower in Bloons TD Battles that can affect an opponent's side of the track.
 * Misdirection is the only ability that has varying countdown times.
 * The COBRA and the Banana Farm are the only 2 BTDB towers that don't have an upgrade that allows it to pop Lead Bloons.
 * However, since Banana Farms cannot pop bloons at all, the COBRA is the only attacking tower that can't pop Leads.
 * Misdirection can send back Leads, but not pop them.
 * Normally, players would get 7 if you finish a game with 150 lives. However, if players lost some lives and used Attrition to get lives back to 150, players would not get 7. The same applies to Support Chinook.
 * It is the fifth tower that holds any type of gun by default, the first being Glue Gunner and the second being Dartling Gun and the third being Sniper Monkey and the fourth being Monkey Engineer.
 * Since the Glue Gunner doesn't do damage initially, it is also the fourth gun-wielding tower that uses Sharp damage by default.
 * This is one of the only two towers that can regain lives without using premiums, the other being the Heli Pilot.
 * Sometimes, if both players have the COBRA, one of them will attempt to reduce the opponent's lives to 1 (kill their opponent before version 3.1) by having more 0/2 COBRAs than the other. This is known as an "Attrition War".
 * Offensive Push only affects the bloons, and not Regen or Camo modifiers.
 * For example, if one gets Offensive Push on level 11, the player will only get grouped blacks and spaced rainbows without the Regen and Camo modifier.
 * The COBRA's hair gets less messy as players upgrade it.

Ninja Kiwi

 * According to Ninja Kiwi's December 3rd 2021, Ninja Kiwi confirmed that COBRA and Bloonchipper will not return in Bloons TD Battles 2.
 * Prior to this, NK made a vague statement about COBRA's potential addition after initial release of that game.

Cultural references

 * Cobra means "snake" in Portuguese.
 * The cobra is also a kind of snake known to be highly venomous.
 * The name COBRA could possibly be a reference to Solid Snake of the Metal Gear Solid video game series.
 * The name COBRA could also be a reference to the German television series Alarm für Cobra 11.
 * The "Finish Him!" upgrade is a reference to the phrase "Finish Him!" from Mortal Kombat.