The designers settled on Plot, a fair but powerful mechanic which is near its best on a card like this
Its Mushookies
Combine these into a single card and you get one of the best giants in MTG and a staple for formats like EDH, Modern, and the like
(These are playable Magic cards you could play in other decks as well, but for the purposes of this game they are essentially just used as reminder game pieces.) From there, you can win either by killing all three of your opponents like in Magic or correctly guessing the cards in the envelope like in Clue
It's definitely better than losing an entire turn of board development
In truth, these are both powerful cards, but the Cobra wins out because its just a little more explosive, letting you get a bigger, earlier advantage over your opponents