sorry for the slight repetition,
the main problem with Cobra is that it's very hard to justify him over basically any other PS 9 ace if you're thinking in "super ace" (soontir, vader, even Han) terms, which is where you'll fall i.t.o price if you give him EU
Cobra will never be as durable, maneuverable, or flexible as the likes of the imperial tie pilots and EU does not change that. Now, if you ask me, Scum does have a PS 9 ace that can hang with Vader/Soontir and that's Xizor (yes, I'm cheating with V.I, but that's what scum's all about 
)
The thing with the Special-K, as I discovered with the X-wings, that the 5 health, 2 agility profile gets reliably 2-shot by hyper modified 3/4 dice attacks. This is not a problem with the Marauder, who is actually priced fairly appropriately for its profile, but when you start plopping on points without increasing the durability then the issue starts to become evident.
Normally, such fragility would be overcome with skill, but there's only so much you can do against the maneuverable, wide arcs of aggressors or doughnut-hole Dash, and literally nothing you can do against PWTs (well 4 green dice; best get praying!). TLT ships should not be so bad with the special-k's dial, but they will shred Cobra if allowed to (punching right through his ability). Xizor can be flown through any of these threats using his ability and/or thrusters, but sadly Cobra has access to neither.
Cobra's main advantage being in the special K, however, is the illicit slot and the fact that he comes packaged with glitterstim. Stim does two big things:
1.) Against swarms, it lets you Luke out through the many, crappy attacks (having four green dice at range 3 "helps"...when they feel like it)
2.) If you're awesome you can fly into range 1 and target-lock, then stim a nigh guaranteed 5 damage into some poor bastard
these two capabilities (and him being a PS 9 "X-wing") is what make me liken Cobra so much to Wedge. In short, he does better the more small based, lower health ships you start seeing. Against the high health, high durability, high damage, low number 2-ship meta, damage cancellation through evades/thrusters/regeneration ala Vader/Soontir/Corran is king and Cobra can't do any of that. You stack the threat of 5 dice against any small ship though, even the ones that can tango with the fat ****, and Cobra starts to find himself a niche
Going by my slowly changing local meta, at least some people are getting bored of the 2-ship build (or the TLTs + conners have proved to be too much of a hurdle ) and we're finally starting to see ships appear in proper numbers. If this change extends throughout other groups, then it'll be Cobra's time to shine!
at least until Wave 8. Torpedo boat pogostick and the Inquisitor are going to make life miserable for Cobra 
