Magictober 2nd: Potion

Magic potions are a staple of computer-game fantasy; but if we'r to go uncontrolled I think I want to go elsewhere for inspiration. Mythology doesn't actually have many - elixir of life, sleeping drink (which is probably just mead, let's be honest) and the occasional love potion (ditto). Other stuff that maybe counts would be medea's cauldron? Thor's goat-ressurrecting cauldron... there's a few of those, but it's not really a bottled drink.

Which makes me now wonder where the modern idea of a potion came from, actually. Probably snake-oil salesmen, to be honest.

So let's go there - mtg snakes are all about deathtouch and first strike. (Distinct lack of constrictors.) And there's an obvious way to combine that in a 'power but...' kind of way. You get one, your opponents get the other.

I kind of want to use "Other creatures deal damage to ~ in the form of deathtouch." to make the tie-in even clearer.

And now we have a problem - because "Enchanted creature has first strike" is firmly . Yet snakes are pretty much .

There is ONE solitary red snake. Fire Snake. So now we're applying a potion of liquid fire. ... I am surprisingly OK with this. Was "Ophidian Tincture".

Was going to say this name was taken, but then I looked it up and it's Liquid Fire. Hm.

Setting that aside, I'm pretty sure you can get more value out of your Reflexes with downside. I know it's supposed to be a way to exile opponents creatures, but that's still a corner case, two step process. The obvious choice is to just give the creature +1/+0. Though, given the flavor you're going for, maybe it would be more fun if instead of first strike, the card said "Creatures blocking or blocked by enchanted creature have first strike." Still a bad card, but harder to evaluate. ;)