Crypt Cobra
Poison was the original infect, and this snake belongs to the small generation of creatures that first taught Magic what a poison attacker should cost. The mechanic predates the streamlined infect keyword by years: back then, poison lived entirely on a handful of snakes and spiders whose only job was to connect. The design here is poison reduced to its skeleton. There is no incremental damage, no toughness reduction, no synergy payload; an unblocked attack ticks one poison counter onto the defender, and that is the whole engine. The body is sized to a fair beater of its era, which is the tell about how the mechanic was balanced: a 3/3 for four does honest work even if the poison never lands, so the alternate win condition rides along as upside rather than as the reason to run the card. What holds the clock in check sits in the trigger wording: it only counts when the attacker isn't blocked, so a single chump or a wall zeroes out progress that turn. Stacking ten poison counters one connection at a time is a slow, evadable plan, which is exactly why poison stayed a curiosity for most of Magic's history until the design was rebuilt around the infect keyword. Crypt Cobra is the fossil record of that first attempt: a clean, narrow snake that does one thing and asks you to find a way to make it stick.
