Poacher's Knife, why it failed and what could be salvaged from it

So, as you probably already know, Poacher's Knife does not exist anymore. It was never popular or strong, for several reasons, but a frequently cited one is that the act of buying a poacher's knife publicly announced (as soon as your opponents saw it in your inventory) your commitment to counterjungling as a strategy, which the opponents could respond to in ways that made it more risky and less rewarding than if they didn't know you were going to do it. Furthermore, you had to get it instead of another jungle item, like the ones that would help you win or escape from fights in the enemy jungle. And if your team got pushed in and you lost access to the enemy jungle, then it would be worthless, which made it too risky to invest in.

The idea of counterjungling being rewarding is a cool one IMO, but Poacher's Knife was the wrong way to do it because it is a specific item that your enemies can see you getting, and because you commit to a strategy that is likely to result in fights while simultaneously sacrificing fighting power (relative to alternative jungle items). That isn't going to end well.

So I have an idea to bring back what was good about Poacher's Knife without its problems: make a bonus on smiting and/or killing enemy camps a baseline part of Smite. Every jungler now has counterjungling potential all the time without having to build specifically for it. Enemy jungle camps are more rewarding than your own side, but also riskier because they're in enemy territory and you could get collapsed on or outdueled. But now you can counterjungle with Skirmisher or Stalker to fall back on in case you do get found, or with Tracker to get vision of the enemy jungle and spot them before they reach you. And even if you end up failing at counterjungling or abandoning it, you still have a jungle item that is useful for something in the midgame.

Counterjungling would become a thing that anyone could do opportunistically, without a heavy long-term commitment to it, and would be worth the risk if you can pull it off. There still is significant downside risk: you can be caught and killed, forced to flash to get away, reveal your position allowing the enemy to make a play elsewhere on the map, or waste your time visiting camps that are already dead. But you can also abandon counterjungling if you have to without being extra penalized with a dead item.

TLDR: Counterjungling is a cool tactic, and the idea of making an enemy camp more rewarding than the "same" camp in your own jungle, to go along with how risky it is, has merit. But an item dedicated to counterjungling failed. Solution: Don't make counterjungling rely on a specific item.

P.S. This may have some champion balance implications, particularly for Kindred and Nunu, but it's preseason, there's plenty of time to address those if they become a big problem. So the best time to do something like this is right now.