Is Cull a trap?

has very weak stats, but rewards you if you reach a certain level of farm. This seems ok at first, but the problem is, by buying an item, you commit to a particular strategy that your opponent knows about, therefore giving them an opportunity to counter (by picking fights with you, which you will lose). This seems like the same problem Poacher's Knife had -- and again, you can't change strategy without a substantial penalty because you already bought the item. Except worse, because you're buying it on a laner -- guess how the enemy jungler is going to react to knowing that one laner is weaker than the others right from level 1.

Compounding this problem is the current hyper-snowbally meta, where you really can't afford to be weak in the early game because then there might not BE a midgame where you would use Cull's gold to hit a powerspike (or your team would already be super behind).

Overall I support the idea of all roles having some choice in starting items (supports already do, junglers gained some this season although some specific junglers work way better with one than the other), but I'm not sure Cull is the right way to do it. It may be too specific and therefore too easy to counter.