Nice card idea. But I don't think red should get a 2/2 for with only beneficial abilities. Was this meant to be ?

Disagree on that one, check Ash Zealot

­Ash Zealot (use triple square-brackets to get the autolink) That also doesn't cost ; and it's rare (ugh, I hate rarity cost reduction) then?

First strike and haste and a repeatable effect on Ash Zealot - justifies it's cost. ­Blood Spirit has a draw back in that a creature needs to be sacrificed. But to compromise I have changed target player to target creature.

A bolt is still pretty darn good. I guess it's close to Ember Hauler now.

But if things like this exist; why would you ever run Goblin Brigand, let alone Goblin Raider, Goblin Firebug etc.

Mmm... I can get behind that now. Surprising how just a small change makes me feel about a card.

It's a sensible reaction. Every colour gets 2/2s for CC, and every colour gets 2/1s for 1C, with great abilities in both cases. (The Izzet Guildmage cycle canonicalised the 2/2 for CC rule, but every colour gets them all over the place; Ash Zealot is merely the most recent red one.) But only white and green got 2/2s for 1C, until very recently black joined the club with Walking Corpse and then Tavern Swindler.

The extra ability on this card is optional, which means it's always beneficial to have the option. You're never forced to sacrifice a creature, which means it's strictly better to have the galvanize bit there than to not have it. A 1/1 for with "When ~ ETBs, you may sacrifice 8 creatures. If you do, gain 1 life" is strictly better than a vanilla 1/1 for , even if you would virtually never want to use the ability.

So now that this is back into the permissible sizes (1R for 2/1), this is great. Haste is a very strong addition to a 2/1 for 1R, but that's fine on an uncommon; and the galvanize ability will sometimes be pretty handy too.