When I first saw this card, I dismissed it. It's
a 1/1 that has an occasional +1/+0 as its only
trick. It swings for 1 or 2 a couple times and
then dies.
Then people starting building the kind of decks
that can use this thing. Scaldingly-fast aggro
decks that dropped a creature every turn, swung
for the fences, and had no shortage of combat
tricks. Titan's Strength, Coordinated Assault,
and Krenko's Command. Suddenly, this little guy
had a place, and it was in the winner's circle
at PTQ's. Why am I an authority on card
evaluation again?
With all these low-cost red creatures we're
looking at this week, I'd almost say this was
another golden age for Sligh. Except that direct
damage is not at its historic high (at least if
you play Standard), and I think Dave Price's
head would probably have exploded if he'd ever
had to deal with Courser of Kruphix or Master of
Waves. Still, you have to respect a creature
like Foundry Street Denizen which adds power to
an attack for no cost other than doing what you
were going to do anyway, and it practically
invites people to put a bunch of low-cost red
creatures into a deck and see what happens.
Today's card of the day is Foundry Street
Denizen which is a one mana Red 1/1 that gets
+1/+0 whenever another Red creature enters play
under your control. This is a very solid
goblin to use in a mono-Red goblin tribal deck
and fits in well alongside Krenko and Legion
Loyalist. It will continue to see play in
mono-Red decks across formats and in particular
is likely to be a regular part in Red goblin
decks going forward.
In Limited this is an easy inclusion for any
Sealed deck using a decent number of Red
creatures as a 1/1 for one that can gain
additional power. For Booster it is a
solid early pick after a Red rare and can be a
decent threat in the early game.
The denizen and yesterday's card, Frenzied
Goblin, can often be found in the same decks.
Both use small, incremental damage to add up
against an opponent. In a mono-red deck, it's
not uncommon to play 2 or more creatures a turn,
making this a serious threat. It's 1 toughness
means it's going to die if it's blocked, but red
decks have always considered their threats
disposable, as long as they did some damage in
the process.
