Pointed Discussion

1r for a 1/1 or maybe a 2/2, this should be a common.

this is a really bad card. is there any rarity lower than common? oh you say it's an uncommon? mamma mia!

Not too good...haha

@NARFNra: I can see why you say that, but I disagree about it being balanced at 1 CMC. Although red has a lot of high-quality low-CMC creatures, one thing it has always conspicuously lacked is a colourshifted Grizzly Bears.

If you search for mono-red 2/2s with a CMC of 2, you'll find a largely underwhelming group of cards. There are a few gems (Stigma Lasher,Kargan Dragonlord,Blood Knight and Ember Hauler), but they all cost . Once you start considering creatures, you'll see that every one of them has some kind of drawback:

-many hate to block or be blocked
-a couple punish you if they die
-some will cost you later, if you want to keep them around

If you think of Skittish Kavu as just another member of a long line of 2/2s, he makes a lot more sense. Truthfully, in fact, I'd say that it's a lot easier to overcome this Kavu's drawback than it would be for many of the cards above. In some games, he actually WILL be a Grizzly Bears, and in the event that you are facing down or creatures, a red mage has many, many options for creature removal.

I definitely don't think that he would be balanced if he cost . Against a blue or white creature he'd be a Mons's Goblin Raiders, which is underwhelming anyway, but against any other deck he'd be a 2/2 for with no drawback at all, which is ridiculous. Even Goblin Guide has the potential to generate card advantage for your opponents, and I don't think anyone would say that he is weak!

Too pricey. Heck, this thing'd be pretty balanced at 1 CMC to tell the truth.

EDIT:

I guess I wasn't thinking very well. I think I misread the card as "As long as they DO control"... Yeah, screwed up.

Maybe the fix would be for his body to be 1/2.