Pointed Discussion

Being a sorcery and unable to target creatures,this card is still notably inferior to Lightning Bolt. On the other hand, back then nobody supposed this card to show up in Standard ever again, and on top of that this card is a good cheap base to splice on some other Arcane spells.

This was a pretty decent burn spell at the time. But like Mode said that was when no one expected Lightning Bolt to come back in standard. This plus Glacial Ray was 5 damage for 1RR which isn't bad.

this card runs really well in extended red deck wins.. despite only hitting players, and it being sorcery. most burns are going straight to the player regardless, so its ok for that, its great because its very mana efficient. R for 3 damage

Burn deck gold, as stated before. It's also part of a nifty combo I usually run in my UR deck: Izzet Guildmage+this+ a spliced Desperate Ritual

Hmmmmmm. This or Incinerate?
Or Burst Lightning?
Say i have 8 slots. What two playsets should I include of those 3 listed?

i dont get how this combos with desperate ritual and izzet guildmage.... can someone explain please?

@Tezz- the mana from desparate ritualis used for the copy ability ofizzet guildmage to copy the lava spike

@ladon---
If you have 6 mana in your pool at start, this is an infinite loop.
1) spend 1RR , play Lava Spike with Desperate Ritualspliced; 3 mana left.
2) Activate the Izzet Guildmage's 2R ability in response; the copy goes on the stack, and 0 mana left.
3) You let the copy resolve: you deal 3 damage and add RRR to your mana pool. In response to the copy resolving, you spend 2R and copy the original spell, putting another copy on the stack.
4) Rinse and repeat.

I propose someone with a MTGO account go and test this, to clear doubts ;)

@Ladon:
What's your decklist? We need that to know what to advise. Otherwise, I'd say Lava Spike and Incinerate over Burst Lightning, assuming you have Searing Blaze in your deck already (also known as DOUBLE LIGHTNING BOLT!).

Sounds suspiciously like Lightning Bolt....

At first glance, I thought this was cool, then I realized I've already been playing with this kind of power, with better options and at instant speed. I can't believe I forgot Lightning Bolt existed.

I've spent basically the entire day on gatherer looking up 'Red + Damage + high community rating'

As you can expect, I've seen a bazillion comparisons to Lightning Bolt. Of all the comments I've read, I've seen that more often than not if your complaint is 'this isn't as good as Lightning Bolt' then you are more likely to be a newer poster than an older one -posted 2009 or later, which coincides, coincidentally, with M10's re-release of Lightning Bolt.

I say this with confidence because I see a lot of cards like Hammer of Bogardan which look terrible by comparison get their just respect from the old vets, and oftentimes reading what they say shows me something I missed. In the case of Hammer, it was the value of being able to 'regrowth' the Hammer in the late game. Don't get me started on the jaw drop I did when Fireblast finally 'clicked'. (even if I still think its ugly and needs an art update)

In general, I think people who immediately jump to 'this isn't Lightning Bolt' are either commenting on Shock or not thinking hard enough. Most Red cards that aren't Lightning Bolt are in fact still good for something.

been building up this rant all night, couldnt find a better place to put it than under 'the almost Lightning Bolt' page.

When 12 lightning bolts isn't enough!


(Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Rift Bolt)


Run with shard volley to have twenty faux-Lightning Bolts in your burn deck!

Lava Spike + Glacial Ray = 5 dmg for 3 mana using only 1 card... and people call the Kamigawa block underpowered :P

Lightning Bolt, unless you use this as Lightning Bolts #5 thru #8 (and Chain Lightning and Rift Bolt as Lightning Bolts #9 thru #16... yup, people do that)

@DarthParallax, some of us who consider Lightning Bolt the basis of comparison do so not because we're new, but because we're old, from way back in the days before Shock.

Still, this is pretty close to Lightning Bolt, and Bolt is good enough that pretty close to it is still pretty good (who wants to have only 4 Bolts in a deck?). Plus, it's Arcane, so you could splice a Desperate Ritual or Glacial Ray onto it, if you're running those.

Excellent vehicle to splice things into.

@DespisedIcon

Thanks for clearing that up, makes a lot of sense :D

I just made an RDW with x4 of these, x4 lightning bolt, and x4 rift bolt. This card is so good I dont even have words. I always love seeing it, and that artwork is absolutely breathtaking.

5/5 for real. This card is that important in RDW.

Yes, this will often draw unfavorable comparisons to Lightning Bolt. But that's like saying Steve Nash compares poorly to Michael Jordan - he's still a very good player and Lava Spike is a very efficient card - 1 mana for 3 damage is about as good a cost-to-damage ratio as you can get in the game. And from the cards I've seen it seems like this is probably one of the best "Splice onto Arcane" options available, being cheap, but with an effect that you'd never be unhappy with and one you should almost always be able to cast.

Bump in the Night

Not Lightning Bolt, but still very very solid. 5/5. Lightning Bolt is basically 6/5.