Lava Spike

It's ARCANE!!!! Splice target for Glacial Ray and Desperate Ritual. Also don't forget infinite combo with Izzet Guild mage.

At first glance, this card looks a lot like Lightning Bolt. For one red mana, you get to do three damage to target player. Though similar, the two cards are nothing alike. Lightning Bolt is an instant and also gives you a huge bonus of also being able to target creatures. Lava Spike on the other hand is a sorcery and can only target a player.
That said though, this card can be very useful if the player is wise enough to see it. Because this card is an arcane spell, it opens up a lot of avenues to explore. The biggest of them is splice onto arcane.
With the right splice cards, you can easily have this little gem do more then just three damage to an opponent. Some examples include splicing on Glacial Ray to deal more damage, Evermind to make this a blue direct damage card that also has a cantrip, or Spiritual Visit to give you 1/1 creature. Since the casting cost of Lava Spike is so cheap, it enables easy splicing onto it and gives you big bonuses if you come up with good ideas for splicing. :)

this card is amazing and allows burn decks to now play 12 lightning bolts

its just a lesser version of lightning bolt

This card is great for all out burn decks. Though not nearly as good as lightning bolt or lightning helix or incinerate, it certainly does the job for this kind of strategy! I use this card in place of chain lightning to save on cash.