Originally posted by Tabasco
You are going to cast Ice first turn?
If first turn is the only turn that this thing is any use, it's a pretty pointless card...
There are other cards that can deal three on the first turn, like Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Spike. And they could be used later in the game too...
The best burn spell, Lightning Bolt, is good because it does 3 damage for a single mana, at instant speed, to any target creature or player.
Spark Elemental is worse than Lightning Bolt for a number of reasons...
It is not an instant, to begin with...
More importantly, it give the opponent a choice. They can either block and lose a creature or they can take 3. Sure, there's trample, but they pick whether or not they block at all. And if they have a creature that can survive it then the best Spark Elemental can do is to weaken it for another burn spell (waste of cards usually). In COK, they introduced a new burn spell that isn't all that bad: Lava Spike. But no one was seriously excited about it. It only hits players and at sorcery speed.
Spark Elemental is, at best a Lava Spike, because in almost any practical situation, the opponent can simply choose not to block it. This should be seen as a bad thing. When I give the opponent a choice, it should be something like "split these five cards into two piles and I'm going to have one of them."