Is this too bad a surprise?

Not sure where the "surprise" concept comes from. It's a good card - like a Piranha Marsh but more so, or like a Barbarian Ring without needing threshold.

Yeah, I think any land sac effect is probably nice, as it's mostly bonus, but is a good area to explore. I was worried it seems better than older lands.

Surprise, as in, I play this on turn 2 and forget to announce it properly and just say "land", and then on turn eight my opponent gets to 3 life and I sac it, and they say "What? Since when have you had that? I would have blocked!" and feel unfairly done by. Perhaps not a problem if everyone knows it exists, but it was something I thought of. (And partly why I made sure the black and red lands had to keep some mana open to use the effect, whereas blue and white, while surprising if you've forgotten about them, are less final. Not sure if I should sync up the mana costs?)

As long as you obey the Rule of Five, you should be fine. (ISTR that's what Wizards call it? It's the rule that if four of a cycle sync on one attribute, the fifth should as well; if one of a cycle is different to some of the others, then at least one other in the cycle should also be different again. (1 1 1 1 1) is fine, (1 1 1 2 3) is fine, (1 1 1 1 3) is bad.)

Yeah. I'd never heard it named, but I remember the concept, and definitely agree. In fact, I think even 11123 or 11234 is a little suspicious. This was carefully 00112, but 00111 or similar would also be fine.

It's also 'surprise' as "I did not know that a black lightning bolt existed"

B, 1 card from hand, 3 damage. Somewhat harsh if you've not learned every card in the set. Edit: Ah,m it's tapped into play, ok, not so bad then.

I agree not on the first turn is better, although in fact I just put the drawback on to stop the mana ability being too good. Even if you could do it immediately, it would read something like "B. Sorcery. Return a land to your hand. 3 damage to target player."

Lightning bolt is incredibly strong because (a) it's instant (b) it's target cr or pl (c) it doesn't have a drawback of giving up a landdrop. If a card has ALL of those drawbacks, it's not that strong any more (compare flame slash)

Black doesn't have a one-mana three-life-loss spell (inst or sorc, not that it would make much difference), but I don't see any reason it couldn't.