Paying one more over Lore for the 1/1 body is much worse as a pure ramp card but as more generic card advantage, acting as a speed bump or providing utility in something like a Birthing Pod chain they are superior to Lore
However, you can always use cards with cycling like Lrien Revealed at the end of your opponents turn to fetch a card, and, more importantly, exile the card on top of your library to play it on your turn with no restriction
This triples the damage caused by spells and abilities that do exactly one damage, changing them from a plink into a lightning bolt, as well as from one power weenies
Of course, once we start adding black mana, we could also go deep enough to actually play black spells
A single bolt can dissuade multiple creatures, but if it doesn't, you can retaliate on your turn with the full force of your sorceries, melting their creatures and Planeswalkers
Rays of Judgement 3R Instant Rays of Judgment deals 5 damage to target creature and X damage to its controller, where X is the number of equipment you control