Go for the Throat, Constantly.

I've uploaded a set review of Mirrodin Besieged lately and everyone's buzzing with convo, which is good. Better than articles that garner 0% response, but I'm paid my $20 credit either way. The biggest comment is why should Go for the Throat get an A+, followed after by why do people say poison creatures with only 2 power have "4" power. And that's with only white blue black and red reviewed, the next article is green/artifacts.

The biggest bite of contention was that Go for the Throat (GFT) wasn't as good or better than Spread the Sickness (SS). I can see the value of SS over GFT, one targets everything, infect, normal, weenies, giants, tokens, but costs give mana. The other hits everything that has normal skin, but not those Wurmcoils, Steel Hellkite, Masticores etc. Eitherway none hit ol' Thrun.

I've been an advocate of hitting everything over a subset ever since Mirrodin original had Betrayal of Flesh (Destroy target creature, reanimate one, entwine) as opposed to cheaper removal, but in this case it's speed and cost, versus potential range. I always windmilled Terror in original Mirrodin, and in Scars block it's now the same. I love Terror, Doomblade was a very cute younger cousin and now GFT is the sexy, classy wife of Terror. Everyone body sees it and thinks Ohh, yes please! Not that you suddenly forget your old friend Terror.

Killing their beasty and playing their own is good, especially considering the white and red bomby flyers, like Hoard-Smelter Dragon or Indomitable Archangel. Tapping out five, on your own turn, is a lot slower and riskier than just 2 mana at the end of their turn/combat step. Ease of casting seems to win over here.

I'll admit that there's plenty of sitautions where you want one spell over the other, but NOT knowing what the opponent has, say game 1 of any Limited/Sealed game, I want the cheaper option and can bring in the big guns next round.

Also compared to all the "low costed" red removal, we get simple straight forward elimination. Arc Trail may 2 for 1, but it can't kill anything with a sizeable rump. Sure there's plenty of bad players still touting Scoria Elemental's, and Arc Trail against a slew of them is funny, but any 1/1 will deal just as well.

Both are strong, but being a writer I need to make a statement and give my articles some punch, as well as get my own opinion across. To do this, I need to stick to what I say, or have good reason behind. Then, my readers read it and respond, take sides and comment further on their own. It's good for every part of Magic, but moreso because it has forced me to rethink: which IS better? and write this response further.

Constantly.