The Magic card Aerith Rescue Mission encapsulates that choice perfectly: you can either take the elevator, giving you three 1/1 Hero Tokens (representing Cloud, Tifa, and Barrett being ready to fight), or you can take the stairs, which lets you tap and stun up to three creatures (representing their cardio-induced duress)
This takes advantage of all your burn and removal spells, plus whatever powerful instants and sorceries your opponent is rocking
Avatar s adorable Uncle Iroh art thankfully does not drive up this cards price, so take your pick, and Iroh is not for you, go for classic art in the original Mirage one
Elspeth lets you create tokens and buff creature tokens, while also being able to destroy a big threat on the board
We do this by getting at least one poison counter on each of them, ideally with one of five cards: Ichor Rats, Infectious Inquiry, Prologue to Phyresis, Vraska's Fall, and Phyresis Outbreak