It's a really complicated question. You usually want to know what archetype your opponent is on - in case of Foul-Tongue you do want to fire it off immediately to maximize its impact. However, this depends on your curve and general game plan as well. If your goal is to only hinder your opponent's board development and make the game go long in order to leverage your deck's powerful plays (this could mean you're playing a deck like Esper Dragons), you definitely want to play the edict right away. It's also possible that your game plan against the opponent hinges on you getting ahead early, perhaps playing evasive threats, and then winning the damage race. It's possible you then want to play your first one or two threats first, and only after that use Foul-Tongue as a tempo play to help you win the race.
This also applies when you're facing a Elvish Mystic with a Wild Slash in hand. What's your game plan? What's the best turn to fire off the Slash to maximize your mana usage / the impact of burning the Mystic? Perhaps the deck you're playing is Jeskai aggro, and you assume your opponent is playing GW devotion. It's your tun 2 and you have the Wild Slash and perhaps two Seeker of the Ways and a Mantis Rider in hand. Against some decks you'd want to maximize your mana usage buy playing the 2-drop and then playing two spells, Wild Slash included, in the following turns. However against GW devotion it's very probable that your Seekers are going to be rendered useless very fast since the GW devotion deck plays a lot of big ground creatures. Hence it's probably best to ingore the Seekers, Slash the Mystic right away and hope your Mantis Rider will get there.
Sometimes you're playing against a similarly powerful deck, and it's not clear based on the decklists who's favoured in the long game. Usually you need to evaluate your hand's power - is it reasonable to assume that you have the resource advantage? In this case it's reasonable to save your removal spells for the threats your opponent plays in the following turns. Not spending removal on mana dorks that have very little utility in the longer game will further cement your resource advantage and favourable position in the long game. However, maybe you have mulliganed, and the hand you drew is not very powerful. In this case you must try to gain tempo advantage, since it's not probable that you can gain the resource advantage. Then you want to aggressively use whatever resources you have, in effort to maximize your chances of threatening lethal and forcing your opponent to use his resources suboptimally or kill him before he can even cast the spells in his hand.
As a control player you really just need to figure out what are the most likely plays the opponent would make in the following turns. If you know your opponent plays threats demand an answer right away, like Whisperwood Elemental or maybe some annoying planeswalkers, you want to make you sure have enough answers to those. Sometimes your hand is light on resources, but you have cards like Ugin or Elspeth that can stabilize the board on their own. Then it's probably best to make plays that ensure you get to live to those turns when you can cast one these expensive spells. Instead of answering cards like Courser of Kruphix or Outpost Siege that generate the opponent card-advantage, you want to kill their fastest threats to ensure you don't take too much damage, even at the cost of giving your opponent further resource advantage. Elvish Mystic is also very relevant to these scenarios. Killing Elvish Mystics with removal is usually bad value, but depending on your hand it can be the right play.
The above comment is certainly more nuanced and useful. But I will say that in general, if it's turn 1 or 2, and you have the resources to do it, bolt the birds. Turning a wild slash into a fuminator mage is a sweet deal
If you're playing red, always bolt the bird. Always. Why do people play mana dorks? So they can accelerate into something powerful much faster than they'd normally be allowed to, while you're still scrambling for on-curve answers to it. So in essence they're not aiming to play fair, they want to cheat something really powerful out very quickly and kill you before you have an answer to it. If you're playing red, you probably don't have the means to deal with what they want to ramp into outside of fringe sideboard tech. So you bolt the bird. Setting them back even just a turn can mean the difference between winning and losing.
Now, if you're not playing with bolts but downfalls instead, that's a different matter. Its more efficient to save the downfall for the big dude to make their ramping seem like a wasted effort, unless you think it might be something that has a relevant ability that nullifies your downfall (Protection from Black, Indestructible, Hexproof, etc.) in that case, you'd be better off killing the dork to slow their mana development.
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say you're on the play, and they play a T1 elvish mystic or a T2 sylvan caryatid.
Do you kill the dork (foul tongue for caryatid)?
What if they follow up the next turn with another dork?
It always feels like I get punished no matter which choice i make
Talking from a control standpoint if it matters.
This also applies when you're facing a Elvish Mystic with a Wild Slash in hand. What's your game plan? What's the best turn to fire off the Slash to maximize your mana usage / the impact of burning the Mystic? Perhaps the deck you're playing is Jeskai aggro, and you assume your opponent is playing GW devotion. It's your tun 2 and you have the Wild Slash and perhaps two Seeker of the Ways and a Mantis Rider in hand. Against some decks you'd want to maximize your mana usage buy playing the 2-drop and then playing two spells, Wild Slash included, in the following turns. However against GW devotion it's very probable that your Seekers are going to be rendered useless very fast since the GW devotion deck plays a lot of big ground creatures. Hence it's probably best to ingore the Seekers, Slash the Mystic right away and hope your Mantis Rider will get there.
Sometimes you're playing against a similarly powerful deck, and it's not clear based on the decklists who's favoured in the long game. Usually you need to evaluate your hand's power - is it reasonable to assume that you have the resource advantage? In this case it's reasonable to save your removal spells for the threats your opponent plays in the following turns. Not spending removal on mana dorks that have very little utility in the longer game will further cement your resource advantage and favourable position in the long game. However, maybe you have mulliganed, and the hand you drew is not very powerful. In this case you must try to gain tempo advantage, since it's not probable that you can gain the resource advantage. Then you want to aggressively use whatever resources you have, in effort to maximize your chances of threatening lethal and forcing your opponent to use his resources suboptimally or kill him before he can even cast the spells in his hand.
As a control player you really just need to figure out what are the most likely plays the opponent would make in the following turns. If you know your opponent plays threats demand an answer right away, like Whisperwood Elemental or maybe some annoying planeswalkers, you want to make you sure have enough answers to those. Sometimes your hand is light on resources, but you have cards like Ugin or Elspeth that can stabilize the board on their own. Then it's probably best to make plays that ensure you get to live to those turns when you can cast one these expensive spells. Instead of answering cards like Courser of Kruphix or Outpost Siege that generate the opponent card-advantage, you want to kill their fastest threats to ensure you don't take too much damage, even at the cost of giving your opponent further resource advantage. Elvish Mystic is also very relevant to these scenarios. Killing Elvish Mystics with removal is usually bad value, but depending on your hand it can be the right play.
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Now, if you're not playing with bolts but downfalls instead, that's a different matter. Its more efficient to save the downfall for the big dude to make their ramping seem like a wasted effort, unless you think it might be something that has a relevant ability that nullifies your downfall (Protection from Black, Indestructible, Hexproof, etc.) in that case, you'd be better off killing the dork to slow their mana development.