I have this golden rule in tactical games: The best crowd control is nuking the enemy to oblivion.

Sure, I could slow him down so he takes 1 more turn to reach me, or I could hit him with my biggest fireball and kill him 1 turn faster.

Killing him slower in exchange of him killing me slower just delays the inevitable.

Some games do it right of course, but most of the time I feel I should go straight for the most damaging option and it works way too well.