Ice assassin vs Searing Seed

[flappeercraft]

So I had found the spell Searing seed (Dragon magazine 300, Vile spells section) a while ago and have never seen it discussed or even mentioned while I have seen Ice assassin mentioned a lot of times as Overpowered, Optimal, Good, etc. So what do you guys think, which one is better because as it stands to me it seems Searing seed is better as it lacks an XP/GP component just a Vile component which is easy to solve, deals damage to the creature targeted, etc. Of course you need to be close to the creature copied as you have to target it with the spell but it hinders them horribly if they fail the save, and creates a creature with the same levels AND half fiend tenplate which can still level up which Ice assassin cannot, it can heal naturally, etc. Of course the obvious problem is that you don't control the Half fiend but there are ways to get around that like Mindrape, Dominate Monster, True domination, Monstrous Thrall, etc.

[Necroticplague]

1. Requires a target. This is a severe weakness, as it means the creature has to exist in a targetable sense (as opposed to ice assassin, which has no target, and thus the creature your duping can be 'existing' in a much vaguer sense).
2. No inherent control. All methods I know of that control creatures created in this manner can suffer from being subject to failure. All the ones you listed can be immunized by immunity to mind effecting, and the ones I can think of not in that list either require multiple saves+ A touch attack (necrotic domination), or only work on certain types (various turning types).
3. Safety. The point of ice assassin being good is that you can get a copy of whatever you want from the safety of whatever demiplane you sit on. Searing seeds loses this component.

[ryu]

1. Requires a target. This is a severe weakness, as it means the creature has to exist in a targetable sense (as opposed to ice assassin, which has no target, and thus the creature your duping can be 'existing' in a much vaguer sense).
2. No inherent control. All methods I know of that control creatures created in this manner can suffer from being subject to failure. All the ones you listed can be immunized by immunity to mind effecting, and the ones I can think of not in that list either require multiple saves+ A touch attack (necrotic domination), or only work on certain types (various turning types).
3. Safety. The point of ice assassin being good is that you can get a copy of whatever you want from the safety of whatever demiplane you sit on. Searing seeds loses this component.

There's also the fact that Ice Assassin is several orders of magnitude harder to defend against. How do you defend against ice assassin? Vecna blooded cycled on and off every day to repeatedly wip all knowledge of you from history and the minds of all living creatures excepting you and vecna himself. In addition self mind-rape to forget all of your capabilities with contingent miracle to restore if a fight happens. Also almost all your spells are contingency based. Also yes this list keeps going. Are you starting to see what a hilarious spell ice assassin is? All this to defend yourself and I'm not even halfway through the list of things you should be doing.