Like President Bush, many Magic players absolutely despise having their entire army whiped out with one, swift blow. Almost every color has a wonderful way of doing so, and it will often save you in those times of need. Who wins? False Prophet or Zombie Army? Clearing the board can put you on the advantage, especially in control decks and burn decks, and when your opponent has a significant number of creatures more than you. It also gets around annoying protection and cards that can't be targets. Often, there is no way to get around destroying everything or giving all creatures -X/-X. Cleric decks can't prevent it. Counter decks can't counter it if it is already down, or you have destroyed all their land. All that a wurm can do is watch.
Consider this: A deck in which every card clears one aspect of the game. How do you win? Either set it up for the deck, or allow you to put down huge creatures for low mana with their lives backed up. Here is an example deck:
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This deck works surprisingly well. You cycle through it quite fast, and once you have threshold the Swirling Sandstorms become gods. It doesn't stop flying, but False Prophet and McBane sure do. Mana is not a problem in this deck, because of the Terminal Moraines and Mana Cylix. Catacylism and Armageddon are quite bad for this deck, you need a steady mana base. How do you kill your opponent? The Flowstone Chargers do the trick, and make sure to put Squees Embrace on them to save them from your mass removal. Another good card for this deck would be Breath of Darigaaz, so you can regulate how much you want to deal instead of a pure five damage if you have threshold.