I think he's saying that by restricting arcane ward, one is also making dispel practically unstoppable. With very few , costly exceptions.

Jinx isn't costly. But of course, it's not entirely reliable either.

I think the best way of countering Dispel is to just keep your enchantment hidden until it's most effective to reveal.

Either way, I don't find Dispel overpowered. It's an exactly 1-1 ratio to the enchantment in terms of mana cost and action cost. You lose the enchantment, the enemy loses the dispel. You will have a lot more enchantments than they have Dispels. So you just have to be adaptive and have a plan B, C etc. If he puts Dispel on a wand, then take the wand out, of course.

I guess you could change dispel to target the creature, not the enchantment, so that Nullify would protect against it... But I really don't agree that Dispel is overpowered just because it can't be stopped.

After all, arcane ward is a pretty new card, was Dispel considered overpowered before? I don't think so.

So, since we have Academy but mostly play Arena, we decided to integrate the Academy mages into it for extra variety, because why not. We made up some mechanics but haven't tried them yet. So here's what we came up with, and I'd be interested in what you think about it:

For Kelsar Grove Beastmaster:
34 life, 9 channeling
Trained in Nature and Level 1 Water (like the Druid). Fire spells cost triple.

• Stir the Beast: Once per round, when the Beastmaster summons a Level 1 animal creature, he may pay 1 mana to have it enter play with the action marker active. (this is the same as in Academy, I like how this ability contrasts with the similar one of the original Beastmaster)
• Animal Instincts: Each Upkeep Phase, you may pay 2 mana to activate the Beastmaster’s animal instinct. He gains the Bloodthirsty +1 trait and a Defense until the end of the round. The Defense works only against melee attacks, on a roll of 6+, once.
• Water Attunement: When the Beastmaster casts and resolves a Water spell, he may place 1 mana on a target friendly Conjuration. (This is to make those Water spells really desirable)
• Basic Melee Attack: 3 Dice

So it has a bit more card variety due to the Level 1 Water training, but it also feels a lot less offensive compared to the other Beastmasters, which makes it interesting, but might make it less viable though? But if you use those Water spells cleverly, you can summon your animals faster because of the mana gain with Attunement.

I really like the activated ability, but I'm not sure if it's worth to activate often, since this Beastmaster doesn't have the innate Melee +1 of the original one. The defense is solid, I'd say, but to use the ability only for defense is a bit expensive compared to the Forcemaster. I'm considering upgrading this to Bloodthirsty +2 but I think I will try it a few times first.

For Sistarran Wizard:
32 life, 10 channeling
Trained in Arcane and Air.

• Extend Magic: When the Wizard casts a spell with the Dissipate trait, or reveals an Enchantment that has the Dissipate trait, he may pay mana equal to the spell’s level to place an additional Dissipate token on it. (same as in Academy. There are really few Dissipate cards, though, but we'll make Banish Dissipate as well, so I think this is okay)
• Energize: Once per round, when the Wizard attacks and damages a creature with Lightning damage, he may gain 2 mana.
• Lightning Strike: When using an equipped weapon to perform a melee attack, the Wizard may add the Lightning damage effect, and the Ethereal trait to the attack.
• Attack: Shock Burst; Melee, 2 Dice, Lightning damage, Ethereal, roll 8-10 for Daze, 11+ for Stun.

I feel like Energize is a really strong ability, but since this Wizard doesn't get Voltaric Shield, it's squishier and might find that extra mana useful. With Lightning Strike you can use a more powerful melee attack and still get the Energize bonus, but the ability is optional, so you can choose not to use it if the target is resistant to Lightning.

Shock Burst doesn't count as an attack spell, unlike the other Wizard's zap.

What do you think, is Energize too strong? If you attack (and damage) something every round, it is basically a Channeling +2, but every time you do anything else with your actions, it's gone for that round...

It's a cool spell, but the "can't be replaced" clause doesn't add much. Consider if this gets revealed on your chest piece: you let it get destroyed during upkeep, then put out a new chest piece during your quickcast (or deployed from Battle Forge). If your opponent has initiative, then there's a brief opportunity during opening quickcast for her to get a cheap shot I before you get a new chest piece - or to put a Nullify on you to cancel the new chest piece - but other than that, it isn't much different than being able to replace it by casting over it.

When you replace an equipment with a new one of the same slot, the old equipment goes back into your spellbook, it isn't destroyed. That is what the clause adds to the card. You can choose to do as you described but you would be destroying the equipment.

Otherwise I might have a lesser back-up equipment for that slot, replace it to get rid of the Curse, and then recast the original stronger equipment again the next round.