Fire spells on conjurations is usually pretty good, since you only need a burn or two (if that much) to activate afterwards.  I've found that Firestorm or Ring of Fire is pretty good at wiping out zone-heavy play.

Otherwise, try to get some creatures or equipment with piercing against the heftier temples.  Hand of Bim-Shalla can be destroyed easily without piercing, but the others are tougher.  

Luckily, I play the Warlock a bunch, and between Slayers and Hellions, and the Lash and Sectarus, I really only have to worry about ethereal conjurations.  If you go with the Beastmaster, you might want a Steelclaw Bear or Tarok, or Tooth and Nail if you're going for a swarm of foxes or falcons.  As a wizard, you'll probably have to settle for fire spells or just competing with your own Gate to Voltari.

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1. The Warlock doesn't really have anything solid that deals with incorporeal stuff

2. Yet another reason IMO that Lightning > Fire.

1.  Demonhide Armor is a safe bet.  Every mage needs armor and one that deals ethereal critical damage  pretty easily solves most incorporeal problems.  Against the Spirit, though, just Enfeeble it.  You effectively solve a 12 mana (plus upkeep) creature for 6 mana, since the only real reason to use the Spirit is for its quick action melee attack anyway.  

Ah yes, Demonhide Armor, I had forgotten that it did Ethereal damage.  That's one option, although I'm not a fan of the card personally.

I don't get the Enfeeble comment.  The Enfeeble curse makes a creature Slow, but that doesn't necessarily prevent it from being a pain to deal with.  One of the more common uses of Whirling Spirit is to place it in the same zone as its controlling mage so that it can act as a Guard or just attack normally and knock melee mages out of the zone to keep them back.  In that scenario the Whirling Spirit does not need to move, so being slow would be irrelevant.

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2.  Air spells aren't as efficient for dealing damage and all of them are avoidable, unlike most of the Fire spells.  I value the unavoidable trait more highly than the ethereal trait, since I come across defenses more than incorporeal things.

No, I know that Fire is better at just doing pure damage, but I feel Lightning is better mostly due to the fact that Daze/Stun is often much more useful than Burn.  As far as your comment about Unavoidable goes, fire only has one more Unavoidable attack than Lightning does now that Arc Lightning has been released in the expansion so unless you are going Firestorm heavy, you aren't really getting many more Unavoidable attacks than if you used Lightning.

Guarding and its attack are both quick actions, so the instant the Wizard needs to move (or more likely, is pushed) the Spirit becomes pretty lackluster.  Even still, as a Warlock, I'd be pretty content sitting a zone away and firing off Fireblasts and Fireballs.  The object isn't to kill the Spirit, it's to stop it from guarding and quick attacking, which Enfeeble does pretty effectively.

I have the base set, and from what I can tell, the only avoidable fire spell is Fireball, which is still more efficient and has a better chance to afflict a status than the comparable Lightning Bolt.  The three other fire attack spells (fireblast, firestorm, ring of fire) are all unavoidable, so assuming there's no unavoidable fire spells in the expansion, that's still two more.

There are also ways to get around daze/stun with attack-like incantations such as Explode and Drain Life.  You can also burn conjurations, which I think is a pretty big deal.

Your point on how initiative affects healing is pretty spot on.  While healing is far more powerful in MW than in MTG,  it's not nearly as good if you don't have initiative.  Or, if you're like myself and play the Warlock heavily, the same goes for Poisoned Blood or a fire spell for the killing blow.  When you factor in how Nullify and Jinx affect initiative, you start to see just how important pretty much every decision you make is.  

Just a tidbit of advice in terms of preserving creature tempo; you usually want to summon them when you do not have initiative (creatures enter the arena inactive anyway).  That way, on the following turn when you do have initiative, you can effectively protect your creature with a Nullify quickcast before you opponent has a chance to Sleep or otherwise mess with your beast.

This is also why I like Rouse the Beast a lot and usually put at least one in books.  While the above tactic is probably the safest way to ensure you get an uninterrupted use out of your creatures, it does start to become predictable (the opposing mage might prepare redundant spells to get around your Nullify).  Rouse the Beast throws a wrench in that predictability for a very low cost.  It's especially good if you have more creatures than your opponent AND you do not have initiative, since you can then effectively get two uninterrupted rounds of actions with your summoned creature (you'll have the initiative next round to prepare the Nullify).  RtB also doesn't slow down your tempo; in fact, you gain 2 actions for the price of one, so your net gain for tempo is still positive (+1 action).

I really recommend using a Knight to guard your Temple early.  A defense against both ranged and melee attacks backed up with a 5 dice counterstrike is pretty killer.  Also, use the Sacred Ground enchantment to give your units aegis +1 in the zone.  It's a small price to pay to weather zone attacks.

The mages as I see them in relation to these terms:

Warlock: Definitely Aggro-Control.  He is rewarded for using curses (control enchants) over buffing enchants, and his Bloodreaper ability makes his demons very cost-effective.  Sure, it costs life, but aggro strategies are known for sacrificing resources to gain immediate advantage.  Aggro strategies don't care about their own life total, only that the opponent dies before they do.  The warlock also has the highest base life and a melee skill, so he can stay on the enemy mage without needing to retreat much.

Priestess:  Appears to be control or maybe midrange-control.  She is rewarded for preserving her resources in order to gain a long-term board and mana advantage, after which she can drop haymaker Angels that are simply more powerful than most creatures and are difficult to interact with due to flying.  She also has access to the best defensive creatures in the game with which to guard her conjurations, the Knight of Westlock, and an Angel that punishes your opponent for destroying your clerics (mana batteries resources with some utility).  Gray Angels are particularly midrange-control-y; they're decent beaters in the midgame with an emphasis on preserving other units and resources once they have outlived their usefulness.  She also has access to the most efficient dazing spells, letting her get the action advantage over other mages for very little cost.

Wizard: Not sure the Wizard falls easily into a particular category, but I'd probably say control also.  The elemental school choice varies, but arcane does not, and a majority of arcane spells focus on manipulating your opponent's resources while increasing your own.  Additionally, most arcane creatures are rather expensive and have powerful full-action attacks, but poor quick-action attacks, and are also Slow so they can't really make good use of quick actions anyway.  They also have regenerate, which rewards zone-specific controlling play and makes it hard to engage them at range effectively over the course of the game.  Gate of Voltari also rewards this strategy.

Beastmaster:  Aggro-combo for sure.  Combo in MW doesn't carry the same kind of undertones as combo in MTG does though...you still have to win through combat, regardless if you stack enchantment after enchantment on a large fatty creature, or horde a bunch of smaller creatures and then use a Call of the Wild or two.  The Beastmaster doesn't really have much in the way of controlling cards, and even the ones he can use effectively, like Tanglevine, reward you more for using them against guards than to control creatures.  


These aren't meant to be strict interpretations of how each mage MUST play to be effective--on the contrary, I've been on the receiving end of some innovative aggressive tactics from the Wizard and Priestess.  That's the great thing about this game; if you want to play a very aggressive Priestess or Wizard, or a very controlling Warlock or Beastmaster, it's certainly possible and effective if you time it right.  I do however think that, in the above roles, each mage is an expert and will more often succeed from those lines of play.

So, to summarize:

Warlock: Aggro-Control

Beastmaster: Aggro-Combo

Priestess: Control, or Midrange-Control

Wizard: Mainly control, varying somewhat depending on your element choice

I see you use the Englishman's spelling of lich .

I agree though, I would definitely like to see the lich theme in some manner or another when the Necromancer comes.  I don't think any game has really done a good job with the balance or theme of a Lich well; understandably though, it's kind of hard since infinite life runs counter to balancing a game.  

I have faith that if AW does choose to go with that theme, they'll succeed.  Their team is quite good with perfecting the exact feel of a theme, yet making sure it's impeccably balanced.

Depends on what you mean by Magic play mat...most official play mats for that game are meant for only you, not your opponent, and even combined are not as large as the MW arena.  Custom ones are usually smaller, sometimes larger, depending on how much you're willing to pay.

Speaking of, if someone got a hold of the arena image, I can't see why you couldn't get a custom soft playmat version.

I personally really like the feel of a board as an arena, it feels more "real" as if you're looking down into an arena.  If anything, I would kinda like arena walls to give the game a more 3d feel, but that's probably not everyone's preference.