Thank you so much for the advice.  I will look forward to my first game with her next week.  I'm pretty sure she won't be my favorite mage but wanted to give her a go.

Definitely that would rock.  I actually just got done playing Magic the Gathering Online.  I would pay money for Mage Wars Online.  The MWO community would rock! 

The cards are all the same (no one has those rare/expensive cards like in MTGO) so it would almost be simpler to implement a server for that.

Definitely hope to see MWO in the future, would be a great revenue source for the Arcane Wonders team and really bring players together from all over the world.  Would love to get in those chat rooms and chat play strategy and such while playing a live game.

My friend that I play likes to hide out in his spawn point a lot so I've been trying to think of ways to flush him out from his corner amassing swarms.

Question 1:
Am I correct to assume that a "Zone Exclusive" conjuration just means you can't have other zone exclusive conjurations.  What I did is toss Poison Cloud conjuration on top of his spawn point.  I can put my conjuration in the same zone as his conjuration correct?

Question 2:
Does summoning a creature to the arena (whether it be via spawn point or via mage) count as "entering the zone"?  Or does someone have to actually walk into the zone to trigger traps and caltrops etc.  I was just wondering if I can toss poison clouds, caltrops, and hellfire traps all on top of the opponents spawn point and it would trigger when a creature is summoned?  Well cloud doesn't trigger until beginning of round but I think you get what I'm trying to do to keep him away from his corner.  And maybe that new pit trap card too?

I like the 3 ring binder ideas.  That way you can put color coded tabs in however you like type/class etc.

I'll have to try to find the coin sleeves online I like that idea, but it seems like there are a LOT of cards for 3 ring binders of those.  Maybe I'll put a page of copies for each card and if I have max extra copies just binder those outside of the book.

My friend and I usually each build 2 different mage builds at a time so 4 books worth of stuff is out in a spell book at any given time.

I'm a big fan of having more channeling then my opponent.  It's a bit slower but over time you beat them down because you can summon/cast more than them.  This of course works best in the Wizard deck with mana suppression techniques and I also like to toss the Upkeep +2 on any creatures they toss at me early (especially weak ones that I don't need to worry about killing).  Then those creatures are more of a detriment to their end game.  Since so many folks like to rush you I actually like it when they summon little guys and send them out, and make them pay for it every turn.

I usually do something like this:
Turn 1:  Moonglow amulet + Mana Crystal (get the juices flowing early) +2 every round adds up
Turn 2:  Spawnpoint + Harmonize
Turn 3:  Familiar + Harmonize
After that it is creatures because by now they are sending attacks at you.

This also favors my usual strategy with is to let them come to me (and I am a HUGE fan of ranged attacks)  Gorgon + Basilisk are deadly together.

Mine is a toss up between the Wizard or Preistess.

So far I have won every single game I have played and I would say the Wizard is just the easiest to win with (almost too easy, as in there isn't a challenge).

Mana suppression is SO powerful.  When I'm channelling 14 mana per round and my opponent is channeling 6 + upkeep + suppression effects, really it is just a matter of time before they are overwhelmed.  By the time you get to that point they can't do anything but try to react and even then it isn't enough to make a difference, you can summon a big creature every other turn OR what I like to do is just chain cast Chain Lightning and work them down until dead.

The other reason I like the Wizard is because the Gorgon + Basilisk double ranged attack is almost too overpowered.  By the time a creature or enemy mage can even get to you the gorgon is doing nice damage + weakening them and the basilisk (and/or combo of lightning stuns) is keeping them from getting in range to do damage.

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The Preistess I like because you just can't kill her, if she gets low or in danger you just heal back to full and eventually your opponent runs out of steam.  She's not super powered offensively (although she has options) she has long term play options.

Also with the preistess I LOVE a pile of temples and just stun lock my opponents until they die while not being able to barely touch you.

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In any deck I'm a HUGE fan of ranged, and not into big melee heavy hitters.  I like to kill them from afar and if I need to finish them off with melee when they get close.  It is about controling your environment and I feel ranged is best for that.  Although there is a counter strategy for everything, which makes the game cool.

Even though I have won with every mage I've played I think the hardest challenge was the Warlock because as much as I love curseweaving, I'm not impressed with the creature base and I feel DoT tactics are too slow for me.

The Beastmaster is fun but almost feels a bit too straightforward and simple to play.  Summon a horde, send em out, overwhelm your opponent, win the game.  Sure you can win but it isn't a big challenge, maybe I like the more subtle tactics to win. 

I love the idea of the Druid folks have been putting out, very exciting stuff.  I'm a huge Druid fan in other games I play like EverQuest etc.

My very 1st instinct/thought would be a nature/cleric so nature + holy for schools of magic.

I can see how any of the other elemental schools of magic could make sense though too, for example the EQ Druid is focused on ice + fire.   There are so many directions you could take with "choosing one element, similar to the wizard".  So instead of Arcane + 1 element of choice, it would be Nature + 1 element of choice etc.  And of course a triple penalty for dark magic and maybe even war spells.

I think there is just too much tied to nature for a Druid to not be nature at least, so I think as cool as the "all elements" idea sounds I can see a future expansion opportunity for that.  ie in the future there should be an "Elementalist" who is trained in ALL elements but nothing else (which has it's obv pros/cons restrictions).

IF it ends up being nature + holy since those are two major schools there has to be a significant penalty, there are so many good combos I can think of if I had access to both those in my book for base spell book cost.  So maybe a restriction to not being able to wear certain armor or things to make the Druid rely on its spells more.

Oh and of course a Druid needs plant based stuff so a major Treant creature for a big guy and seedlings or something for the little swarm strategies.

A mass dissolve or something of that nature might be very powerful as well.

If someone attacks the Forcemaster with the shield up and the Forcemaster has a damage shield does the damage shield still get to trigger or does it skip that too since the attack was absorbed by the force field?