Add a lion savagery for Cervere. You'll be glad you did. The piercing combined with the fact that he can usually do a double move in a round (esp with eagle wings) makes the value a bit better than bear strength. Then you can always just add bear strength lol. 8 dice elusive pierce 1 isnt anything to sneeze at.

If you're looking for a good buddy candidate for a mobility deck, consider Cervere. Fast and elusive outa the gate and all of your enchants will do him good.

The mage wars is dead one kills me! Thats fucking hilarious!

 The fact is, the folks i see doing the majority of the town fruit throwing are conspicuously absent from the meta... when they aren't complaining about the meta. I dont see them on octgn, contributing to discussions, on discord, on the octgn chat (when it worked), at the cons with tournaments or even here in the forums posting books, questions, advice, or theory. Its frustrating.

And yes i am quite pleased with the attention this game has and its aims for the future. I listed all the reasons why in the last post. I'm enjoying myself. That's really what it comes down to. I'm sorry sone folks arent but that's not AWs fault. Its theirs.

This topic pops up about once a year and it always gets super dour and "hate on AW"ish. For real. Aaron was a wonderful guy but he obviously found something better and moved on. Tony is doing a job but literally half of aarons job was dealing with us. He was super industrious and went above and beyond a lot of the time. Now i cant really speak fot AW but the product is good. The game is fun. I play it often and constantly see new stuff, even with older cards. Just cuz you dont like the academy/arena interactions doesn't mean they arent viable expa sions to the game. I see the new warlord stuff about half the time i play. I know the forcemaster stuff is getting use too. I see firestream now more than i see flameblast. The new holy shit is all over Rhett place, who doesnt run cure? Or remove curse? Glancing blow? Sangine thirst? The game got bigger like 3 times this last year and all i hear is bitching! How many mages and expansions do you want in a year? 2? 4? Not to mention AW isnt that huge. Its not like this is fantasy flight or plaid hat for crying out loud. And as for the quiet forums? These are player generated forums! If you dont say things on them, nothing shows up! Arcane duels and keechjen work very hard on there own time to provide the online content we enjoy so much, Silverclawgrizzly and myself try to keep write ups on mages and cards around for folks to discuss, Sharkey does all the programming for octgn basically by himself (with help from puddnhead and possibly others) puddnhead logs on  evry Tuesday to play and record games with new ideas or fun concepts for us all to enjoy. Bottom line is there are folks doing the work, ans if you think something is lacking or .missing or just something you'd like to see that's not out there? MAKE IT YOURSELF! record that match with your best book! Post that new siren idea. Show us that fancy card interaction you came accross. Want a more active forum base? Be more active. I ask at the end of every "Card of the" episode if theres something you want to hear about. 2 people have asked me. 2. So at the end of the day they are all working for our entertainment and then about once a year folks show up here to throw the rotten tomatos of "AW sucks, this game is dying". Its a shame really.

 If it doesn't matter than why are there specific equipment slots? Its obvious where your head piece is going hence nobody ever specifies, but in a situation where it matters its am important distinction. A spiked buckler can only go in one spot. If youve got two wands In either hand the shield MUST replace the wand in the shield hand as that's the only place it can be attached. Up till now it hasn't been important because almost everything either takes up both hands at once  (sledge, halberd, bows etc) or it didnt matter which hand it was in (wands). But now that it makes a difference due yo the specific slot requirements of pertinent equipment its now an important distinction to make. The slots have always been there. Its always been a necessity otherwise AW would just print on every shield "cannot equip more than one shield" and not bother with specific equip slots at all.
As it stands now ive seen in tournament play, players specifying what slot they are using.

And no matter what there's no mechanic for swapping hands. It just doesnt make sense.

 there is currently no mechanic for swapping hands, that's why there are specific slots for shield and weapons. Its important that you designate which slot you use upon casting something that could go im either hand fir just that reason. Consider equipping something to be a very binding magical effect. Its for this same reason that curse item works the way it does. The mage cannot just "drop" an item he no longer wants to have, in fact if a mage wants to rid himself of an item he either needs to dissolve it or cast over it, in this way eye of bael works offensively. So when you put your symbiotic orb (thingy) into your shield hand, the only way to get it into a different hand if its your only copy would be to cast over it with another viable equipment, put it back into your book, then cast it again on a following round. The only other way to get on demand access to an equipment you just put back into the book would be to cast over tge slot with something else, return it to the book, then cast Gear up. Aside from those ways you shpuld in fact be stuck with the spell in question, in the slot in question.

Tldr. Nah you can't do that

Ok bro. Couple things. I think you are light on attack spells. Way light. The trick with the buddy build is to make certain the buddy does his job for at least a few rounds, and does it well. Also once the buddy gets neutralized (it will happen) you need to be able to finish the mage off. Boulders or fireballs or even lightning bolt or force hammer. Acid ball and hurl rock are a jbms best friends.

The gorilla is awful, or rather rage is awful. Points better spent elsewhere.
All if your critters are over 10 mana to cast and are full actions. You're not chasing or shooting anything that round.
You've got no walls ot tanglevines or force holds to mitigate guards stopping your buddy fron eating the enemy mage. Quicksand is good but without an astral anchor all it takes is a teleport to ruin all those SP.

Crumble gives you the same mobility problem. One crumble is good, but its anither full action and is range one so youre giing up on the fast trait a lot here. Maybe drop to one and pick up some dissolves or even corrosive orchid instead. But the threat of a range 3 dissolve is nasty. Same issue with disperse. Dispel is just better.

You've got redclaw with no canines. Maybe a couple wolves will fill in that hole.
I honestly don't think the rhino has e nough dice to do what you wan't from it. There's probably a better choice.

Consider wall of thorns. Or earth. Force push or lessee teleport ot both. I never make a book without at least 2 force pushes in it.

Think of diversifying those enchants. Lion savagery, wolf fury, demonic bloodlust, etc can all be used instead of just a bunch of bear strengths.

Finally you have no active healing. None. You're in trouble if someone dots you to death or spikes up a bunch of damage fast. Plus with a buddy build you want the buddy to stay around. So healing them is huge.

Hope i helped a bit  let us know your first 3 rounds of opener usually.