Most of the time there aren't that many possibilities for what kind of enchantment your opponent is hiding.

I agree. It's even worse with zone enchantments. It's an untapped area of the game. I can just hope we'll eventually get a type of mage that focuses on this kind of stuff.

1) there ARE NOT many of us

Most likely this in combination with what Zuberi mentioned:
I suspect that most of the Mage Wars players are not interested in playing in public and/or at tournaments. It might also be popular with couples.

I have/had a similar problem with the CoC LCG: While it seems a somewhat popular game that at least sells well, it's really hard to find (regular) players for it.

Excellent post(s)! Avoiding NPE should indeed be a major design goal in any game that is aimed at 'new' players.

Note, that e.g. Hearthstone was designed with that #1 goal in mind and it's the main reason for its overwhelming success. While many experienced CCG/LCG players dismiss it as an inferior game because it's lacking several 'screw you' mechanics available in other games and the high degree of randomness in many of the card effects, it's plain and simple fun and very satisfying for inexperienced players.

Well, isn't the Mage Wars setting different from Ancient Earth?
I think it's extremely lazy to simply copy each of Earth's cultures and create a fantasy version of it. Therefore I'm strongly opposed to having something like an Egyptian Necromancer.

I don't know if it's true, but I heard from a German Mage wars player (think it was aridigas) that the German distributor is trying to keep a drastically slower release schedule

I don't believe that's true.
Imho, Pegasus Spiele is taking their time for two (or three) reasons:
1) to keep costs down, they wait to send cards to the printers until they can combine the order with others.
2) translating Mage Wars cards into German is tricky. You need someone who's very knowledgable in the game _and_ with good language skills. You must take care that any and all keywords are translated consistently. And I bet there's a lot of correspondence between them and Arcane Wonders to make sure they interpret cards and rules correctly.
3) partly as a consequence of 1) & 2), Pegasus Spiele makes good use of the delay by incorporating errata. This may paradoxically result in correct cards being released earlier than their English equivalent. Sometimes there are additional benefits, e.g. German expansions were already released using the improved packaging that Arcane Wonders came up with Forged in Fire, IIRC.

I'd further like to stress why I prefer the German version:
- It's half the price of the English version (most likely due to the costs to import it).
- I can play it with everyone here, not just with players who are fluent in English - and make no mistake, you need a pretty good grasp of English to understand the often long and rather complicated card texts correctly.

Imho, the problem with the Wizard isn't so much that he's overpowered, it's that he's the most flexible and versatile Mage - and he's strong, too!

There's nothing you cannot do with a Wizard, and you're able to have a potential answer to any kind of threat your opponent might throw against you.

What this means is that there's no matchup that is unfavorable for you, so by definition it's the best Mage to choose for a tournament.

If, however, you're in a situation where you know what to expect, i.e. what kind of Mage your opponent will play, other Mages can often be a better choice.

So, if players would prefer to see fewer Wizards in tournament, he'd either have to lose some of his flexibility (e.g. by having him play triple for some spells) or power (e.g. reduce his Channeling, maybe conditionally).

Thanks for the report!

3. Both matches, and we split then evenly on wins, were determined by V'Tari points. This makes the game go a lot faster.

This is what I've been hoping for the most.

I'm quite eager to give it a try myself.

I'm surprised no one mentioned it, yet, so I'd like to point out that some of the artwork is quite clearly chosen to appeal to (teen?) males. I certainly know female players that would be somewhat put off by effectively nude female characters (Druid, I'm looking at you!). Personally, I find some of the Angels are bordering on the offensive, e.g. [mwcard=MW1C39]Valshalla, Lightning Angel[/mwcard], or [mwcard=MW1C31]Samandriel, Angel of Light[/mwcard]. I'd definitely prefer a more reasonable outfit for them like [mwcard=FWC13]Selesius, the East Wind[/mwcard].