A fun way to open as beast master is to summon your fairy familiar, and harmonize her from the get go. She can now place an enchantment a turn at no cost to the mage. I find this build also works well with allot of decoy spells: If you don't to cast anything of importance that turn, throw out a decoy. Your mage now effectively has +2 mana when it is destroyed, or when you want to reveal it for the boost. If you put a bunch of decoy in your spell book, this can also act as a +2 channel a turn for 6 turns-not efficient, but there if it turns out you need the extra juice. The beast master may now also concentrate on summoning and other set up, while your fairy buffs your starting rush.

oh, shoot, never mind, found my mistake upon a few re-reads. I should have been paying the upkeep instead of him. Good to know, and I owe my opponent an apology.