Does anyone play story campaigns with Mage Wars? I don't have enough people to get one going, but I bet it would be really fun. The cards would serve a huge variety of functions if you just use your imagination. The board also adds a very visual element to the enjoyment of the game.

"No you can't go through here, too many rocks" JET STREAM
"Oh crap, we need weapons." BATTLEFORGE
"Guys, we need to go to this town by this time" no problem, just summon highland unicorn

I imagine there would be lots of combat sections where the game would be the same, but also during story sections, you could be allowed to get creative. Say if the GM or Archmage makes a comment about something in the distance, you can cast Hawkeye on yourself and see a camp of skeletons, so you summon your Cloak of Shadows to sneak around and check it out.

Agreed. The only mage I've seen that could possibly pull it off would be the Forcemaster. I played two matches against an opponent FM that had creatures, but just didn't summon them and I came out on top due to his problem with keeping up a strong supply of mana.
I think the Wizard has a shot if you have a lot of Attack spells, strong defenses, and just keep attacking the mage. But then again, just one decently strong creature helps immensely.

Whoa, thanks Shad0w, I didn't know that there were so many promos; I only knew about a few. Hopefully they'll become available to everyone soon.

Hurl Meteorite looks like a lot of fun. 9 dice and 0-3 range? Love it.
Gravikor can be a great counter.
Lion Savagery is awesome, I love to charge
For 8 mana, Asyran Defender isn't too bad.
I don't know about Meditation Amulet. Seems like a small return for spending a full action. If a creature could equip it, then it could be quite useful, but for now, I just don't like it.
I can't read Wand of Healing very well, but it looks like it can cancel status effects. That seems to be a pretty in-demand ability in this game lol.
Lastly, Morning Star: Wow, that is a must for any mage even thinking about fighting one-on-one

With male and female versions of the mages being announced as well as the possibility of them functioning differently, I had another idea for a mage that can go into two very different directions.

Shaman - Nature is x1. Can choose Dark or Holy. One is x1, the other is x3. Everything else is x2.
The male Shaman resembles more of a witch doctor and has animals that can commonly be found in the jungles of South America whereas the female Shaman looks more like a Japanese miko and has treants, living rocks, and smaller forest critters.

A lot of the Shaman's spells are cross-classed with Nature and either Holy or Dark, but quite cheap in terms of level making a lot of these spells more exclusive to the Shaman, but not too expensive either. As an example, the male Shaman follows the dark path, so a lot of his spells focus on placing curses, status effects, and generally disrupting the opponent's support actions. Irritation is an enchantment that reduces the maximum range of any of the target's spells by 1. The female Shaman is more of a healer and mana generator with a lot of cool conjurations. Her Torii is a wall that channels mana, whenever a creature walks through it, they collect the mana.

The trademark of the Shaman is the Talisman. A talisman is similar to other Nature enchantments, but is cross-classed with light or dark. In addition, they are super-cheap, have high range, and come with a tiny, but fun little effect. The catch being that they always come into play face-up. The Dark Shaman can throw talismans that slowly drain life or add a status effect after a certain number of turns have passed. The Holy Shaman's talismans can prevent status effects for a certain number of turns or add a defense.

Their equipment is also worth mentioning. They have special staves called "Mojos" that can cast Attack spells, but they channel their own mana, if they can't pay the cost, that's okay, because they never drain it from the mage! One mojo can pay the excess amount by absorbing it from nearby targets. One inflicts damage on the mage to pay the amount. Another has a limit to how much extra mana it can drain, so the excess just counts as damage to the item until it's destroyed, but be careful, because you're not allowed to go over that limit, so timing is important. The last one (dark/nature of course) is a total gamble. You're allowed to cast whatever spell you want for as much mana as you want, but the catch is the excess amount goes to an effect die roll and if you fail that check, the mojo blows up in your face!

I'd say the opening setup that you just mentioned isn't too bad, you should be ready to start throwing down by turn 3 or 4, depending on how aggressive you want your mage to be. I'd try to get the Battleforge out first, then the Pentagram next turn, also while summoning a Mana Crystal/Moonglow Amulet. If you're up against a very aggressive opponent and need to buy a little time, try getting a Wall of Fire or two up, then send just send something with Fire Immunity right through it when you're ready.
Moreover as it was mentioned earlier, you don't have to cast Harmonize on stuff except for Battleforge/Pentagram. Harmonize doesn't increase the Mage's channeling unless it's specifically attached to the mage.

I would hope the new expansion comes out with more elemental creatures and non attack based elemental spells to help make the schools better rounded.

True that. It feels like the Major schools have way more cards and options than the Minor elemental schools. Though, I imagine that it has a lot to do with balancing at this point (like the Wizard just having way more options than everyone else). Hopefully in the future, after a decent number of mages have been playtested and there are plenty of spells from every school, this will become a non-issue.

I would have no problem with the Necromancer just being Dark and having access to frost attacks, like just as part of his starter deck. Then, you can always take his spellbook apart and choose any other element. My guess is that most of his starter deck is Dark, but they left a few spellpoints over for him to load up on another element, they needed to give Water some exposure, so they threw in a few Water-type spells. Then outside of the deck is a bunch of copies, so you could make a Water-type Wizard if you wanted to. It's just that I've never heard of a Dark+Water Necromancer, I'm not saying it couldn't exist, but I'd rather choose which secondary element to give him, even if I'd being paying more spellpoints.

Or maybe it's the Druid that's Nature and Water-type and they had a few Water spells left over that are more like "Ice-type" and so they gave them to the NM to show some contrast.

My best advice would be to focus on range attacks, unavoidable attacks, charge, status effects, dispels, and mana denial if you can pull it off. If all else fails, I guess you can try swarming her, but watch out for Mass Sleep. In my opinion, the main thing to worry about are her defenses, you just have to break those down and do consistent damage to her.