While I'm still rather fresh to mage wars, I have found very little fits into every deck well. You have to keep in mind that the point cost will very based on the mage. Not to mention that some mage stratagies might for example have you propelling your mage across the field hence needing cheetah speed, where others might have you drawing them into you in which case a cheetah speed card might be less valuable then something else. I think key elements need to be included, like healing, protection, etc but the the actual cards will probably vary.

hrmm well then, I have several victories under my belt that are in gross error. Your right about the wand. it has never come to play but I was mentally prepared for it... oops. I had intended to argue the point of dispell but you are correct there as well. Well thankfully we only have friendly games going so I expect to avoid being tarred and feathered. I will have to get more essence drain cards in there and banishes to apply my logic. Thanks for the clarifications.

Ok I'm relatively new with mage wars yet, but my 1st custom deck included the wizard with some heavy mana manipulation.. which I created with his story in mind. I have had some success with it and I think the best 3 card strategy from it that I could share is having a couple copies of Turn to Stone, Nullify, and Banish. By turning the big badies to stone your effectively taking the wind out of their sails followed by a nullify to prevent a dispelling of the turn to stone. Most books I have encountered have a very limited number of dispells, so if you can twart 1 or 2 that way you usually have them dead to rights... Unless they bring a dispell wand in which case a dissolve is required. The banish comes in handy should you need to remove them from the table in order to have time to remove the dispell wand. They are also nice for crowd management.so if you can make 2 turn to stones hold, your sapping 8 mana per game round from them.I think everyone who plays can imagine how much of an impact that would have on a mage. Try this out. I'd love to hear your own results with it.

Having 2 core sets with the sole purpose of expanding your deck is probably overkill. I could be mistaken but I'm fairly certain you could expand upon your deck by simply buying the tome add ons at a more cost effective rate. The advantages of 2 core sets is clear.. extra books, board, etc. But I would suggest getting the expansions and tomes first. You will pickup new cards you don't have already and many of the ones you probably wanted from a 2nd core set. All that being said. I'm also pretty sure someone out there could point out some cards which are more abundant in the core set and therefor more cost effective if you want to field 6 copies.

All that being said. Invest in expansions

I've been waiting for the local shop to stock the alternate color set for a very long time. Most everyone at the shop has their own card set so the marker boards are in ample supply. Besides if your going to play a 4 player game you will want to combine the arenas to make a 4*6. Which requires 2 core sets be present. Honestly play a few games with some gamers and I bet you'll see them picking up their own copy so they can design a spell book of their own.