Step one: burn the starting spellbook
Step two: burn the opponent
more seriously:
What did you try? What do you find difficult?
edit: I did not see it was about academy.
In academy I agree, he is very difficult to play. I think overall you need to be a little more defensive than in Arena because, if you are not careful, the opponent could kill you very fast. The curses are not extremely strong, so I think you should probably use them for support and not your main weapon. I use attack spells to finish something off.
Things I tried with decent succes:
1) Big guys with my mage battling along
2) small guys for defence with Mgheddon