It feels to me that the Warlord being the only war Mage, is at an disadvantage simply because of the novice spells.
This combined with triple arcane is very crippling when constructing a good all around arena deck, atleast in my experience.
If we take this into consideration when we're building a deck, how many mages are using the novice spells from the war school? Most players I play on Octagon have the leather armor, brace yourself and guard in most of their decks.
Outside the war school, what novice card do you encounter?
Honestly I've only encounterd arcane ward and decoy frequently.
Imagine you've your favorite deck with any other mage, and realize you've to cut about 5-6 spell book points. That's very annyoing to deal with and you'll have to cut something you really dont want to.
This is how I feel building my Warlord decks!