I'm not convinced that the Wizard is somehow going to be brought in line as the card pool grows, at least considering the current pattern of releases; the problem is that he can, through his training, just adapt to best suit the current card pool.
For the Wizard to be balanced via new releases, those new releases, maybe a couple or so, would need to stop introducing important cards that the Wizard can include at base spellbook point cost...which is pretty limiting from a design perspective, considering that would include all of the minor schools (and Arcane). But as Academy gives the Wizard lots of new toys, such as a level 1 Arcane creature (the Wizard used to be the only Mage with a Spawnpoint without that, IIRC), I just don't see that happening.
I hope that as I play these new releases, I'll see yet more improvement in terms of balance, but I really see the problem with the Wizard based in his mage stats card (primarily) and the unyielding expansion of the Arcane/Minor schools, not necessarily the lack of options for other mages.
I completely agree. Back with only the base set, there were still arguments that the Wizard was slightly more powerful than the other 3 mages, but it was generally considered a very small difference in power. From what I've seen, the wizard has actually gotten more powerful with almost every expansion due to his deck-building options. Forcemaster vs Warlord made Earth Wizards more viable, Forged in Fire gave Fire Wizards a lot more tools, and Paladin vs Siren is almost definitely going to give the Wizard lots of Water cards he can make use of.
Long story short, without an errata of some kind, the Wizard is always going to remain one of the most powerful mages. He can make too much use of the overall card pool, so he's not going to ever fall behind (unless Arcane Wonders releases an expansion with practically no elemental or Arcane cards, and even then he can just pay double for any other stuff he's really interested in). But if Arcane Wonders is going to errata the Wizard himself, they really need to do it before they release Alt Wizard vs Alt Forcemaster, which is going to be their next minor Arena expansion.
I'm not sure why the first set of Academy was Wizard v. Beastmaster and not Priestess v. Warlock, to be honest.
While it is a bit awkward, I do see the logic in having Beastmaster vs Wizard be the first release. The latest release was Forged in Fire, which helped out Warlocks. The next Arena release is going to be Paladin vs Siren, which is obviously going to help out the Priestess as well with new Holy school cards. So Arcane Wonders kind of had to give the Beastmasters something to prevent them from getting stale.
The wizard can only be trained in one elemental school at a time. The warlock is also fully trained in fire as well as a major school, just like the wizard. Unlike the warlock, wizard is trained in arcane, not dark.
This means that if the problem is with the wizard's abilities it's probably either that the arcane school itself is too powerful, or the wizard tower is OP, or some combination of the two.
Personally I'm thinking possibility #3 is most likely. Dispel is still too often an auto-include in so many spellbooks. It's not as bad as it used to be for the warlord now that we have harshforge, and astral anchor should help against teleport a lot. Therefore, fleshing out the other schools more might go a long way towards fixing the wizard.
Another good idea might be to give errata to wizard tower. If we give errata to the tower, I'm thinking the best option is to make it epic or increase its mana cost to 9 or 10. I've already discussed the reasons I think increasing the mana cost will help but just in case it was forgotten, wizard tower as it's priced right now pays itself back in 7 rounds, and he can use it to throw a boulder at the enemy Mage in the very first round even if they never leave their starting zone. No other Mage has the ability to do this. Even if you do go for an attack spell opening in the first round, you will usually be leaving yourself open to things like wall of thorns push, or the enemy will simply outlast your early aggression. However, the wizard tower allows you to use this exact same early aggressive opening, but without any of the drawbacks because it doesn't take any of your mage's actions to cast each attack, and it even gives you extra mana too, allowing you to continue this same exact strategy from the early game long into the late game.
Additionally, for gate wizards, increasing the mana cost for wizard's tower means that if they want to keep deploying lv2 arcane creatures like gremlin and leech, he'll have to wait at least one more round before casting the tower.
Other options include increasing the level of the tower to 3, making it a full action to cast, and taking away its channeling. I think that last one might also be a good idea, but I am skeptical that it will be enough by itself.
Back when it was just the base set, I suspect that his superior access to dispel and teleport was what made him slightly more powerful back then. It wasn't the number of elemental spells.
At the moment all the mage's are at least somewhat viable, but they are not all competitive, and they do not all have as many viable options for spellbook design. Ironically, Wizards seem to have been rather lacking in viable spellbook diversity for a while simply because the strategy of putting in the Wizard tower and loading up on attack spells and meta magic (plus maybe a battle forge or gate), is so powerful that no one ever does anything else with him.
