Is the arena wizard still OP?

[iNano78]

...then this debate will never be resolved.

Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.

All the testing required to just prove a point. Whatever happened to just having fun?  Playing 20+ structured games to prove a point does not sound like fun at all.

And certainly didn't seem fun when Tim Seitz did it to prove that A Few Acres of Snow was broken.

Hmm....

One last try at convincing people with an analytical argument:

Consider playing a Mage Wars format where every mage has 0 sbp (e.g. no spell book at all).  The Wizard is obviously superior in this play mode because all other mages can only make 1 melee attack per round, whereas the Wizard can either perform melee + Arcane Zap, or 2x Arcane Zap.  Also, only the Wizard and the Forcemaster get to negate damage; the Wizard negates 3 damage per turn, which is about the expected value of most mage's lone melee attack, while the Forcemaster has a 50% chance to dodge 1 attack - but against the Wizard, even if the Forcemaster is extremely lucky and rolls a 7+ every time, that's only canceling 1 of the Wizard's 2 attacks per round, so the Wizard even wins that match-up.  In fact, the Wizard can try to stay a zone away from his opponent for the entire match, whereas ALL other mages have to be in the opponent's zone in order to attack at all. So, in such a format, the Wizard would easily be the best mage hands-down. (Please feel free to dispute this, but 2 attacks > 1 attack and canceling 3 damage > canceling 0 damage, so... pretty obvious, right?)

Now consider a format where every mage gets only an Elemental Wand with an attack spell bound to it that is a FULL action attack that rolls 5 dice of damage with range 0-1 that costs (a) 10 mana, (b) 9 mana or (c) 8 mana. Also, lets shrink the Arena to 3 zones because otherwise it's to the Wizard's advantage (as you'll see).
-  (a) Only the mages with Channeling = 10 can cast their attack spell every turn.  That means the Necromancer, Priestess, Wizard and Forcemaster are the only Mages you'd want to use in such a format, as all other mages have to alternate between their attack spell and melee attack.  Otherwise it's pretty even assuming every mage gets a chance to attack every round (e.g. at least 1 mage is in the middle of the 3 zones) ... but if there's a round where the mages don't attack each other (e.g. they're at range 2 of each other), then the Wizard can bank mana to use both his attack spell AND Voltaric Shield ability AND Arcane Zap (as quick-cast) for the next 5 rounds - so the other player had better make sure that never happens!  (The Forcemaster could charge his Shield, but still can't get 2 attacks in a round).
- (b) While all the mages summon at least 9 and thus can cast their spell every round, both the Wizard and Forcemaster are superior here, because they can each use a defense/damage reduction for 1 mana each turn to negate a lot of that damage.  Moreover, the Wizard can both cast their attack spell PLUS use Arcane Zap as a quick-cast if desired!  Again, the Wizard is the only mage that can attack twice in a round, and one of only 2 that can negate damage.
- (c) Here, the Wizard can cast his spell AND power his Voltaric Shield AND quick-cast Arcane Zap, so this is the ideal situation for the Wizard.  No other mage comes close.  Wizard wins easily.

OK, now let's add spell books, because surely that's a more fair format.  Let's omit any "mage type only" spells to make it simpler (because otherwise it's more of an argument about which spells are best, not which mages are best) and omit "Novice" spells 'cause they're a wash anyway.  Things should be fair now, right?! ... Except - as people point out time and time again - the Wizard can *usually* build the same spell book cheaper than any other mage (unless the other mage makes tremendous effort to stick with in-school spells).  That's because he pays single for 2 schools and never pays triple.  If you want to build a book that uses at least a few spells from every school, the Wizard could probably build it cheaper.  There are exceptions: it's not hard to intentionally build a build a book with level 1 of, say, 1 each of out-of-school spells and spend everything else on non-elemental in-school spells - e.g. a Necromancer building a nearly all-Dark book with no elemental spells at all - and the Wizard would pay more for the same book...  But pretty much all competitive players will agree that you need at least a few of each of Dispel, Seeking Dispel, Teleport, Dissolve, Nullify, Force Push, perhaps Jinx, ... maybe Surging Wave (for dealing with Guards and Battle Forge) and maybe Flame Blast (for testing for Block/Reverse Attack) and probably Acid Ball (because armor)... so by the time you've built your basic toolbox that nearly every mage uses, the Wizard's discount is HUGE!

So we've shown that without a spell book, the Wizard dominates.  And the Wizard is generally better at book building ("can do it cheaper" or can include more spells after the standard toolbox) than any other mage as well.  What's left?  Mage-type-only spells?  Wizard is pretty solid in that respect too.  About the only thing the Wizard isn't best at is action economy compared to a Swarm (like Beastmaster or Necromancer) - but Wizard's Tower and Gate to Voltarii and Huginn all help with that if the Wizard felt action-starved.  That said, you rarely see either of the Gate or Huginn because they aren't usually necessary; the Wizard can win without them.

[Sailor Vulcan]

...then this debate will never be resolved.

Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.

All the testing required to just prove a point. Whatever happened to just having fun?  Playing 20+ structured games to prove a point does not sound like fun at all.

And certainly didn't seem fun when Tim Seitz did it to prove that A Few Acres of Snow was broken.

Hmm....

One last try at convincing people with an analytical argument:

Consider playing a Mage Wars format where every mage has 0 sbp (e.g. no spell book at all).  The Wizard is obviously superior in this play mode because all other mages can only make 1 melee attack per round, whereas the Wizard can either perform melee + Arcane Zap, or 2x Arcane Zap.  Also, only the Wizard and the Forcemaster get to negate damage; the Wizard negates 3 damage per turn, which is about the expected value of most mage's lone melee attack, while the Forcemaster has a 50% chance to dodge 1 attack - but against the Wizard, even if the Forcemaster is extremely lucky and rolls a 7+ every time, that's only canceling 1 of the Wizard's 2 attacks per round, so the Wizard even wins that match-up.  In fact, the Wizard can try to stay a zone away from his opponent for the entire match, whereas ALL other mages have to be in the opponent's zone in order to attack at all. So, in such a format, the Wizard would easily be the best mage hands-down. (Please feel free to dispute this, but 2 attacks > 1 attack and canceling 3 damage > canceling 0 damage, so... pretty obvious, right?)

Now consider a format where every mage gets only an Elemental Wand with an attack spell bound to it that is a FULL action attack that rolls 5 dice of damage with range 0-1 that costs (a) 10 mana, (b) 9 mana or (c) 8 mana. Also, lets shrink the Arena to 3 zones because otherwise it's to the Wizard's advantage (as you'll see).
-  (a) Only the mages with Channeling = 10 can cast their attack spell every turn.  That means the Necromancer, Priestess, Wizard and Forcemaster are the only Mages you'd want to use in such a format, as all other mages have to alternate between their attack spell and melee attack.  Otherwise it's pretty even assuming every mage gets a chance to attack every round (e.g. at least 1 mage is in the middle of the 3 zones) ... but if there's a round where the mages don't attack each other (e.g. they're at range 2 of each other), then the Wizard can bank mana to use both his attack spell AND Voltaric Shield ability AND Arcane Zap (as quick-cast) for the next 5 rounds - so the other player had better make sure that never happens!  (The Forcemaster could charge his Shield, but still can't get 2 attacks in a round).
- (b) While all the mages summon at least 9 and thus can cast their spell every round, both the Wizard and Forcemaster are superior here, because they can each use a defense/damage reduction for 1 mana each turn to negate a lot of that damage.  Moreover, the Wizard can both cast their attack spell PLUS use Arcane Zap as a quick-cast if desired!  Again, the Wizard is the only mage that can attack twice in a round, and one of only 2 that can negate damage.
- (c) Here, the Wizard can cast his spell AND power his Voltaric Shield AND quick-cast Arcane Zap, so this is the ideal situation for the Wizard.  No other mage comes close.  Wizard wins easily.

OK, now let's add spell books, because surely that's a more fair format.  Let's omit any "mage type only" spells to make it simpler (because otherwise it's more of an argument about which spells are best, not which mages are best) and omit "Novice" spells 'cause they're a wash anyway.  Things should be fair now, right?! ... Except - as people point out time and time again - the Wizard can *usually* build the same spell book cheaper than any other mage (unless the other mage makes tremendous effort to stick with in-school spells).  That's because he pays single for 2 schools and never pays triple.  If you want to build a book that uses at least a few spells from every school, the Wizard could probably build it cheaper.  There are exceptions: it's not hard to intentionally build a build a book with level 1 of, say, 1 each of out-of-school spells and spend everything else on non-elemental in-school spells - e.g. a Necromancer building a nearly all-Dark book with no elemental spells at all - and the Wizard would pay more for the same book...  But pretty much all competitive players will agree that you need at least a few of each of Dispel, Seeking Dispel, Teleport, Dissolve, Nullify, Force Push, perhaps Jinx, ... maybe Surging Wave (for dealing with Guards and Battle Forge) and maybe Flame Blast (for testing for Block/Reverse Attack) and probably Acid Ball (because armor)... so by the time you've built your basic toolbox that nearly every mage uses, the Wizard's discount is HUGE!

So we've shown that without a spell book, the Wizard dominates.  And the Wizard is generally better at book building ("can do it cheaper" or can include more spells after the standard toolbox) than any other mage as well.  What's left?  Mage-type-only spells?  Wizard is pretty solid in that respect too.  About the only thing the Wizard isn't best at is action economy compared to a Swarm (like Beastmaster or Necromancer) - but Wizard's Tower and Gate to Voltarii and Huginn all help with that if the Wizard felt action-starved.  That said, you rarely see either of the Gate or Huginn because they aren't usually necessary; the Wizard can win without them.

Your method is flawed right from the beginning. You let the wizard keep one of his abilities, the arcane zap for the sake of your argument. Why doesn't the Forcemaster keep force pull then? Or the priestess keep restore? You do know those are all spells that are on the mages' ability cards, two of which can be used on themselves. There's more to Mage Wars than offense. Defense also plays an important role. Why include arcane zap in the first step at all? Why evaluate how good a Mage is purely on the number of attacks they can make per round? That doesn't make sense.

To be frank, conclusions need to be drawn from premises, not the other way around. No matter what sort of good sounding arguments you make, when you state your conclusions about whether the wizard is overpowered or not, he already is or is not overpowered. You could write down the conclusion "and therefore the moon is made of cheese!" and then cleverly justify the claim after the fact. But the moment you wrote down "the moon is made of cheese", the moon already was or was not made of cheese regardless of what you said.

So...

1. If you think that arcane zap is overpowered, and

2. because you think it is overpowered you  decide to keep it in the first step of your thought experiment in order to
3. show how overpowered it is compared to the other mages who have been stripped of ALL their Mage abilities and
4. you think this comparison proves that the wizard is stronger than those other mages even when they DO have their Mage abilities, because
5. the arcane zap is much more powerful than those other mages' abilities and therefore the comparison between the wizard with only arcane zap and basic Melee and the other mages with only basic melee must be valid enough

Then you've just done some pretty circular reasoning. To summarize, you seem to be saying that arcane zap is overpowered because when the other mages are stripped of all their abilities except for basic melee, and the wizard is stripped of all his abilities except for basic melee AND arcane zap, the wizard wins. And you've set up the thought experiment this way because you think it's so inherently obvious that the wizard is overpowered because of Arcane Zap.

No offense, I'm sure you meant well, but maybe you should consider the possibility that maybe even if something seems obviously true to you it might not be true, and if something seems obviously true to someone else it also might not be. People aren't necessarily disagreeing with you because they're stupid or not thinking it through. They're disagreeing because it's really not as obvious as it seems to be to you.

[exid]

2 advantages:
the wizzard beeing op is a cool forum subject.
people thinking the wizzard is op is a good way to know what they will play.

and 1 sollution:
we think the tower is op (and boring) so we banished it from our games, not beeing sure that we are right!

[Sailor Vulcan]

2 advantages:
the wizzard beeing op is a cool forum subject.
people thinking the wizzard is op is a good way to know what they will play.

and 1 sollution:
we think the tower is op (and boring) so we banished it from our games, not beeing sure that we are right!

Except if the tower wasn't overpowered than you would have banned a good card for nothing. It's all well and good if you only take this approach once. But what if more cards get accused of being overpowered? Are you going to ban them all too?

Although if you get lucky and this solution does actually fix the wizard completely, then that probably would save us a lot of time. Did you record the win ratios before and after you guys banned the tower?

[exid]

2 advantages:
the wizzard beeing op is a cool forum subject.
people thinking the wizzard is op is a good way to know what they will play.

and 1 sollution:
we think the tower is op (and boring) so we banished it from our games, not beeing sure that we are right!

Except if the tower wasn't overpowered than you would have banned a good card for nothing. It's all well and good if you only take this approach once. But what if more cards get accused of being overpowered? Are you going to ban them all too?

Although if you get lucky and this solution does actually fix the wizard completely, then that probably would save us a lot of time. Did you record the win ratios before and after you guys banned the tower?

no reccording, and we don't play enough to have statistically valuable numbers!
but the sensation is good and, since we are not play testers, that's what we are looking for!

[Brian VanAlstyne]

Going to one of the points made, the Forcemaster's Force Pull and Priestess's Restore have no effect on the simple hypothesis he was testing. In a 1 zone arena, the Wizard can attack twice per round, no one else can. And there's no conditions being place by anyone's base attack so, the restore is useless. What this proves is that in a head to head slugfest, the Wizard is throwing 6 dice every round AND has an innate ability to block 3 damage every round for a combined 3 mana. Yes it costs him a bit while the other mages don't have to spend mana except the Forcemaster dodge ability. While other mages at most throw 4 dice and have 0 defensive ability or in the Forcemaster's case throws 3 dice and 50% of the time can avoid 1 attack.

Inherently, therefore, a Wizard is better at a straight fight. And then as I think it's been said and at least opinionated by enough people, it is a lot easier to build a wide-ranging book of strategies as a Wizard compared to all other mages. To me, one of the biggest problems I see at the moment is that a Wizard can spend 100-120 points of their spellbook to create their own strategy and play that way. Most other mages can only spend 80-100 of their points on their own strategy and 10-20 points HAVE to be put in the book specifically to stop certain Wizard strategies. Other points need to be used to stop other aspects, but the Wizard defense alone is really hampering the ability to run your own specific strategies you might want to use that would make the game fun for you.

[iNano78]

Your method is flawed right from the beginning. You let the wizard keep one of his abilities, the arcane zap for the sake of your argument. Why doesn't the Forcemaster keep force pull then? Or the priestess keep restore? You do know those are all spells that are on the mages' ability cards, two of which can be used on themselves. There's more to Mage Wars than offense. Defense also plays an important role. Why include arcane zap in the first step at all? Why evaluate how good a Mage is purely on the number of attacks they can make per round? That doesn't make sense.

I think you misread my post.  Look again.  All mages keep all their abilities in my made-up formats.  The problem is that all other mage abilities require something to trigger them.  Priestess can have her restore ability, but it doesn't do anything if she doesn't have any Holy spells.  Druid can have her treebond, but it doesn't do anything (e.g. no channeling +1 and lifebond +2) if she doesn't have a tree.  Forcemaster can user her Force Pull, but how is it an advantage when all she can then do is basic 3-dice melee attack (and Wizard gets 2 attacks)?  That's my whole point (and the main reason the Wizard's mage abilities are stronger than all the other mages' mage abilities.  That's what I've been saying all along in different ways.  In a format where all your mage can do is use what's on its ability card, then the Wizard triumphs easily.  Add spell book points and you're only giving the Wizard another advantage, since the Wizard dominates at that, too (e.g. spends sbp's more efficiently than any other mage).  No matter what you look at (aside from perhaps action efficiency), the Wizard does it better.  That's the definition of imbalanced (aka overpowered).

To be frank, conclusions need to be drawn from premises, not the other way around. No matter what sort of good sounding arguments you make, when you state your conclusions about whether the wizard is overpowered or not, he already is or is not overpowered. You could write down the conclusion "and therefore the moon is made of cheese!" and then cleverly justify the claim after the fact. But the moment you wrote down "the moon is made of cheese", the moon already was or was not made of cheese regardless of what you said.

I'm not starting with the premise that the Wizard is overpowered (although that would make a fine hypothesis to prove or disprove).  Have you wondered why people "assume" the Wizard is overpowered?  Do you think it might come from personal experience whereby players have found that playing against - or even as - the Wizard seems unfair?  Have you ever noticed that building spell books seems particularly easy as the Wizard because you can include more of everything (e.g. counters and threats)?  Have you ever noticed that the Wizard tends not to run out of options as quickly as other mages in "war of attrition" matches? Or that the Wizard can become nearly unhittable by armouring up and using Voltaric Shield, and has more (e.g. more sbp to spend on) ways to protect said armour?  These are the pieces of evidence collected over many matches and match reports that often lead people to wonder "Is the Wizard overpowered?" and "If so, what makes the Wizard overpowered?"  And then you can form a hypothesis and compare mages and make observations and even test them in both gedanken experiments and real-life play tests if you like.  The problem is these things take considerable time. Do you think it's more useful to play hundreds of matches designed to test a hypothesis and in a few years determine if the Wizard is overpowered, or to make simple comparisons to each other mage and note the obvious imbalances?

So...

1. If you think that arcane zap is overpowered, and

2. because you think it is overpowered you  decide to keep it in the first step of your thought experiment in order to
3. show how overpowered it is compared to the other mages who have been stripped of ALL their Mage abilities and
4. you think this comparison proves that the wizard is stronger than those other mages even when they DO have their Mage abilities, because
5. the arcane zap is much more powerful than those other mages' abilities and therefore the comparison between the wizard with only arcane zap and basic Melee and the other mages with only basic melee must be valid enough

Then you've just done some pretty circular reasoning. To summarize, you seem to be saying that arcane zap is overpowered because when the other mages are stripped of all their abilities except for basic melee, and the wizard is stripped of all his abilities except for basic melee AND arcane zap, the wizard wins. And you've set up the thought experiment this way because you think it's so inherently obvious that the wizard is overpowered because of Arcane Zap.

No offense, I'm sure you meant well, but maybe you should consider the possibility that maybe even if something seems obviously true to you it might not be true, and if something seems obviously true to someone else it also might not be. People aren't necessarily disagreeing with you because they're stupid or not thinking it through. They're disagreeing because it's really not as obvious as it seems to be to you.

This isn't true.  Again, reread my post.  You seem to have missed what I was saying.  All the mages get all their abilities all the time.  I suggested changing the format so no mages have spells, but they still have their abilities on their mage card.  And in that case, both the Wizard's abilities are useful and few other mage abilities are useful (the Forcemaster's defense and several mages' +1 melee being the exceptions).

In a previous post a while ago, I suggested the opposite: If they don't already have it, give each other mage additional abilities that are comparable to the Wizard's; e.g. 10 channeling and a damage enhancer and a damage negater that don't depend on having particular spells in play (perhaps with the exception of the Druid, since her tree is part of her, so to speak).  Then they might all be balanced (with the Wizard keeping his spell book building abilities instead of gaining additional abilities like the Forcemaster's pull or the Beastmaster's pet or Warlock's reaper or Priest's avenger or Priestess's purify or Warlord's commands/vets/runes or J-beast's crappy Wounded Prey or Necromancer's reanimatable dude with piercing +1, etc).

[Ravepig]

iNano78 makes a really solid case for proving the wizard is OP without spending tons and tons and tons of time trudging through forced game-play. When you look at his case, it's very well thought out and uses complete logic. Also, I would agree- this whole discussion is based on a hypothesis- which are often developed by anecdotal experience.

One of the first rules of philosophy is asking the question- what does the majority believe to be true about X? Granted, this isn't an empirical basis for finding truth, but it is a starting point. My point: In reading these threads, I haven't seen one person argue AGAINST the wizard being OP, yet most seem to agree that he is.

So maybe the solution in determining whether the Wizard is OP or not is as simple as what iNano78 proposes.

I for one think it is.

[iNano78]

I did miss something in my slugfest example: the Malakai Priests's Holy Fire ability is useful to him in a cardless match, and his "basic" attack can cause the Daze condition, so if he rolls above average, he has a chance to beat a Wizard in a melee duel.  Of course, the Wizard can still hit him from a safe distance if played well, and average rolls on Burn markers and the effect die probably isn't enough for the Priest to overcome double-Zap + Voltaric Shield.

Similarly, the Adramelech Warlock can deal Burn tokens with her 1-die melee attack... but it would take ridiculously good luck for her and ridiculously bad luck for the Voltaric Shield / Arcane Zapping Wizard for her to win that battle.  Her attack itself can never damage the Wizard, but if she always rolls 5+ on the effect die and nothing but 2's for the Burn tokens, she has a chance. 

[SharkBait]

In reading these threads, I haven't seen one person argue AGAINST the wizard being OP, yet most seem to agree that he is.

Biblo does on the first page, others have before in previous discussions. I'm in the camp that he's not OP, but I don't feel like rehashing the same discussion with the same logic presented from both sides for no reason. For now, I think a respectful agreement to disagree is how much of this community operates in regards to the wizard. 

[Sailor Vulcan]

In reading these threads, I haven't seen one person argue AGAINST the wizard being OP, yet most seem to agree that he is.

Biblo does on the first page, others have before in previous discussions. I'm in the camp that he's not OP, but I don't feel like rehashing the same discussion with the same logic presented from both sides for no reason. For now, I think a respectful agreement to disagree is how much of this community operates in regards to the wizard. 

Unfortunately that probably isn't very sustainable in the long run. Either he is OP or he isn't. I for one don't like having to ask my opponent for permission every time I want to play a particular Mage.

And even if the wizard isn't overpowered, there still could be the problem of his natural, as-intended trickstery play style being usurped by the brute force style everyone has grown accustomed to from him. Unless Academy and Domination did something to fix that.

[jhaelen]

If we don't get enough actual, you know, evidence that can be observed rather than just theorized, then this debate will never be resolved.

Personally, I wouldn't be convinced by any kind of anecdotal evidence or 'statistics'. To convince _me_ you'd _have to_ to come up with an analytical proof of some kind.

However, I already _believe_ that the Wizard has an advantage over all other Mages. Everything that one of the other Mages can do, a Wizard can do better. The only exception are things that aren't directly relevant to win a game.

[bigfatchef]

iNano78 has presented us some very well thought through analysis for the Wizard. He showed in different ways how the Wizards build-in powers (weapon+shield+channeling+bookbuilding) set him in a better starting position than every other mage. All points are clearly understandable and simple logic.

There are players that say wizard is fine. It would now be a good point to hear some very good points from this other side of the table. Can somebody counter iNano78's review in a comparable rationell thinking?
If he really has some disadvantages that set his advantages in perspective, then they should be easily written down.

[baronzaltor]

My feeling has always been that The Wizard is tricky because he doesn't have one single obvious advantage to say "that's the primary issue." When I look at the The Wizard what I see is a perfect storm of small overlapping advantages that just kind of add up to what I consider to be an over-effective mage:

A. Spell book construction-  Before even looking at what the spells do, he has two important notes at this phase of the game:
1) He has no penalized school. This doesn't ALWAYS cause a major impact (Nature mages don't really suffer too hard from 3xfire. Necromancers non living forces don't mind his 3xholy), but it does come into play and particularly so at meta shifts.  For example, whenever Frost comes out, there might suddenly be a very real need to have some burn spells on hand for that Defrost trait...suddenly the meta is a little harsher on those Nature mages than it currently is.  Being the only mage who has no triple cost means he will always have a pretty good ability to evolve with future releases, he wont always be able to take maximum advantage but will never be the worst.  When Necromancer came out, obviously the Warlock benefitted because of Dark training..Priestess benefitted the least from that due to Dark triple cost.  Wizard stayed in the middle of the pack and always will at least be there because he doesn't have an unfavored school for a new set to put him in the "favored least" category.

2) that leads to his next spellbook advantage.  He not only has a second full training (something some mages don't even get at all) but he gets to CHOOSE it.  So, again, as the meta evolves and new cards come out the Wizard can evolve with it.  If fire becomes the new thing, Warlocks benefit and Nature mages frown, but Wizards can opt in.  If Earth suddenly sucks, Wizard can opt out of it and let Warlords bemoan it.  Siren comes out.. Wizard can take a gander at her Water toys and see what hed like to borrow.  Some mages have that ability (like Warlocks and Warlords) but its static, they cant swap it out for something more optimal at any point in the games life.

So, for all of the above he maintains 10 channel and while he doesn't have the highest health total he still has comparable health. Now, this is all just looking at a pure strength of spellbook design.. this isn't even factoring in that his core training is one of the most important schools, or the strength of his own restricted cards or even his own abilites.  That's a totally different matter.   
(Personally I have always felt Wizard should pay triple for Nature and War to offset his multi-faceted spellbook advantage.  Nature because it seems thematically aproprate to put it opposite the Voltaric otherworldy flavored magic of Arcane school, and so that he has to pay more for things like creature buffs, tanglevines, grizzlies, wall of thorns, and so on.  Then War because it makes him favor Arcane equipment like wands and elemental/supression cloak and discourages him from gearing up in heavy armor and morning stars and not favoring battlefield command style cards rather making him opt for more magical flavored schools like mind, dark and holy for support if not his chosen elemental.  that's just my take on his training though)

B. Then there is his general action efficiency advantage. When preparing spells, you generally want to have as many options available to you as possible.  You usually have 2 actions and 2 possible spells.. if your round is contengint on both, and one is botched sometimes it trainwrecks your entire round.   Wizard has a pretty subtle and useful strength here:
1)  Arcane Zap is easy to overlook, but the major advantage of it is that its effectively a third prepared spell every turn.  If you think you "might" need to shoot something this round, you don't have to give up the Dispel or Teleport you wanted to prepare this turn just in case you need a hurl rock because you have Arcane Zap in your pocket.  Did the opponent drop a Jinx on you or give himself a Block?  You can just fire an Arcane Zap without wasting that prepared spell to open it up.
2)  Voltaric Sheild is the same deal, if you want to cusion yourself defensivly there are good tools for it.. Block, Brace Yourself, etc.  But those have to be prepared and cast, Voltaric Sheild lets you brace for damage without committing one of your prepared spells or spending actions to doing so. So the passive nature of these two abilities helps augment your options every turn while prepping spells that offer a broader options and more fluid strategies.  This lets the Wizard be conservative with his spells, and always seem prepared for more options.
As mentioned before, this efficency exists on its own without factoring in his above spell building flexibility nor the strength of his tools and schools.

C) Then, there is the advantage any mage has simply by having access to the Arcane school.  Setting aside the Wizard-only aspects or his secondary training, its a big deal to have premium access to all the core functions of this school.  You save spell points from obvious things like Dispel, Nullify, and Jinx to other staples like Mana Crystals, Elemental Cloak, and Spell Wands.  While most major schools have "must haves" Arcane seems to have the most important, and the ones that are most important to have in multiples.  Not only that, the cards for combating the Arcane school are primarily contained... in the Arcane school.  Denying/Draining mana, and sources of boosting/protecting mana are both arcane.  Magic utility and Metamagic counters are both Arcane.  So, when these core elements are used by all other mages an Arcane trained mage is in the best position to counter his opponent out without as much spellbook compromise.  As previously stated.. regardless of the mage abilities and spellbook design perks.. this training is strong on its own.  A mage with weak abilities would still have a good spellbook situation by having Arcane training.

D) The Wizard uniquely has some potent cards that are restricted just to him.  Ignoring his mage card, ignoring his trainings, for example I think Gate to Voltari is the best spawnpoint in the game. Its durable, it triggers mana without requiring a gameable gimmick...you get mana by the opponent playing the game, and it summons creatures from a wide spread of strong options.  Wizard Tower is one of the most flexible support cards a mage can run, even Huugin is a strong familiar. (Though other familiars like Gurmaash, Fellelia and Serseryx are also strong in their own contexts)  So on top of being trained in a good school, the Wizard has some strong tools that would be potent regardless of his spellbook constraints.

That's all a pretty basic and general overview without going too hard in depth. Taken individually, none of those advantages are a smoking gun to say "this makes him broken!" nor are they individually without some degree of tit-for-tat against other mages.  But they compile in a way that is hard to pinpoint the cleanest way to prescribe a clear picture of why the Wizard is so strong and how to easily tailor him down or to tailor other mages mages/schools up to close that gap.

That's just my general overview on why he seems stands out among other mages anyway.

[Coshade]