I found dark wood to be extremely powerful. I had no trouble in any battle except for that qualifier for the young mage contest (who I quickly backstabbed xD), because although I felt as though I was floundering in the beginning, later in the game I was able to use special increase to reach combo nuke quickly, which I used to quickly obliterate the enemy (100+ damage per shot). Against mages that kill you, you can use trade life strategically by purposefully only blocking part of the damage while increasing special, until you use trade life when you get low restoring you to full health and them to low, where you immediately nuke. When the opponent manages to get nuke, if it is stronger than yours, use silence instead of nuking and counter with all your additional attacks that you can. This effectively counters every mage type. Other than that follow virmundi's advice(Nov. 9).
I find this game very frustrating. There seems to be quite a bit of luck in hitting the different towers, and when one person is ahead one tower the game, in my experience, will lean heavily in their favor. Some of the levels have only 6 or less towers, so whoever captures the tower first will always win.
Lol, I didnt realize i could steer my house either. I find this game is very stressful. It just got more stressful after i started naming all my balloons. "NOOO! Another surprise bomb rain! Nooo, Charlie...."
 "Book of Mages: The Dark Times"){kind=icon}
 "Blobble Wars"){kind=icon}
 "Higher!"){kind=icon}
 "Moonrocks"){kind=icon}
 "WalkRight"){kind=icon}
 "Temple Guardian II"){kind=icon}