A list of the current predefined wizards, with my thoughts on how well they perform under AI control, as the AI always uses these wizards - although depending on difficulty they will customize by replacing some, or even a lot of the the picks at random.
Original Portrait version
Merlin - 6 Life, 5 Nature, Sage Master
Both Life and Nature offers a reasonably strong early game - Life offers strong normal units while Nature offers fantastic, while Sage Master accelerates research - further boosted by all the city buffs the realms have and in the endgame possibly by Tranquility and Life Force for a very fast Spell of Mastery.
While the removal spells aren't very good in either realm, Crack's Call, if available makes the wizard a major threat in combat anyway.
Threat level : Medium
Raven - 6 Nature, 6 Sorcery
Strong early game with Nature summons, while being a threat in combat due to Confusion. Dangerous endgame with very powerful Sorcery spells and access to some of the strongest and most unstoppable very rare creatures. Web plus flight is a nice combination that can turn around combat in unexpected ways. Magic Immunity, Flight and Invisibility all make it a lot harder to deal with endgame nature creatures.
Threat level : Medium
Sharee - 6 Death, 6 Chaos, Conjurer
The greatest threat in combat as both realms have nasty spells that kill enemy units effectively. In mid and late game, city curses and global spells can completely destroy the economy of other players.
Conjurer has no synergy at all with either of the above, but both realms have a good selection of pretty good summoned creatures, Ghouls being the strongest common one.
Threat level : High
Lo Pan - 6 Chaos, 5 Sorcery, Alchemy
Both Chaos and Sorcery are near unstoppable in the endgame, and force the player to suffer significant losses when fighting the wizard in the early game. While these realms have the slowest early game, Alchemy powers up normal troops enough to cancel out this disadvantage mostly. The player either has to suffer major losses in the early game to take him out, or has to risk absolutely devastating spells being cast later (such as Armageddon, Suppress Magic, Call the Void). If the wizard gets Time Stop, due to Alchemy it has a potential to last several turns longer than normal.
Threat level : Extreme
Jafar - 10 Sorcery, Warlord
Falls roughly under the same category as Lo Pan, pure sorcery, compensated for the slow start by the very powerful Warlord retort. Late game is powerful but slightly less threatening than Lo Pan due to lack of Chaos.
Threat level : High
Oberic - 6 Nature, 5 Chaos, Mana Focusing
Strong early game with powerful Nature and Chaos creatures, and good combat direct damage and summoning options. Potentially dangerous late game with powerful nature summons, or spells of mass destruction in chaos.
Threat level : High
Rjak - 10 Death, Astrologer
Good early game with created undead gained in combat for free thanks to Ghouls and death books, potentially dangerous late game with access to the entire set of power base denial spells and a high chance of landing on Maniacal personality. Enhanced overland casting power to support casting more death creatures or curses.
Threat level : Medium
SSs're - 5 Life, 5 Chaos, Chaneller
Since the AI now always replaces Myrran with Chaneller, this wizard has a good mana crystal support for casting Chaos combat spells in every combat. Life makes it hard to defeat in the early game due to healing and protective enchantments, while Chaos ensures he develops into a threat later.
Threat level : High
Tauron - 10 Chaos, Chaneller
Very similar to the above but probably weaker in the early and more dangerous in the late game. Max amount of chaos books guarantees this wizard will be winning the game is left unchecked for too long.
Threat level : High, but Extreme if not discovered early enough
Freya - 10 Nature, Guardian
Nature offers consistently powerful fantastic creatures both in the early and late game, although is generally weak against Death wizards. Guardian makes it very hard to conquer her cities filled with already powerful fantastic units, but she is not as threatening on the offense and has limited ways to cause harm with overland spells.
Threat level : Medium
Horus - 6 Life, 5 Sorcery, Archmage
Extremely vulnerable to other Sorcery wizards (both Spell Binding and Dispelling Wave), and Archmage doesn't have a very good synergy with these realms. Unless receiving the nasty Sorcery spells, he is mostly harmless.
Threat level : Low
Ariel - 10 Life, Runemaster
Life offers a reasonably good level of power through the entire game, but lacks ways to force the human player to suffer losses, and it has a high chance to pick a peaceful or lawful personality. Late game is entirely nonthreathening unless the wizard has access to some of the stronger races. Runemaster makes enchantments harder to dispel which is great with the wizard's theme, but isn't particularly relevant unless the player is unable to defeat the wizard without dispelling those spells. Due to high Good alignment, she is likely to be at war with the most threatening Chaos and Death wizards, and thanks to Runemaster she has a high chance of dispelling the nasty enchantments that would otherwise make the player lose, such as Armageddon.
Threat level : Lowest
Tlaloc - 6 Death, 5 Nature, Cult Leader
Nature and Death has a great synergy, not only are they the two realms with the strongest early game, but they have some nice spell combinations : Survival Instinct supports undead creatures very well, and access to multiple types of regenerating creatures is great, not to mention the availability of Berserk to cast on them. While not as dangerous in the late damge as Chaos wizards, both Nature and Death has ways to destroy enemy economy and they work well together, Death can destroy anything in a city except buildings, and Earthquake takes care of those.
Threat level : High.
Kali - 6 Sorcery, 5 Death, Artificier
Both Death and Sorcery can make life hard in the endgame, and generally force suffering losses if fought in the early game, making this wizard perform pretty well, however artificier has zero synergy with these realms (neither can heal or revive heroes) and usually helps the player by summoning powerful artifacts to the game which will them be transferred to the player when this wizard is eliminated.
Threat level : High.
Optional Portrait version
Seravy - 4 Life, 3 Sorcery, 4 Nature, Archmage
Having access to all realms that buff cities and units, this wizard can be unpredictable and depending on spells, can perform very well or rather poorly. Low amount of books in each realm result in few very rare spells and aside from Sorcery, the other two realms are not that threatening. Archmage is a good retort to take advantage of the boosted economy and increase pressure through more combat spells - mainly summons, healing and buffing. Direct damage options are poor, but potential summoning of Sorcery and Nature creautres, access to Crack's Call and Confusion can cause the player to suffer unexpected losses.
Threat level : Medium
Reimu - 10 Life, Guardian
See Ariel, except without Runemaster she is less likely to help the player with Disjuncions, and with Guardian, she is likely to stay in play very long, possibly long enough to accelerate into Spell of Mastery through casting Tranquility and Life Force.
Threat level : Low
Flandre - 6 Death, 5 Chaos, Inquisitor
See Sharee, Death and Chaos are high threats, but what makes this wizard even more terrifying is the Inquisitor retort, which ensures any lost city is never going to be reclaimed by the player, and if Flande ever builds an army the player cannot stop, that army will to through each and every city and obliterate them instead of staying in the first one conquered like in case of other wizards. Add to this that she has twice the normal gold income which can and will accelerate building and unit production, and ensures the availability of mana through alchemy for combat spellcasting even at high range penalties.
Threat level : Extreme
Yuyuko - See Rjak, the two are identical
Patchouli - 5 Chaos, 5 Nature, 1 Sorcery, Sage Master
See Oberic. This wizard also has Sage Master which ensures she'll get those destruction Chaos spells much earlier, plus she has 1 Sorcery spellbook making her a lot more unpredictable and dangerous in combat (Guardian wind, Phantom Warriors, Confusion all might be available)
Threat level : High. (Slightly higher than Oberic)
Suika - 10 Chaos, 1 Nature, Specialist
See Tauron. Suika is more threatening because she can reach the endgame Chaos spells faster, and they're harder to dispel that's to Specialist. On top of these, the 15% lower casting cost improves her early game slightly as well.
Threat level : Extreme
Byakuren - 6 Life, 5 Death, Charismatic
She has the highest chance to make alliances with every other wizard, due to her neutral alignment, charismatic trait, and reasonably good chance of rolling a peaceful or lawful personality. As such she is the main contributor to alliance chains, resulting in games where the player has to fight 3-4 opponents at once.
Aside from this, her spell realms are not particularly threatening, although not weak either. Death plus Life offers quite a lot of versatility.
Threat level : Medium but watch out for diplomacy
Aura - 10 Sorcery, Chaneller
Slightly less threatening than Jafar, although Chaneller ensures a massive amount of combat spells can be cast, resulting in losses for the player which are hard to defend against.
Threat level : High
Clow Reed - 5 Chaos, 5 Sorcery, Runemaster
See Lo Pan. Although not as dangerous early on due to lack of Alchemy, much more dangerous for mid to late game because Runemaster not just ensures his global spells will stay in play longer, but also allows him to cause massive damage through dispelling the player's spells by using his own spells, especially Dispelling Wave if he gets it. This is much less of a concern in case of Ariel who is more likely to not turn hostile and has no Sorcery books to have access to Dispelling Wave.
Threat level : Extreme
Silver - 6 Life, 5 Sorcery
See Horus. Recently changed to have Alchemy instead of Artificier. This counterbalances the slow early game and lack of good summoning spells in the first half of the game, and allows fueling longer Time Stops if the wizard happens to get that spell later. Ideal would be both retorts but that's unfortunately not possible.
Threat level : Medium
Vanilla H - 10 Nature, 1 Life, Tactician
See Freya. An entire level more dangerous, as instead of Guardian, she has Tactician, which makes her already powerful fantastic creatures even better on the offense. While Nature is not a hero related realm, with Tactician, her early heroes can be dangerous, especially paired with massive stacks of summoned units, and in the late game they can be nearly indestructible due to regeneration, iron skin and elemental armor, though at that point the very rare creatures will be even more dangerous.
A single Life book can make a large difference by granting a chance to learn Healing or various buffs that make the already buffed units even harder to kill.
Threat level : High
Tenshi - 5 Life, 5 Chaos, Warlord
Warlord is amazingly powerful on a wizard that can buff units early on with heroism, and while Chaos isn't very strong in the early game, it does make sure the enemy won't be able to stop her with stalling tactics, as surviving units can be killed by bolts. In the late game, the chance for the Crusade+Warlord combo, and access to all the powerful chaos spells on top of having invulerable units makes this probably the most dangerous wizard in the mod. (imagine a single invulnerable unit with a wizard spamming 3 flame strike per battle to support it, all the while she is accelerating into spell of mastery with Tranquility AND Armageddon at the same time...)
She also tends to get the Militarist or Expansionist objective frequently, making her a lot more aggressive in the early game than a neutral alignment wizard with life books normally is.
Threat level : Extreme+
Satori - 6 Nature, 5 Sorcery, Conjurer
See Raven. However Conjurer ensures the wizard will take advantage of the strongest point of both realms : Nature's overland summons and Sorcery's combat summons.
Threat level : High
Yukari - 5 Sorcery, 5 Death, Chaneller
See Kali. Slightly better because she has no Artificier, instead has Chaneller, ensuring that her good selection of combat spells will not exhaust her mana crystals too easily.
Threat level : High.
And one more I would love to add but can't because there is no room...I'm even considering to remove someone just to be able to..but couldn't bring myself to do that yet..
Kaguya - 5 Nature, 6 Death, Alchemy
Alchemy is one of the best retorts and none of the new portrait wizards use it. As this character is known for drinking an elixir for immortality, I think Alchemy is a suitable retort for her (although it wasn't her who made it but Eirin). Nature and Death goes well with the theme of immortality, and Alchemy, the strongest early game retort is amazing with the two strongest early game realms. I believe this wizard would be a great addition to the game...if only I had one more slot...
This wizard would be especially important to include because nature and death are the most underused realms, only 4 wizards have more than 1 book of each.
Threat level : Extreme, high if encountered in the late game only
Original Portrait version
Merlin - 6 Life, 5 Nature, Sage Master
Both Life and Nature offers a reasonably strong early game - Life offers strong normal units while Nature offers fantastic, while Sage Master accelerates research - further boosted by all the city buffs the realms have and in the endgame possibly by Tranquility and Life Force for a very fast Spell of Mastery.
While the removal spells aren't very good in either realm, Crack's Call, if available makes the wizard a major threat in combat anyway.
Threat level : Medium
Raven - 6 Nature, 6 Sorcery
Strong early game with Nature summons, while being a threat in combat due to Confusion. Dangerous endgame with very powerful Sorcery spells and access to some of the strongest and most unstoppable very rare creatures. Web plus flight is a nice combination that can turn around combat in unexpected ways. Magic Immunity, Flight and Invisibility all make it a lot harder to deal with endgame nature creatures.
Threat level : Medium
Sharee - 6 Death, 6 Chaos, Conjurer
The greatest threat in combat as both realms have nasty spells that kill enemy units effectively. In mid and late game, city curses and global spells can completely destroy the economy of other players.
Conjurer has no synergy at all with either of the above, but both realms have a good selection of pretty good summoned creatures, Ghouls being the strongest common one.
Threat level : High
Lo Pan - 6 Chaos, 5 Sorcery, Alchemy
Both Chaos and Sorcery are near unstoppable in the endgame, and force the player to suffer significant losses when fighting the wizard in the early game. While these realms have the slowest early game, Alchemy powers up normal troops enough to cancel out this disadvantage mostly. The player either has to suffer major losses in the early game to take him out, or has to risk absolutely devastating spells being cast later (such as Armageddon, Suppress Magic, Call the Void). If the wizard gets Time Stop, due to Alchemy it has a potential to last several turns longer than normal.
Threat level : Extreme
Jafar - 10 Sorcery, Warlord
Falls roughly under the same category as Lo Pan, pure sorcery, compensated for the slow start by the very powerful Warlord retort. Late game is powerful but slightly less threatening than Lo Pan due to lack of Chaos.
Threat level : High
Oberic - 6 Nature, 5 Chaos, Mana Focusing
Strong early game with powerful Nature and Chaos creatures, and good combat direct damage and summoning options. Potentially dangerous late game with powerful nature summons, or spells of mass destruction in chaos.
Threat level : High
Rjak - 10 Death, Astrologer
Good early game with created undead gained in combat for free thanks to Ghouls and death books, potentially dangerous late game with access to the entire set of power base denial spells and a high chance of landing on Maniacal personality. Enhanced overland casting power to support casting more death creatures or curses.
Threat level : Medium
SSs're - 5 Life, 5 Chaos, Chaneller
Since the AI now always replaces Myrran with Chaneller, this wizard has a good mana crystal support for casting Chaos combat spells in every combat. Life makes it hard to defeat in the early game due to healing and protective enchantments, while Chaos ensures he develops into a threat later.
Threat level : High
Tauron - 10 Chaos, Chaneller
Very similar to the above but probably weaker in the early and more dangerous in the late game. Max amount of chaos books guarantees this wizard will be winning the game is left unchecked for too long.
Threat level : High, but Extreme if not discovered early enough
Freya - 10 Nature, Guardian
Nature offers consistently powerful fantastic creatures both in the early and late game, although is generally weak against Death wizards. Guardian makes it very hard to conquer her cities filled with already powerful fantastic units, but she is not as threatening on the offense and has limited ways to cause harm with overland spells.
Threat level : Medium
Horus - 6 Life, 5 Sorcery, Archmage
Extremely vulnerable to other Sorcery wizards (both Spell Binding and Dispelling Wave), and Archmage doesn't have a very good synergy with these realms. Unless receiving the nasty Sorcery spells, he is mostly harmless.
Threat level : Low
Ariel - 10 Life, Runemaster
Life offers a reasonably good level of power through the entire game, but lacks ways to force the human player to suffer losses, and it has a high chance to pick a peaceful or lawful personality. Late game is entirely nonthreathening unless the wizard has access to some of the stronger races. Runemaster makes enchantments harder to dispel which is great with the wizard's theme, but isn't particularly relevant unless the player is unable to defeat the wizard without dispelling those spells. Due to high Good alignment, she is likely to be at war with the most threatening Chaos and Death wizards, and thanks to Runemaster she has a high chance of dispelling the nasty enchantments that would otherwise make the player lose, such as Armageddon.
Threat level : Lowest
Tlaloc - 6 Death, 5 Nature, Cult Leader
Nature and Death has a great synergy, not only are they the two realms with the strongest early game, but they have some nice spell combinations : Survival Instinct supports undead creatures very well, and access to multiple types of regenerating creatures is great, not to mention the availability of Berserk to cast on them. While not as dangerous in the late damge as Chaos wizards, both Nature and Death has ways to destroy enemy economy and they work well together, Death can destroy anything in a city except buildings, and Earthquake takes care of those.
Threat level : High.
Kali - 6 Sorcery, 5 Death, Artificier
Both Death and Sorcery can make life hard in the endgame, and generally force suffering losses if fought in the early game, making this wizard perform pretty well, however artificier has zero synergy with these realms (neither can heal or revive heroes) and usually helps the player by summoning powerful artifacts to the game which will them be transferred to the player when this wizard is eliminated.
Threat level : High.
Optional Portrait version
Seravy - 4 Life, 3 Sorcery, 4 Nature, Archmage
Having access to all realms that buff cities and units, this wizard can be unpredictable and depending on spells, can perform very well or rather poorly. Low amount of books in each realm result in few very rare spells and aside from Sorcery, the other two realms are not that threatening. Archmage is a good retort to take advantage of the boosted economy and increase pressure through more combat spells - mainly summons, healing and buffing. Direct damage options are poor, but potential summoning of Sorcery and Nature creautres, access to Crack's Call and Confusion can cause the player to suffer unexpected losses.
Threat level : Medium
Reimu - 10 Life, Guardian
See Ariel, except without Runemaster she is less likely to help the player with Disjuncions, and with Guardian, she is likely to stay in play very long, possibly long enough to accelerate into Spell of Mastery through casting Tranquility and Life Force.
Threat level : Low
Flandre - 6 Death, 5 Chaos, Inquisitor
See Sharee, Death and Chaos are high threats, but what makes this wizard even more terrifying is the Inquisitor retort, which ensures any lost city is never going to be reclaimed by the player, and if Flande ever builds an army the player cannot stop, that army will to through each and every city and obliterate them instead of staying in the first one conquered like in case of other wizards. Add to this that she has twice the normal gold income which can and will accelerate building and unit production, and ensures the availability of mana through alchemy for combat spellcasting even at high range penalties.
Threat level : Extreme
Yuyuko - See Rjak, the two are identical
Patchouli - 5 Chaos, 5 Nature, 1 Sorcery, Sage Master
See Oberic. This wizard also has Sage Master which ensures she'll get those destruction Chaos spells much earlier, plus she has 1 Sorcery spellbook making her a lot more unpredictable and dangerous in combat (Guardian wind, Phantom Warriors, Confusion all might be available)
Threat level : High. (Slightly higher than Oberic)
Suika - 10 Chaos, 1 Nature, Specialist
See Tauron. Suika is more threatening because she can reach the endgame Chaos spells faster, and they're harder to dispel that's to Specialist. On top of these, the 15% lower casting cost improves her early game slightly as well.
Threat level : Extreme
Byakuren - 6 Life, 5 Death, Charismatic
She has the highest chance to make alliances with every other wizard, due to her neutral alignment, charismatic trait, and reasonably good chance of rolling a peaceful or lawful personality. As such she is the main contributor to alliance chains, resulting in games where the player has to fight 3-4 opponents at once.
Aside from this, her spell realms are not particularly threatening, although not weak either. Death plus Life offers quite a lot of versatility.
Threat level : Medium but watch out for diplomacy
Aura - 10 Sorcery, Chaneller
Slightly less threatening than Jafar, although Chaneller ensures a massive amount of combat spells can be cast, resulting in losses for the player which are hard to defend against.
Threat level : High
Clow Reed - 5 Chaos, 5 Sorcery, Runemaster
See Lo Pan. Although not as dangerous early on due to lack of Alchemy, much more dangerous for mid to late game because Runemaster not just ensures his global spells will stay in play longer, but also allows him to cause massive damage through dispelling the player's spells by using his own spells, especially Dispelling Wave if he gets it. This is much less of a concern in case of Ariel who is more likely to not turn hostile and has no Sorcery books to have access to Dispelling Wave.
Threat level : Extreme
Silver - 6 Life, 5 Sorcery
See Horus. Recently changed to have Alchemy instead of Artificier. This counterbalances the slow early game and lack of good summoning spells in the first half of the game, and allows fueling longer Time Stops if the wizard happens to get that spell later. Ideal would be both retorts but that's unfortunately not possible.
Threat level : Medium
Vanilla H - 10 Nature, 1 Life, Tactician
See Freya. An entire level more dangerous, as instead of Guardian, she has Tactician, which makes her already powerful fantastic creatures even better on the offense. While Nature is not a hero related realm, with Tactician, her early heroes can be dangerous, especially paired with massive stacks of summoned units, and in the late game they can be nearly indestructible due to regeneration, iron skin and elemental armor, though at that point the very rare creatures will be even more dangerous.
A single Life book can make a large difference by granting a chance to learn Healing or various buffs that make the already buffed units even harder to kill.
Threat level : High
Tenshi - 5 Life, 5 Chaos, Warlord
Warlord is amazingly powerful on a wizard that can buff units early on with heroism, and while Chaos isn't very strong in the early game, it does make sure the enemy won't be able to stop her with stalling tactics, as surviving units can be killed by bolts. In the late game, the chance for the Crusade+Warlord combo, and access to all the powerful chaos spells on top of having invulerable units makes this probably the most dangerous wizard in the mod. (imagine a single invulnerable unit with a wizard spamming 3 flame strike per battle to support it, all the while she is accelerating into spell of mastery with Tranquility AND Armageddon at the same time...)
She also tends to get the Militarist or Expansionist objective frequently, making her a lot more aggressive in the early game than a neutral alignment wizard with life books normally is.
Threat level : Extreme+
Satori - 6 Nature, 5 Sorcery, Conjurer
See Raven. However Conjurer ensures the wizard will take advantage of the strongest point of both realms : Nature's overland summons and Sorcery's combat summons.
Threat level : High
Yukari - 5 Sorcery, 5 Death, Chaneller
See Kali. Slightly better because she has no Artificier, instead has Chaneller, ensuring that her good selection of combat spells will not exhaust her mana crystals too easily.
Threat level : High.
And one more I would love to add but can't because there is no room...I'm even considering to remove someone just to be able to..but couldn't bring myself to do that yet..
Kaguya - 5 Nature, 6 Death, Alchemy
Alchemy is one of the best retorts and none of the new portrait wizards use it. As this character is known for drinking an elixir for immortality, I think Alchemy is a suitable retort for her (although it wasn't her who made it but Eirin). Nature and Death goes well with the theme of immortality, and Alchemy, the strongest early game retort is amazing with the two strongest early game realms. I believe this wizard would be a great addition to the game...if only I had one more slot...
This wizard would be especially important to include because nature and death are the most underused realms, only 4 wizards have more than 1 book of each.
Threat level : Extreme, high if encountered in the late game only
