[Jasper]

I suspect it's exceptionally rare for a pretender to have 1 or 2 points of Astral. When making a Rainbow Mage, it makes sense to get ~2 in all fields, except Astral due to the threat of Mind Duel (which is particularily dangerous to a Rainbow Mage).

Then again Mages were weak enough in Dom 1 I don't recall _ever_ seeing anyone play one in multiplayer. Actually, I don't recall even hearing of an instance.

I've also never heard of anyone taking less than 3 Astral in multiplayer. Even then it was a Wyrm with 3 Astral used on a specialized and highly competitive map (HexBlitz). The Wyrm was used for swift early expansion (especially underwater) and later considered expendable, so the risk was deemed worthwhile.