The first game of Dominions 2 I actually won was with just such a pretender.
Abysia, Moloch with Fire 10. Desert Eye. I threw him into the Deathmatch Arena and he won the Trident, allowing him to cast two spells per turn. Even before I got "Falling Fires," the guy could massacre 100+ unit armies by himself. By the end of the game he had over 600 personal kills. Good times.
Of course, I wasn't playing with Atlantis or R'ylegh, but that was intentinoal, since this was only my second game ever I tried to set it up to be as easy as I could.