[Soapyfrog]

Storm demons are great, but generally only once you hit blood 9 and can summon them in batches, otherwise you wont have the mass you need and they will die all too often. Other problem is the combination of Air and Blood is rare on a mage, and you will often find you need them to forge air items instead of summoning storm demons.

BTW I would make soul contracts even on fairly small maps. The fact that you are going to be getting free, very strong troops, every turn in increasing numbers generally outweighs any "need it right now" blood summons, although I will, in emergencies, go for the most efficient blood summons like crossbreeding if I need mass. Also horde from hell can be very handy. But for sure, Ice/Arch devils and Soul Contracts get priority by rule of thumb.