[ano]

Simple and obvious suggestion may be:
1) remove the rainbows
2) limit the non-natural path levels on a Pretender to 3, for example. This will definitely not lead to this path domination or enable high-level spells

This will suit everyone, I hope.
As rainbows can't be taken, you will never have many paths but you WILL have those you really need and that is not bad really. With current rules taking anything other than an SC pretender has no sense. Yes, it is not so bad for our team, because we have good SC chassis. But it is 1) unfair 2) just not fun
The primary role of pretender in many cases is to somehow compensate the weak points of the nation. If it is impossible, the only logical thing for him is being an early SC. That's no good.