Ok. Tonight we played a couple of games and I tried some of the new rules. A bigger hand I think is great. The first game (with the rules as written right now except that I tried the rule to both time limit and damage limit the protection spells) was fun if a bit too long as we both were attacking and healing, so it went back and forth for a while until I managed to win. One of the thoughts I had during the game was that the 4 card limit in the spell sequence is too small. I want to try the game with more (maybe 5 will be enough). I liked mixing the time limit rule for protection spells with the x damage rule, but I want to try it again before deciding.
For our second game we tried the "cards as hp" rule and the game was pretty quick (we didn't even reach the excuse around the middle of the deck). My gf attacked pretty quickly leaving me with less options for recovery. I did manage to heal a bit and counter-attack, but it wasn't enough. I gambled (went for a haste spell instead of healing) and she won. We started with 5 cards each, so that's just 5hp each. Maybe it'd be better to start with a bigger hand so a player is still in the game even after taking some damage.
The other aspect I'm really thinking about is the timing. Sometimes I think the game would be better if I would remove the moons-wyrms-knots casting order and just use the number on the cards. This coupled with a bigger hand gives more options for hand management as you not only have to think about which suits to keep and which to use, but also which cards are faster, which are slower. It also adds more value to the haste spell… I have to test it, because it's also nice to know you will always be able to heal before being attacked, but that also feels like an artificial restriction…
Edit: Ah! I forgot about something we both discussed and it might make it into the game: A possible solution to the problem of a player not getting enough wyrms is to modify the Amnesia spell so that instead of turning around cards in the opponent's spell sequence, you have also the option of just taking them. So, you get a choice of hindering your opponent (a couple of face down energy cards can be pretty bad) or hindering them less but in exchange getting a useful card for yourself. Instead of amnesia, I thought it could be called "Brain Drain" or something similar. If playing by the "cards as hp" rules, this would mean also discarding a card, else you'd gain HP in the process… I think it's a good bargain…