I see a lot of mages open on other mages by using counterspell for the improved silence and then immediately casting polymorph. This method is sub-optimal at best. It's mainly useful in a 2+ v 1 situation to keep the mage from escaping while your team mobs him. In 1v1, the fight usually proceeds in a predictable way:
Mage 1 opens with counterspell
Mage 1 casts polymorph
Mage 1 begins casting frost bolt
Mage 2 ice blocks, or uses a PvP trinket
Mage 2 cancels ice block if it was used and quickly casts counterspell
Mage 2 now has 10 seconds to freecast against mage 1, mage 1's ice block is also locked out during that time
Mage 1 dies
IMO the best thing to do is scorch spam. With that, you can force the enemy mage to either:
- Waste CS
- Waste fire ward
- Eat a bunch of damage
Arcane missiles would be the other candidate, but having it interrupted means also being locked out of polymorph, blink, and CS. Being locked out of the fire school just means being locked out of fire damage spells, and the main reason for casting them (assuming frost spec) is to avoid getting locked out of either of the other schools. But there is no risk of that if the enemy mage's counterspell is on cooldown.
Extrapolate your opinions, pls.