Master Quest

The master quest needs to be solved but, once you know how to get through the second gate with your army intact the kill is easy, even without Mana Blast. I recall in beta 3 you had to study your major opponents and know their strengths and weaknesses - no sense going after dragons with fire weapons/magic, for example. Now the major monsters are a lot more common but a lot easier for a late game army to kill. To truly qualify as a master quest, I believe we should have to solve the opponents as well as the gates - brute force shouldn't work and the developers should build some variables - the solution I find this time shouldn't necessarily work next time.

Part of the problem is that there are many things in this game that can make the master quest easy, and it's not guarenteed which (if any) you have any chance of accessing.  The Mana Blast spell you mentioned is quest-given, meaning the quest can't be designed with the expectation you have it - yet it vastly reduces the difficulty.  Availability of shards, availability of high-power monsters to increase your xp, availability of certain powerful quest items or drops, are all things that vary widely per game, and can be the difference between a quest being incredibly easy or incredibly hard.  Add in the fact that you might commit to doing the quest, and if the end boss is too difficult, you get stuck having to grind a bunch of levels just to get your win.

My suggestion?  To adjust for the varying strengths of Master-Questing armies have Waerlaga start out very strong, but add in armies on the strategic map (dragons, perhaps) which can be defeated to reduce that strength to something that is still tough, but more manageable.  To prevent an underleveled sovereign from overcommiting, you could have the initial dragon statue "test their worthiness" by combat.