How to play against Wizards?

Good evening, everyone! So, once again, I lost to my friend. We were playing on the Outlands map as usual: I was playing as the blue faction (Kaspar), and he was playing as the red faction (Ora). We both reached the first Utopia on day 5 of week 1. He arrived with two heroes, each with roughly the same troops: Ora level 6 and Nazir level 4. I also had two heroes: Kaspar level 7 and Zoltan level 1 (who was gathering resources). Nazir attacked me first, with double mana and the Amulet of Magic, and he dealt a significant blow to my already small army before retreating. Then, Ora attacked. The Amulet of Magic and the Ice Shard (I think it was from a necklace that provides +50% damage) did their job, and I retreated. He immediately took the Utopia and, as I later found out, got Armageddon, which he quickly used to clear the map. Meanwhile, I was trying to rebuild my forces with the remnants of my army. I got my first decent artifacts at the beginning of week 4 from the last Utopia; the rest were looted. In general, the first battle was decisive for me. The final battle took place after 2 months and 3 weeks. I forgot to mention that I was constantly harassed by tricksters with Armageddon and golems. I was especially annoyed by Razak with his level 2 units, Ballista, and Lucky Charm. I didn't have the Staff of the Underworld or the Cloak of Shadows for the final battle. I had a slight advantage in terms of army size, but not by much, maybe at most twice as many units. However, my friend had collected the Lion set, the Staff of Sar-Iss, and other stuff (the Titans had +8 morale). The battle was short: this time, he leveled up the Lucky Charm on all his mages (which I didn't expect), and with the Amulet of Magic and Deadly Cold, he completely destroyed my army. Ora cast spells three times per turn. In general, I need to improve my gameplay.