I voted Earth for the Lava Golems,
Water for the Steam Engines (upgraded steam engine starts with 15 toughness...),
and finally Darkness for the steal/deflageration combo. Darkness also adds the Dusk Shield and (minor)vampire life gain.
Others ones i have tried out include aether for the dimension shields (this didnt work out as well as i hoped, the problem being that the 6 aether quanta mean fire quanta production is hampered) and
Death for firebolt/bone wall (i seldom use rain of fire/firestorm as these dont do anything if all enemy creatures are untargetable or have 20+ toughness)