It's so hard to tell how magic will play out right now, since magic is so, so limited. I can only hope, though, that one can't end up in the situation where they've picked an Air-aspected channeler but there's no way to actually get an Air shard due to map gen, thus locking you out of any useful spells.
Or, like you, get stuck behind impassable terrain because, as a super-powerful channeler, you can't cross a mountain range ...
