More like fencing, less like gun fights.
Elemental Forums
I'm wondering if anyone knows of any games that feature really in depth magical combat systems. Doesn't necessarily need to be an RPG, but any games that treat magic fights more like dueling and less like two people pointing cannons at one-another.
lol mesmer is the hardest faction in guild wars. Hopefully they are still in GW2. 
Duel: The Mage Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_and_Mayhem) was a fun game that was totally about magic 
Lots of different strategies depending on how you used your spell components.
VicenteC beat me to it but Magic and Mayhem perfectly fits your description. It is a great game.
Sacrifice is another great choice - check GOG.com for this one.
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I think I may also check out Icewind Dale 2 and play as a wizard.
Necromancer is another Guild Wars class with a pretty awesome magic system. Elementalist is a little more straight forward, but also fun. Ritualist too.. basically every magic class in the game is unique. 
Guild Wars Fire Elementalists are pretty much your generic "nuke the area from orbit" spellcasters though. Not that meteor showers and lots of painful burning on your enemies aren't cool, its just that fire spells are much more like your usual nuke-in-a-box than the rest of the spell sets.
Fire Elementalists yeah, but Water has a good deal of Hexes, and a lot of Lightning has Exhaustion and armor penetration, and Earth has some buffs. Overall Elementalist is closest to the "basic" caster, but it still has a lot of interesting mechanics.
Baldur's Gate II.
Best magic system ever. At least up to some years ago. Especially with the help of some of the finest mods created by the community (like AI-enhancers mods, fixes, etc.)
I agree with Baldur's Gate, I always wanted to have a way of using that magic system competetively.
Tons of shields, counterspells, shieldstripping spells, immunity spells, anti immunity spells, cantrips to cast two/three spells at once, spells that trigger automatically based on certain conditions .... just amazing.
You may also want to check out Battleforge. It is basically the Magic: the Gathering card system redone in a real time strategy game. Lots of cards for creatures and spells, hence lots of combinations and possible stratregies. It is highly competitive, if that is your cup of tea. You can download the game for free, but have to pay for new booster packs. So, the only real downside to this game is the money sink if you want to stay competitive.
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