Limiting Magic Options

[Ziploxx]

My group and I are on probably our 3rd shadowrun 4th Edition campaign(the last ones only lasting between 2-5 sessions) and coming up on the 4th session of this campaign. We have completed 2 runs. We have been using a lot more matrix and astral stuff. The GM played a hacker the first campaign we did, and now we have a rigger and I'm half hacker. So we have a lot of checks and balances in the matrix, but none of us really know the rules for magic, just the one player who is using it.

The first run we did with him in it the Spirit took about half the time and killed about half the people. Sure, binding it almost makes him passout. Rebinding it seems to suck to. But he has these spirits bound and rampaging through the run(given one command of kill everyone in X area, so he still had like 2), killing entire squads. This guy doesn't know anything about breaking(optimizing) this system either, he's playing a fairly "whatever" shaman and rolling between 8-14 dice. The run had a ward in each building and 2 on-sight mages. Each mage was able to take one shot at the fire spirit before getting demolished . And while his spirits doing all this crap he's rolling for other spells and junk, shouldn't he have to sustain it or something?

Now we know the GM isn't THAT read on either the Matrix or Magic. What are some extended astral security measures? Should the mages be banishing quicker? I haven't even cracked street magic, so I'm most likely way underread.

EDIT: SORRY! It's 4th Edition Magic.