[Alneyan]

This post (and the one that will follow, once I am done with some testing) has been made with the latest patch (2.16).

At least two players have reported an odd behaviour with the Mind Duel spell, where weak astral mages won against truly powerful ones: a six-level difference resulted in the lesser mage winning and living to tell the tale, while both mages should have been dead; an astral 3 mage also defeated an astral 10 mage and survived. All my tests have been done with the better mage casting the Mind Duel spell, and I was on the defensive both times.

- Light of the Northern Star (and the banner) gives +1 to *all* astral mages on the battlefield, enemy mages included. This extra level can be used to cast spells: the Astral-1 R'lyeh Starspawns became Astral-2 Starspawns thanks to my own Banner of the Northern Star, and started casting Mind Burn (a level 2 spell).

- An Astral 7 mage came into the battlefield, equipped with the Banner of the Northern Star; so he became a level 8 mage, but the Starspawns were actually level 2 mages. Regardless, my mage cast 200 Magic Duels without being killed in the process, so the Starspawns didn't manage to use their extra Astral level in the Magic Duels.

- An Astral 7 mage went in, casting Power of the Spheres this time; all was fine, as expected.

- An Astral 6 mage attacked the Starspawns, this time with Power of the Sphere and the Banner. He was a level 8 mage too, and the Starspawns were shown as being level 2 mages, but this mage got killed fairly quickly (the 19th Starspawn killed my mage). The target of the Magic Duel appears to have been killed too.

So, it looks like there is something very odd in the behaviour of those two spells, and perhaps in other things as well (Communions?). Two mages, with exactly the same levels, had very different results against the same opponents; the only difference was in the spells used to reach that level. I will be doing further testing on the matter, to try *what* exactly creates that sort of situation.