[Dragar]

do elixirs of life and the like restore you after a lost magic duel?

whether or not decoys work for mind duels, if you are going to be the defender, bring the s1 decoys with you and script mind duel yourself, hopefully taking out threats to your pretender

while taking S on a SC pretender is risky, there are of course benefits as it is such a powerful buffing school and critical to get rings of wizardy/sorcery and some of the great high end spells. Think the risk/reward through carefully