Magic Duel Target Selection

[Chazar]

If there are several Astral Mages on both sides in all different varieties, who is magic duelling who? Do HP, Strength or Astral Strength matter or is it totally random? Is it thus possible to protect an important Astral mage from Magic Duel by bringing cheap Astral mage-decoys? Does it help to not know the spell?

[Zen]

I think it starts off with highest first. Also Mind Duel is AOE1. So if you have astral mages (Like say Communion Slave fodder) make sure they are not bunched together or it's easy pick'ns.

[Chazar]

AOE1: I never understood that! Does this mean that a high-astral mage may protect a low-astral bystander?* Does a low-astral mage might mean doom to a high-astral bystander or to a non-caster standing too close to an astral beacon?

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* (Ok, if it is highest first, then the higher astral mages protect the lower astral mages anyway anywhere on the battlefield...)

[Endoperez]

I think the AoE-1 is a work-around. IIRC, earlier Magic Duel would kill all the Communion Slaves of a master (if the master died), just as all personal buffs cast by the master affect his slaves.

[Chazar]

Somwhere in another thread, there is an interesting post by Jurri:

The disease cloud won't affect the units if they have their mirror images intact, right? At least other AoE effects won't, to my knowledge.

Now does this mean that MirrorImage might protect against the dreaded MagicDuel? Or does this AoE-Protection-Feature not apply to MagicDuel somehow? Is this AoE-Feature still around anyhow, I've read about it before, but never tested for it...?

[Turin]

It doesn´t protect vs magic duel.

[Jurri]

Magic duel is special! I think either life drain or drain life also had at least at some point some element that you couldn't protect against with mirror image. Could have been the fatigue part or something.

Note that mirror image protects against precision 100 spells, too, like soul slay.

[NTJedi]

Jurri said:
Magic duel is special! I think either life drain or drain life also had at least at some point some element that you couldn't protect against with mirror image. Could have been the fatigue part or something.

Note that mirror image protects against precision 100 spells, too, like soul slay.

I believe it was something about how mirror images still gave fatigue to the one with the mirror image...... I'm not sure about this one.

[Chazar]

Another question related to magic duel: What other protection is there? Will an "Elixir of Life"-item revive the mage after a failed magic duel or is magic duel again 'special'? What about the "Ritual of Returning"?