Magic Duel is a spell of great concern for nations who interact with the Astral path. An Evocation of the third Research level usable by any Astral mage, it turns the Astral Plane into the Wild West, where only the quickest draw or the fellow with the most friends survives.

Starting a Magic Duel requires 1. A random¹ Astral mage is selected, a six-sided die is rolled by both parties, and at most one person walks away. It's over in a moment: whoever has the lowest roll is instakilled, and a tie results in both parties being blown the heck out. Both contestants must have minds, by the way; the Mindless have nothing to project out into the Astral Plane, and thus they cannot duel.

The details of what actually happens in the Magic Duel are never explored in the lore, but it is entirely a game of skill. Each contestant adds their base Astral skill level to their roll. Path boosts and other boosters of magical strength do not have any effect. Spending 2 to cast at a higher level doesn't impact the outcome either, though the Fatigue reduction may help out if you survive. Muteness also doesn't have an impact. That leaves Feeblemindedness (which prevents magic use), Empowerment (which is expensive), and skill modifications owing to being in a difficult form for spellcasting. The latter is an interesting option for avoiding Magic Duels, actually, which will be covered below.

The easiest way to survive a Magic Duel is to not play at all. For example, certain Pretender God forms (most of them draconic) have a negative path boost in their bigger forms, so they can have Astral levels when they need to (such as for Bless points) and bury them for battle.

Say you still want to use battlefield Astral, however. Say you really want an Astral god, stopping time or whatever. If you wish to guarantee safety, you should simply take enough Astral levels to out-tier the cheap duelists, making it so that your foes will need to hire more-expensive mages to rush you down. Unlike the typical DRN Dominions uses, the six-sided die in Magic Duel does not expand upon the roll of a 6, so 7 Astral Mages will always beat 1 Astral Mages.

If you just want a better chance of getting something out past the potential pre-scripted spam, you may consider casting Mind Blank (11) or Mirror Mind (21). Not many nations have access to it, but it casts faster than Magic Duel in a battle, and it gives up to 75% protection from Magic Duels; a professional Duelist may still break through, since it puts the starting of the Duel up to a Magic Resistance check, but those are generally rare due to the likelihood of losing the investment. Either way, your foe will have to sink more cash (or gems) into effectively shutting you out of playing; either through getting better Duelists, or through massing four times as many semi-suicidal low-level ones.

¹There is a possibility that one can game the RNG of target-selection. In Dominions 5, some noted that those closest to the top-left square of the battlefield were most likely to be targeted.