Jonric: With respect to the mechanics, how do these duels actually function? And how much strategy is involved versus simply using your most powerful spells all the time?

Oleg Belaychook: I mentioned last time that you have an inventory of both active and reserve spells. During combat, you will have access to your active spells - 16 of them - which will be presented to you, several at a time, in random order. As you use them, more will appear, again giving you new options for using different tactics. Each spell or creature, except for the most primitive ones, also has a limited number of uses, which is based on your level and experience. As spells in your active deck are used up, they get replaced with so called "primitives", which are three of the lowest level spells for a particular race.

The beauty of the system is that many of the creatures and spells can be combined for maximum effect, and finding those winning combinations is part of the fun of the duels. A very simple example of this is having one creature that is not powerful enough to kill one of your opponent's creatures, so you can cast a spell that lowers the defensive points of your opponent's creature, and then attack it with yours.