With the reappearance of NR decks having access to duelists (thanks, Temple of Melitele), I thought I'd finally work out the strategy to maximize duel points.
We all have some clear intuitions: if my duelist unit has more points than the target unit, then the total play value is the sum of the two units initial points. For example, playing a Prince Anseis boosted to 10 against an 8 points target is an 18 points play. The target is killed on the spot, no back and forth. Easy.
Similarly, if my duelist unit is greatly overpowered by the target, then the total play value is just the value of my unit. If Anseis is boosted to 10 and the target is 25 points, the duel ends with Anseis dead and the target at 15, for a total play value of 10 (i.e., Anseis initial value).
What I was interested in was to figure out the intermediate cases, when the points of attacker and target are similar, and the units trade blows. Is there a general rule to choose the best target?
Here some examples:
Each line correspond to a different initial value of my duelist unit (from 6 to 10 in this chart). The y-axis is the total value of the play. These numbers do not take into account neither armor nor shield, of course.
As expected, the total value increases along with the target points, up until the target points match my duelist unit points (for example, when an 8 point Anseis duels an 8 point target, which results in a 16 points play). On the other hand, if the target has a lot of points (right side of each curve), the total play value drops back to be just the initial value of my unit.
What I found interesting is that there is a plateau in total play value, when the target is a bit higher than my duelist unit. For example, if Anseis is at 10 (grey curve), it is better to attack a 15 points target than a 9 points target (assuming the choice is available on board). However, with Anseis at 10, it is better to attack a 9 points target than a 16 points target. This realization was new to me, as I usually look for targets with lower points than my duelist unit instead. Glad I learned something.
Even better, the general rule is that the maximum total play value is obtained when the target points are between "my unit points" and "my unit points + 50% (rounded down)". So the optimal range of a 12 points Anseis is [12, 12+12/2] = [12,18] and for a 13 points Anseis is [13, 13+13/2] = [13, 19].
Here we go, a simple rule to maximize the duel points.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/zs5tab/optimal_duel_target/
