Help me win a duel!

[RevengeofTim]

Hey there.

I have a duel against one of the four knaves, a group of sidhe who are above the knights, below the ladies. He's a winterborn, spellcaster and social character, while I am an evocator.
It's most likely to the death, a duel of energy, and the adjudicator is utterly neutral. Unfortunately, I'm 10 refresh, he's 13 or so.

My character:

William Wescott
High Concept: Warlock in Remission
Trouble: I hate you, Wescott!
Evocation [-3],  The Sight [-1],Wizard's Constitution [-0], Soulgaze [-0], Lawbreaker-1st  [-1], 
Adjusted Refresh: 3

Been Around a Long Long Year
Magic doesn't solve my problems
Bad Deaths For Good Reasons
The burned hand teaches best
Abandoned by the Abyss

Skills:
Superb Weapons
Great Conviction
Great Discipline
Good Endurance
Good Lore
Fair Alertness
Fair Athletics
Fair Intimidation
Average Rapport
Average Scholarship (Latin)
Average Empathy
Average Deceit

Stunts and Magic:
Evocation Speciality: Water control +1
Elements: Water, Wind, Spirit
No Pain, No gain
Infuriate
3 free rote slots
Water Staff Foci: +2 Offensive Water Control

Stress
Physical: O O O O (+2 mild consequences)
Mental: O O O O
Social: O O

Information I know:

Barry Gelida

High concept "One of the four sidhe Knaves"
Trouble "The moon is just the sun at night"
Moonlight Shadow
Heart of ice
mind of ice
soul of ice
"Hey babe, Need ice with that?"
 
Epic Crafting
Fantastic Discipline, Deceit
Superb Empathy, Lore, Presence
Great Conviction, Rapport
Good Contacts, Alertness
Fair Athletics, Intimidation
Average Weapons, Endurance
 
physical OOO
mental OOOOOO (armour one vs mental stress)
social OOOO (plus one additional mild concequence)
 
Powers
Greater Glamours -4
Unseelie magic -4
Marked by power -1 (the winter court)
Thaumaturgy (specialised in crafting) -3
Inhuman Stoicism [-2]
Description: Your mind is abnormally stout, withstanding far more abuse then the average human.
Musts:  No protection against self-inflicted attacks or stress is provided. You  must attach this power to an appropriate mental Catch (page YS:185).
Skills Affected: Conviction (page YS:124), other mental skills.
Effects:
Hard to Twist. You naturally have Armor:1 against all mental stress.
Hard to Break. You have two additional boxes of mental stress capacity.
 
Physical Immunity (cold)-3
the catch Cold iron +3
soul gaze -1


I've never tried fighting another practitioner one on one, especially not one with seemings and greater glamours. I'm going to try to get a crafter in the party to make me a potion that will let me see through glamours, and I'm wearing chainmail. What sort of spells should I throw, should I defend first, should I pile manouevers on myself pre-duel? Please help me stomp a faerie into the ground. Oh, and if it'll convince you, the duel was solely because I kept infuriating him. Every time he said 'I see' I made it sound like he'd made a pun on 'icy' and made him sound like he was making awful puns. I love being compelled.

[Becq]

I suggest looking over the part of the series in which Dresden fought his duel against the RCV.  I don't recall the details, but a major consideration was the selection of 'weapons'.  It seems to me that you desperately want this fight to be with mundane melee weapons if at all possible (and not with magic or willpower) because that's where your edge lies.  He is weak in weapons, and weak physically in general.

Other than that ... well, any chance you might convince the summer court to (temporarily) sponsor you in the form of borrowed summer magic?

[Becq]

Random aside: a mental version of toughness with a Catch of iron worth +3?  Your opponent is cheating.

I hope your table doesn't allow characters to cast spells "for free" due to mental armor, or to use the extra stress boxes to fuel spells.

[Haru]

should I pile manouevers on myself pre-duel?

I think this is a very important part. But not only on yourself, declarations and assessments can be crucial here. If you can figure out any weaknesses your opponent has before the duel, the better you can exploit them.

Oh, and you might want to try keeping up on those insults. If you infuriate him in the pre duel banter and he has to take mental consequences there, he won't be able to use those consequence slots in the duel itself.

You might want to get some sort of ointment like Harry did in Summer Knight, so you can see through his glamour. That can easily be done by a potion, and depending on your GM, that can be a maneuver invoked for effect, or a block against deception. That alone would rob him of 4 points of refresh to use against you.

If the duel is not yet set as an energy duel, maybe you can negotiate out of that and get him to fight you with weapons. You'll definitely have a better chance there.
If not, I think heat would be the best way to attack, since he seems to be solely build around the "ice" concept. You could do this with air (friction) water (entropy) or spirit (light/laser), if any of that fits your character. Though Becq is right, a sponsor from summer would work wonders here.
Another idea: Put down an aspect like "entropy adjustment" and tag it for effect, so no more spells will be possible that involve shifting heat around. This should render most if not all of his spells useless, and you can take him down with air and pure force attacks. That is if your GM allows the use of that aspect like this. Would be easier with a fire aspect, but since you don't use fire, we need to get creative.

Random aside: a mental version of toughness with a Catch of iron worth +3?  Your opponent is cheating.

I'd read it so that it would be for the Physical immunity. Though it is written rather strangely.

[UmbraLux]

If you have time, investigate his weaknesses. Get your friends to help if possible.  But don't forget to simply do one or more Assessments as you start...not only will they tell you something about the guy, you'll also get free tags.  Use Declarations - a lot.  Every action if you're creative enough (or simply plan ahead). 

Target weakness, use Sight or a potion to negate Glamours, and if you have Earth magic, infuse your spells with 'cold iron' (good declaration fodder). 

[Becq]

I'd read it so that it would be for the Physical immunity. Though it is written rather strangely.

Well, the Inhuman Stoicism mentions that a Catch must be taken (ie, it was cut-n-pasted from Inhuman Toughness), and there's only one Catch listed.

But say you're right, then I'll still point out that a -3 refresh power can't benefit from +3 worth of Catch.

[ways and means]

If the character has any stronger allies he could invoke the right of the challenged (if he didn't start the duel) to call on the aid of a champion instead. 

[RevengeofTim]

I suggest looking over the part of the series in which Dresden fought his duel against the RCV.  I don't recall the details, but a major consideration was the selection of 'weapons'.  It seems to me that you desperately want this fight to be with mundane melee weapons if at all possible (and not with magic or willpower) because that's where your edge lies.  He is weak in weapons, and weak physically in general.

Other than that ... well, any chance you might convince the summer court to (temporarily) sponsor you in the form of borrowed summer magic?

The former is already chosen, we're fighting with energy first, weapons if he refuses. The latter I'm going to try and do. Oh and if we get to weapons, everything goes to hell. He has three items of power, currently bound to his changeling buddies. If we go weapons, he gets them back. And becomes around 18-20 refresh.

Random aside: a mental version of toughness with a Catch of iron worth +3?  Your opponent is cheating.

I hope your table doesn't allow characters to cast spells "for free" due to mental armor, or to use the extra stress boxes to fuel spells.

The ability clearly states you can't use it for self inflicted stress, thankfully.

Tl;dr enemy has three IoP he can call upon if we go weapons, potion to negate glamours is cool, entropy magic affecting heat is also cool, trying to borrow summer fire is also cool. Pile on assessments, declarations and manoeuvres. Anything else I should keep in mind?

[Becq]

It occurs to me that since you're stuck with energy (which you are weaker than he at), you might make use of your water specialty to play havoc with his magic, shorting it out.

[Sanctaphrax]

He has Fair Athletics, 3 physical stress boxes, and no Toughness worth mentioning.

Just kill him. One spell ought to do it, if you're willing to take some stress. Especially if you get a taggable Aspect from some pre-fight meditation.

The hard parts will probably be A) seeing through Glamours and B) winning initiative.

For the former, you have The Sight. Which will hurt, but oh well.

For the latter, you can invoke an Aspect for +2 initiative. I think.

(Honestly, I'm not totally sure that that's legal. But I'd allow it.)

PS: No Pain No Gain now only gives 1 consequence. This was changed late in the game's development, as I understand it, and some people were given the old version.

[Lamech]

Yeah, I think the way to go about this is
1) Try to get a few taggable aspects before the fight. Assessments or declarations are good. Also are their other PC's that can help? They might be able to throw some in. If you have a thaumaturgist they can provide lost of aspects on you via thaumaturgy. 3 or 4 shifts of complexity per aspect? If everyone even just contributes minor consequences that is probably 3 or 4 aspects.   
2) Can you get any compels before the fight? Extra FP is always good.
2) WIN INITIATIVE! This guy will hit hard you might be able to take be able to survive a hit from him, but it will start giving consequences which he can tag and go down hill from their. If you can't win initiative do your best to avoid consequences. 
3) Shoot a 6 shift attack in his face. At 7 acc/6 weapon he takes an average of 11 stress. Unless you know he can't take extreme consequences 12 shifts is a good amount of damage to boost the damage to with tags. It forces him to take two consequences, giving you two tags. If he can't take extreme consequences tag aspects until you get 16 shifts of damage.
4) You should have FP, consequences and pre-set up aspects to dodge his next attack.
5) Finish him, he should only have 12 shifts worth of consequences left so a 16 shift of damage attack will kill him.

[Becq]

Another tactic might be to lose initiative.  Take some consequences that you can use to generate emotions, then invoke them to boost your return shot.  Not that you would have to invoke, not tag (he'll own the tags).  Interestingly enough, aspects can only be used once each on a given roll, so if you invoke them to boost your roll, your foe can't tag them to cancel out (at least, not on that roll).

I think this is legit; Harry does it routinely.

[Sanctaphrax]

Invoking consequences is totally kosher, but I'd call shenanigans on anyone who tried to block tags by doing so.

I'm pretty sure that attack rolls and defence rolls count separately for the once/roll invocation limit.

Anyway, I looked at the enemy stats again and noticed Thaumaturgy with a Crafting specialization. He'll probably have an enchanted item defence.

Which will make your job much harder. See if you can steal it or have it declared illegal before the fight starts.

[toturi]

Invoking consequences is totally kosher, but I'd call shenanigans on anyone who tried to block tags by doing so.

Blocking tags by invoking consequences is totally kosher too. It's totally legit. It was one of the things that immediately apparent to me when I read that section of the rules.

[Sanctaphrax]

I think you're wrong. Partly because it creates the headache of who gets to invoke first, partly because the only actual restriction on invoking the same aspect repeatedly that I can find says:

...you can't use the same aspect more than once on the same roll or action...

I don't see why that should have any effect on other people's actions.