Congratulations to Exponential on winning the 2009 World Duels Championship. 1500 US$ richer, and other game goodies to boot, that's a hell of a payoff for playing a flash-based game!

I consider myself a "casual" Duels player, and have been for a pretty decent amount of time. The strategy that goes into building a championship level Duelist is nothing to be sneezed at, currently I'm only ranked 180th in the Top Duelists Ladder. Honestly, I'm just not that good, took me "forever" to get even that far, hah.

If you like a good quick-fix game, no download, no ridiculous signups, no serious committments, then Duels is probably perfect for you. I do admit, if you spend some cash on Duels (entirely optional) you'll probably get farther faster, but the ingame economy holds it's own pretty well.

Yes, if you click the link and sign up, I do get an ingame kickback (tokens for a certain number of signups that anyone can get), but that's hardly why I am blogging about it. It's a good fix, especially on rainy days, and fun. My kid thinks the shadow-fighting mechanic is pretty cool, and he can play it on my antiquated laptop.

From the Challenge Games website: With half a million players worldwide, Duels is an online strategic fantasy RPG where players build powerful characters based on physical attributes, battle experience, special abilities and collectible items, and may upgrade their characters using in-game currency. Unlike many online RPGs which require hours of grinding play to achieve player power and status, Duels is designed to provide compelling in-depth PVP, head-to-head game play in 10 to 30 minute increments, attracting both hardcore and casual gamers for quick-fix gaming.