7 November 2026 · 4 minute read

We Counted: Town of Duels Has More Possible Games Than Chess

Someone asked us a fair question: does Town of Duels have more possible games than chess? So we counted.

The chess number

In 1950 the mathematician Claude Shannon made a famous rough estimate of how many different games of chess could be played. He took about 30 choices per move and about 80 moves in a game, which gives a number close to 10 to the power of 120. That is a 1 followed by 120 zeros. It is far more than the number of atoms in the known universe, and it is why nobody will ever finish working chess out by hand.

How we counted ours

We used the same idea. We played 600 simulated duels with the real rules and real cards, using cheap decks, heavy decks and mixed decks, and rivals who rush, save or do a bit of both. At every single decision we counted how many legal choices there were. Then we multiplied those numbers together for each duel, the way Shannon did.

The result

A typical duel comes out at about 10 to the power of 260. The shortest duel we saw was 10 to the power of 92, and the longest was 10 to the power of 357. The reason is simple. In chess you move one piece and your turn ends. Here you can move every character you have, in any order, then play cards as well, so one turn holds many decisions.

And that is before the cards

That count starts after the decks are chosen. Choosing just 14 characters and 6 spells gives about 10 to the power of 29 possible decks, and each deck can be shuffled about 10 to the power of 18 ways. Chess always starts from the same position. Every duel here starts differently.

What this does not mean

This is a rough estimate, just like the chess number, and more possible games does not make a game better. Chess is a masterpiece and has earned its place. What the number does mean is that you will never play the same duel twice, and that there is always something new to find.

Also, chess does not have a crowd.