I dueled Gragole like 10 times just before the previous dueling tournament cos he needed some practise (mostly for his encounter against Roudy since Grag said they were around 50% ratio in wins/losses). I lost all duels except for two if my memory serves and it was mostly me playing Deception against Grag in pre 2.0 hybrid darkness/madness build. I have no delusions whatsoever that Gragole was/is better than myself. In the end I was really happy to oblige Gragole even though it only proved my inferiority against him (pretty sure it would have been the same against Roudy).
My point is, I rather try and improve my gameplay instead of finding excuses why I lost. Gragole was better, period.