Oh, so you haven't finished yet! And it sounds like your previous efforts haven't done well, even in Certamen.
Winning a contest is a big deal, you stand a good chance of knocking one of the main liege covenants out of the top five with a contest win. And Certamen has the highest point total. I've run a Normandy Tribunal, and have played in one. In the one I played in our covenant was full of mostly new members and we were able to place 7th by sheer luck...
Are those years past gauntlet or actual ages? I assume that's years past gauntlet as it's the best age comparison.
OK. I'll try to throw something together really quickly. I don't want to spend too much time, though.
Sorry, those are actual ages; I don't know the Hermetic ages of the competitors. To be honest, I can't actually remember when Venzi was Gauntleted... either when he was 20 or 25.
I doubt it will take you or ezzelino too long.
OK, try this one on for size. I'm trying to make sure he has a lot of room for other stuff, too. I want to make him good at Certamen but not focused on it, able to train an apprentice and do other interesting things. So I've left a bunch of points of Virtues (7 left) & Flaws (1 left) open. I'm also leaving 10 years unaccounted for to allow for spells, other initiations, etc. (And, looking at the other magus, he probably advanced more normally than the prescriptively slow pace in ArM5's character creation of older magi, but I'm using that here.) I think we can agree that, while I've tweaked things to make him really good at Certamen, he's really not built specifically against the other magus here and he is capable of doing a great many other interesting things outside of Certamen. Clearly if either Intellego or Mentem is chosen he'll ask for another Technique/Form.
Ursa Minor (The little man who becomes a mighty bear. Bear-Heartbeast Bjornaer of Clan Wilkis)
Age 58 (23 at gauntlet - several experience actually unspent, 25 spent on experience, 10 years of initiations, 10 left unspent for lab or more initiations or other Abilities)
Int +2, Per +2, Str 0, Sta 0, Pre 0, Com 0, Dex 0, Qik +1 (before Dwarf)
Cautious Sorcerer*, Heartbeast [free], Puissant House Bjornaer Lore [1], Puissant Parma Magica [1], Mystery of the Epitome*, Refinement: Enduring Constitution*, Refinement: Imposing Appearance x30*, Refinement: Keen Eyesight*, Refinement: Keen Sense of Smell*, Refinement: Perception +1*, Refinement: Sharp Ears*, Refinement: Stamina +1x2*, Refinement: Tireless*, Self-Confident [1]
Covenant Upbringing [-1], Deficient Intellego [-3], Deficient Mentem [-1], Dispassionate [-1], Dwarf [-3], Greater Malediction (Silver is Poisonous)*
Concentration (Certamen) 2 [15]
Dead Language: Latin (Hermetic) 4 [50]
Finesse (Certamen) 5 [75]
Hearbeast (Inner Heartbeast) 4 [50-5=45]
House Bjornaer Lore (Self-Initiation) 5+2 [75]
Living Language: ? (?) 5 [75-75=0]
Magic Theory (Heartbeast) 3 [30]
Organization Lore: OoH (Certamen) 2 [15]
Parma Magica (Certamen) 4+2 [50]
Penetration (Certamen) 2 [15]
Creo 11 [66]
Intellego 6 [21]
Muto 11 [66]
Perdo 11 [66]
Rego 11 [66]
Animal 11 [66]
Aquam 6 [21]
Auram 6 [21]
Corpus 11 [66]
Herbam 6 [21]
Ignem 6 [21]
Imaginem 6 [21]
Mentem 6 [21]
Terram 6 [21]
Vim 11 [66]
Spells: definitely The Voice of the Bjornaer Magus, but there are a lot of options. I'm just ignoring spells though since spells aren't being used to augment during Certamen.
Certamen Style: Hoplomachus
Start Certamen!
Ursa Minor always enters Certamen in his Inner Heartbeast form. Here are the relevant scores as a bear:
Int +2, Per +6, Str +6, Sta +9, Pre +30, Com -5, Dex +2, Qik +1
Confidence: 2
Fatigue Levels: OK, 0/0, 0/0, -2/-2, -4/-4, Unconscious
Spend a Confidence point to regain a Fatigue Point. (Mystery of the Epitome)
Initiative: lost, or +1 vs. another Hoplomachus
Attack: 30+Art-(up to 6) -> typically 24+Art
Defense: 6+Art-(double the Attack deduction) -> typically 18+Art
Weakening: +5
Soak: +16
How did I do? I'd be happy to run a few Certamen duels between them.
Edit: Oops, I didn't put anything in Concentration. I lowered Magic Theory by 1 to put some there.
Nice. No need to run any duels; the 30 stacked Imposing Appearances pretty much breaks any attempt at defense. And, quite usefully, Imposing Appearance can be purchased infinitely while the various Per-boosting Qualities cannot. That's what I like to see in a splatbook!
Yes, that's why when trying to build something quickly and without spells I turned straight for a Bjornaer with Imposing Appearance stacked. It seemed the easy way to provide consistent bonuses regardless of the Art chosen. It really should have a limit to it, shouldn't it? 
To make him next-level annoying all you'd need to do is add MiMF: Certamen.
callen, do you have an opinion on what I proposed on the previous page re: fighting "in the style" using the same mechanics as a follower but with a flat Arts or totals penalty? I really like the idea of people switching from school to school in a duel, but the "in the style" mechanics are so punitive there's not much motivation to do so.
I like the idea of the Arts Penalty. Perhaps -3 or so (undoing Puissant) would be about right, though maybe only -2 since it hits two different Arts. I currently dislike "fighting in the style of" because so many are just bad that way. Getting the better version at a penalty does seem a much better way to handle it. I also dislike that the vanilla style has no advantage to it whatsoever. I have considered that it might give +1 to each Art, similar to your suggestion.
Hmm, I'm not sure I (or any troupe I've played with) would allow a Bjornaer 30 picks of the "Imposing Appearance" Quality.
I think it runs again the spirit of the rules: the idea is that you can only pick it once, with truly impressive animals being able to pick it twice, and maybe (just maybe) three times for truly epic epitomes of presence. And if you really want to nitpick on the RAW, note that only new Qualities can be purchased as refinements, so once a Heartbeast has Imposing Appearance, the character has to resort to the Increasing Characteristic Scores mechanics to improve Presence further!
He is indeed a very well-balanced duelist. But, as I was saying, the nice thing about certamen is that every duelist has his Achilles' heel... in this case Tempestas, an ex-miscellanea apprentice still one year away from her gauntlet. Her pater, a powerful seeker, apparently found her as he was exploring the Far North. Her mischevious and volatile temper and her talent for destructive magics has caused all sort of trouble to her pater and the Rhine and Novgorod covenants he has visited in the past decade ... but apparently she has him wrapped around her little finger.
Tempestas is built as a starting maga, minus 40 spell levels and 8xp to account for the missing year -- see Apprentices, p.16. She has 836xp in applicable Arts and Abilities, which is a lot for a starting maga (she is designed with a lot of xp-granting Virtues) but still slightly less than two thirds of Venzi's 1264. If we eliminate her xp-granting Virtues, she has four applicable minor Virtues (Puissant Auram, Aquam, Finesse and Penetration), which exactly match Venzi's four (Great Stamina x2, Enduring Constitution, Certamen Focus). And she has two relevant characteristics at +3, and one at +1, like Venzi (before Great Stamina is purchased). She also has a dark side to her, having been conceived by a dark storm demon of the north as part of an evil plan to bring destruction to the Order, but that's not quite relevant to the situation at hand.
Tempestas ex Miscellanea, age 34 (apparent age early twenties)
Int +3 Per 0 Str -3 Sta 0 Dex 0 Qik +1 Pre +3 Com 0
Arts: Aquam 22+3, Au22+3, all others at 0.
Abilities: Artes Liberales 1 (Ceremonial Magic), Athletics 1 (ice and snow), Awareness 1 (the Divine), Charm 2 (seduction), Concentration 1 (spells), Finesse 9+2 (Aquam), Folk Ken 1 (magi), Guile 1 (magi), Intrigue 2 (magi), Magic Theory 3 (Auram), Order of Hermes Lore 2 (mischief), Penetration 6+2 (Auram), Survival (the far north) 1, Speak Own Language 5 (some remote dialect of the north), Speak Latin 3(17) (magi), Parma Magica 2xp
Virtues and Flaws: The Gift (Free), Strong Faerie Blood (Free), Affinity with Auram (Free), Affinity with Aquam, Affinity with Finesse, Gild Trained, Mentored by Demons x2, Puissant Auram, Puissant Aquam, Puissant Finesse, Puissant Penetration, Skilled Parens, Vulnerable Magic (to the Divine - Free), Rebellious (Major), Tragic Life, Delusion: will always lose Creo Certamens, Hedge Wizard, Unruly Air, Witch Marks
Personality Traits: Rebellious +6, Volatile +3, Mischievious +3, Flirty +2
Certamen: Tempestas' personality and magical inclinations make Andabatus her natural Certamen style. She will always try to get challenged to certamen, so she can choose the Form. She first proposes Aquam, and if that is vetoed, Auram. She is convinced she will lose any Creo certamen, so she always vetoes Creo and accepts any other technique. In certamen, she just tries to smash through her opponent's defenses by adding her full Finessex2 bonus to her Attack. I believe that she will defeat Venzi (slightly) more often than not, even if we assume Venzi chooses the optimal strategy against her (I believe it is to go for a Rego Auram duel, in which he fights his first round with "defensive" Bone-Biting - yes, a better strategy than fighting as an Hoplomachus in this case).
I'm not disagreeing it was abusive. 
I would say the intention is that three times is definitely intended in the rules. Others that can only be taken twice are noted that way. I don't think the intention is 30 times, but it wasn't limited and I admit I was being abusive.
Except that "new" very commonly is used to indicated an additional copy of something already possessed, which this would be. Maybe this is an American English versus British English thing? I'm not familiar enough with British English on that one. But in American English it would most certainly not rule out an additional duplicate.
She is pretty well-built to take out Venzi if he challenges her and uses Hoplomachus, but if he uses Bone-Biting, she needs to win initiative (not too hard) and roll equal or better on the die in the first exchange. Anything less than that allows him to roll over her on the counter.
In the traditional Hoplomachus scenario, Tempestas' Attack Total would be d10! + 3 + 25 + 20* = d10! + 48. If Venzi shifts 4 points from Rego to 8 on defense with Auram, his defense is d10! + 0 + 20 + 8 = d10! + 28. Tempestas' Weakening (before Attack Advantage) is 3 + 9 = 12 vs. Venzi's Resistance of 5 + 4 = 9. On any given attack, she's likely to wind up with a 20 point advantage with an additional 3 points of Weakening vs. Resistance advantage. Of course, even Venzi with only +8 to Attack still has d10! + 8 vs. Tempestas' d10! +0 - 18, a 26 point advantage. The Weakening vs. Resistance is also a road to ruin, 3 + 5 = 8 vs. 0 + 0 = 0. He's over KO range even before that comparison is made, so while she has a ~65ish% chance to win on the first attack, if she doesn't, Venzi is almost assured to KO her immediately after even with 3 ranks of Fatigue penalties. Venzi with a non-exploding 1 and Tempestas with a non-botched 10 is still 5 vs. -9 = 14 AA with 8 additional Weakening advantage = KO. With Hoplomachus, Venzi will lose more often than not, in part because he always sacrifices initiative.
In the Bone-Biting scenario, there are more circumstances where Tempestas winds up KOed on the ground in the first round. Assuming Bone-Biting is something declared at the beginning of the round, Venzi uses Auram as his defense and Bone-Bites to absorb 2 ranks of Fatigue. Tempestas has a 28 point AA out of the gate on an average roll. With the additional 3 points of Weakening vs. Resistance, that's barely enough for 7 Fatigue Levels, a KO even with the Bone-Biting absorption. But if what Tempestas rolls on the die is even one point less than what Venzi rolls, it's 6 Fatigue Levels, meaning 4, effective 3 for Venzi, and he immediately retaliates with 12 Rego and a modest -3 penalty from Fatigue. That's if Tempestas gains initiative, which is likely (even if she rolls 5 lower than Venzi). If she doesn't gain initiative, it almost doesn't matter what Venzi does because she'll get KOd on the first attack.
In case anyone's interested, I wrote up some house rules for alternate certamen style bonuses. I was mostly trying to address shortcomings that my troupes and people on this forum have brought up.
She's got an Affinity, which raises the maximum starting score by 2 as well.
That's what the first +2 after the 6 is for.
I think the idea is that one shouldn't cap abilities with an affinity at the same level as everyone else. It has the perverse effect of making someone with an affinity no better than anyone else of the same age could be, which I don't think is reasonable. It's probably in that realm of unwritten house rules. Someone with an affinity in an ability should be able to spend 105 xp in the Art, and then have it multiplied by 1.5 to find the final XP total, and then derive the Ability score. In this case, in keeping with the spirit of limiting the XP expenditure to 105 points then the cap is 7, but some might round that to 8,
It's already taken into account in the virtue's description:
I forgot to declare serf's parma...
The Mentored by Demons Virtue (from RoP:I) allows her to exceed age limits.
Qualitatively that's indeed what happens, even though your numbers are slightly off because you lowered Tempestas' Finesse by 1 point. Tempestas has a very good chance of winning initiative on the first round (winning even if Venzi's die roll is 6 points higher, tying and rerolling if it's 7 points higher), and if she does win initiative she has a better than even chance of KOing Venzi on her first attack (because she KOs him unless his die roll is at least 3 points higher). If you go through the numbers and assume a "standard" environment where Tempestas always rolls 1 botch die and Venzi none (thanks to his familiar's gold cord) this yields a probability slightly above 64.7% that Venzi is KOed before he can react. So, as I said, Tempestas does have a better than even chance of defeating Venzi even in the Bone-Biting scenario.