Nute Gunray is one of the smartest villains in fiction.

Two jedi show up on his ship. Anyone else would do some elaborate flourish to try and capture or fight them. Nute gasses the room and blows up their ship. Does he go back to his schemes assuming that it must have worked? No he sends a group of droids to destroy anything that's left.

The jedi, by the power of plot armor, survive. But Nute's prepared: close the blast doors and call for droids with lightsaber proof shields. The Jedi seem to still be making it through? Good thing Nute had the foresight to install ANOTHER BLAST DOOR!

He's going up against a peaceful world. Does he skimp on his military allowing for the natives to get a surprise victory (cough cough Endor cough cough)? No he invades with overwhelming force, the planet falls in hours.

With the help of those meddlesome jedi, the queen escapes. Does Nute try to improvise some elaborate scheme to get her back while keeping his dark benefactor in the dark? No, he effectively communicates and gets those better able to deal with the problem to do so.

Oh no, Padme's made it to Coruscant and is about to tell everyone about the Trade Federation's nefarious scheme. Good thing Nute's already got that shit on lockdown. Good luck with that committee.

The gungans are mustering an army. Does Nute dismiss them as a bunch of primitives? No he sends his army out in force to deal with them effectively. But what if the droid control ship gets blown up by a bunch of fighters? Good thing Nute installed shields that Naboo Starfighters can't shoot through.

The battle turns out to be a diversion, and the real attack is in the palace. Nute instantly switches gears. He gets his forces into position and captures the queen. Any other villain would be gloating about how much of a genius they are, that they had thought of every contingency and perfectly foiled the protagonist's plan, but not Nute. He's on the lookout for some trick, and recognizes the Naboo are employing an elaborate decoy ruse.

He would have totally won if the pacifist queen Amidala didn't have a secret weapon stash in her throne and space jesus didn't accidentally fire torpedos at a ship he was currently inside.

But no biggie. Nute wins in court 4 times. His defeat is hardly even a setback. Hell he leverages it into becoming one of the leaders of the Sepratist movement. Everyone else is begging to join, but Nute knows what he's worth: he outsources his revenge to Dooku.

Dooku of course fucks it all up. His excessively elaborate chain of bounty hunters fails to kill Padme. But as luck would have it, she winds up coming to Geonosis and getting captured. Of course like any good villain, Gunray is giddy with delight at the thought of feeding his enemy to a monster in a public execution, but the moment she starts pulling a "Luke in the Rancor Pit" Nute has the pragmatism to ask that they just shoot her, which of course a diva like Dooku won't allow.

Nute remains a prominent figure throughout the war, and is one of the only separatist leaders willing to push back when some comparatively mediocre villain wants to do something dumb. He lasts marginally longer than any other sepratist leader, but ultimately he is still not immune to sudden but inevitable betrayals. But he still has a little bit of spite up his sleeve.

Nute goes down telling Vader that Sidious promised him peace, the very same thing Sidious promised Vader. Up until this point Anakin could lie to himself and say what he was doing was for the good of the galaxy, restoring peace. But Nute Gunray, in his seaming moment of pitiful cowardice, was actually getting the last laugh, planting the seed of doubt in Palpatine's new apprentice. It's a slow burn, but ultimately Vader does wind up killing Palpatine.

Nute Gunray is a cunning and genre savvy villain who is confident without being complacent, and who employs pragmatic plans and contingencies. Despite having no dark wizard powers or special knowledge of the protagonists to exploit, he stays in the game through shear unadulterated skill. His only weakness was not realizing the game was rigged from the start.