Best Common Spells

[Settemio]

What do you all think the best three common spells in each realm are? Please also say a few words about why they are the best; do they continue to be relevant all the way into the late game, or do they just allow explosive early game? And based on these commons, which realm is the strongest?

When I pick starting commons, I usually just go with the ones that have the highest research cost so that I won't need to invest that power into them, but I think that might be a mistake, especially in Death realm.

[Nelphine]

Death: wraithform, ghouls, skeletons. (Third place is hard though, and black sleep, darkness, mana leak are all good contenders.)

Chaos: flame blade, flame blade, flame blade. Warp creature is pretty good too. I'm pretty sure there are other common chaos spells but I suck with chaos so I pretend there aren't!

Nature: in no particular order: sprites, water walking, earth lore, nature's eye, web, resist elements.

Sorcery: focus magic, focus magic, focus magic, focus magic, focus magic. Maybe phantom warriors? Oh resist magic is great too.

Life: in no particular order: heroism, endurance, heavenly light, just cause, holy armor, holy weapon, guardian spirit, bless, healing,

For long term useability life spells never get replaced. They just stack with later rarity spells to get better and better.

Nature has very strong early game but the later spells do a lot of replacing. Death and sorcery probably have the strongest common spells, despite what was said about life and nature. Chaos is the weakest.

[Seravy]

Death : Wraith Form, Summon Zombies, Black Sleep
Non-corporeal ships for transport, most effective combat spell in cost/damage dealt that also makes undead, save or die at common and -2, useful even in the endgame.
Sorcery : Resist Magic, Focus Magic, Phantom Warriors
Units near immune to resistance spells, heroes gain additional 15 Caster, good combo potential on some units, Cheap illusion damage
Nature : Web, Sprites, War Bears
OP, flying ranged creature in the early game, strongest common land summon
Chaos : Fire Bolt, Fire Elemental, Shatter
Best common direct damage, Weapon Immunity conquers neutrals with ease, Almost as good as black sleep.
Life : can't pick only 3, most life commons are above average. Endurance, Healing, Heavenly Light, Heroism, Just Cause, Holy Armor, Bless are important, Star Fires, Guardian Spirit, Holy Weapon I usually can live without.

[Nelphine]

Too many other ways to conquer neutrals, and doesn't help against lairs, so I disagree with fire elemental. War bears might be best common summon, but you can get city troops that beat them too quickly (turn 1) and they don't offer anything unique.

Otherwise I agree with seravy.

[asche]

N: I mostly play a civ game - expand, build, develop.

Death : Wraith Form, Black Sleep, Cloak of Fear
Sorcery : Resist Magic, Counter Magic, Focus Magic. Floating Island purely for convenience. Rest are quite nice, too.
Nature : Web, Web, Web! Resist Elements. Water walking too expensive to help much in early expansion IMHO.
Chaos: No great commons (Flame blade is uncommon!); Eldritch Weapon if you don't have Alchemist; nice summons.
Life : Heroism, Just Cause, Endurance, Heavenly Light. Rest are nice but as per Seravy.

[Lucean]

This is the Caster of Magic subforum. Seravy changed quite some spells. Flame Blade being now common is one of them. But since you put Wraith Form in the list you obviously already play CoM.

[Seravy]

He might be playing an outdated version.
Eldritch Weapon doesn't even exist anymore.

[zitro1987]

Nature:
Sprites (1st) - A gamble, but great against lairs and decent against neutrals. They can help you gain an uncommon spell, a good artifact, or a reward of 1000+ gold/mana a couple of times. Otherwise, sprites are quite poor against wizards
War Bears (2nd) - Very sturdy. Great city defenders behind walls. Very low cost for the stats
Web (3rd) - war bears and sprites can really need this spell, especially for running-away units

Chaos:
Shatter (1st) - extremely cheap to mass-cast early on, usually works
Flame Blade (2nd) - a very easy-to-use unit enchantment with fairly low cost for what it does. Pairs extremely well with barbarians, horsebowmen, alchemy, etc
Fire Bolt (3rd) - there's better, but this spell can help defeat a tough single-figure unit if cast a few times.

Life:
Heroism (1st) - extremely useful for hero strategies. combat-casting can have more effect than 'healing spell'. Also quite useful for most multi-figure units, especially slingers and gnoll halberdiers.
Endurance (2nd) - extremely useful for heroes, advanced summons, and strong 2-3 movement units with high armor like turtles, klackon halberdiers, many summons, etc.
Healing? (3rd) - Hard to choose a 3rd among many fine choices, but healing a buffed multi-figure unit or hero helps it perform better

Sorcery:
Focus Magic (1st) - because it's versatile and has the uber-powerful cockactrice combo (w/ resist magic)
Resist Magic (close 2nd) - because it helps you be immune to curses or helps your low-resist units like berserkers handle curses pretty well.
Floating Island (3rd) - It is more convenient than water walking and be hard to stop in combat if filled with ranged units. Amazing overland tactical spell.

Death: (this is hard)
Cloak of Fear (1st) - massively underrated. Early in game, sometimes this spell makes units much harder to damage than endurance/holy armor combined. With black prayer and night-stalker/wraiths, lower-resistance units are defenseless.
Ghouls (2nd) - Death has a pretty good summon, arguably better with focus magic, but not essential.
Summon Zombies? Black Sleep? (3rd)

[asche]

This is the Caster of Magic subforum. Seravy changed quite some spells. Flame Blade being now common is one of them. But since you put Wraith Form in the list you obviously already play CoM.

Yep, playing CoM for sure.  Seravy's readme (http://seravy.x10.mx/CasterofMagic/CASTEROFMAGIC.HTML) still lists Flame Blade as uncommon though - reckon that has changed for the experimental versions?