Version 0.11: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A user has suggested the deletion of this page. Reason: This article is 5 years out of date, provides information on removed spells and from a time when the Crawl player base was substantially different, and hence is a terrible reflection on how spells are currently viewed by players, in the most recent version 0.21.

The most recent list of spell popularity, from the 0.11 tournament, can be found here; it looked at 473 winning characters in all, 346 of which used spells. Not surprisingly, the most popular spells among winners were invariably utility spells of some sort, with the top 3 spells appearing in over half of the total ascensions in the tourney. The top ten spells among winning games were:

These are all spells which are useful to any character. Most are also low-level, meaning even mostly-melee characters may choose to pick them up, and they do not require much skill investment to get a good power or much MP to use.

Other notable results include:

One thing to keep in mind with this list, however, is that it only reflects the endgame utility of spells. Most MR-resistible spells start to massively lose utility by Zot and particularly in places such as Pandemonium or Hell. Thus, most players will have forgotten them by this point. That doesn't mean the spells aren't worth using before those points. Therefore, while this list should be taken as a list of spells that are useful to know for the endgame, it should not be taken as a list of spells to avoid simply because not many people ascend with them. Agony only appears in 11 ascensions and Ensorcelled Hibernation in 17, yet these spells are incredibly useful about until one reaches the Vaults.