This list is designed for the Lotus environment.  I know many of these spells are Diamond legal, but a few months after this article gets posted, Lotus will be in.  My comments are in italics following each spell.  These are my opinions.  I have played since Imperial and have a lot of experience, but that does NOT mean that I am right.  Please use your own playstyle, experience, and local environment to determine it’s effectiveness for you.

            Ratings will include three aspects.

            Power (usefulness in the decktype it was designed for)

            Versatility (variety of different Phoenix decktypes it can be useful in)

            Cost (first rating is in KAx, second is in CoRx)

Rated 1-5 rings (obviously 5 rings are the best).

Abbreviations used:

KAx: The Lotus stronghold that reduces spell cost.

CoRx: The Lotus stronghold that reduces the cost of Dragons.

Awaken the Eighth

6

Ritual Open: Destroy this Shugenja and bow another Shugenja you control: Create a 7F/4C 3 personal Honor Dragon Shugenja Cavalry Creature Personality card. If you are a Phoenix Clan player and this card is now in your discard pile, you may attach it to a Shugenja you control, bowed, ignoring costs.  

One of my favorite new spells.  Blow up some boxable chump, bow a Kazushi follower and BAM! A 7/4 dragon shugenja cav is yours.  Then reattach the spell for free and repeat. 

Fun Trick: I can often get 3 Dragons from 1 spell during the game.  Spell cost (5 KA), 3 Agasha Serumas (3x3=9).  That’s 14 gold for 3 dragons, that’s about 5 gold per Dragon.  Cheap enough for you?  And best of all, it’s open.

            Power: 5

            Versatility: 4

            Cost: 4/3

Bishamon's Fury
10

You may bring this card into play from your hand as a Battle action. If you do, you may gain an additional Battle action to use the following ability. Ritual Battle: Bow and destroy a number of Shugenja Personalities you control, including this one, equal to the number of targets: Target any number of opposing units. Destroy them.  

This spell can mean the difference between a win and a loss for the game.  If your opponent throws his entire army (or a vast majority) at one province, you can take it out no matter what they have attached or how much force they have.  You make a big sacrifice, but our motto is “My Life for the Phoenix”.

Fun Trick: attach this spell to Kushojin for fear 10 or the Soul of Isawa Osugi for a free 10 gold spell.

            Power: 5

            Versatility: 3

            Cost: 3/1

Cloak of Night

4

Limited: Bow this Shugenja and destroy this card: Target a Personality you control. Put a

Spell, Follower, or Item in your hand under him, face-down and out of play. Permanently gain the ability “Open: Once per game: Turn that card face-up. If it is a legal attachment, attach it to that Personality, ignoring costs; otherwise, discard it.”

The sneaky spell.  It can be used to hide your tactics from your opponent, but that will leave your opponent one action to react to you after you reveal it.  Sometimes, that’s too much.  A better use for it is to attach really expensive attachments on your personalities for only 2 gold.  Have an 8 gold item?  Need to attach Bishamon’s fury?

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 2

            Cost: 4/3

Companion Spirit

4

Limited: Bow this Shugenja, who must be Human, and destroy this card: Create an unaligned Cavalry Samurai Personality. His printed Force, Chi, Gold cost, and Personal Honor equal the caster's printed stats.

This is the second spell in our quadfecta of personality creation.  Much like Awaken, this spell makes its personality permanent.  To really make use of this card, you need a pretty powerful shugenja (and not Elemental Dragons!).  Isawa Sezaru, Asako Yogo, Isawa, or someone like that.  It works great on Sezaru since he doesn’t have to bow for the spell.  Who wouldn’t want a 4/5 cav samurai for 2 gold?  With all the new abilities that key off of Samurai and Shugenja synergy, we could use all the non-dynasty samurai we can get.

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 2

            Cost: 4/2

Eclipse

3

Limited: Bow this Shugenja: Target a card. Until this Shugenja is unbowed or leaves play, actions on the target may not be used. This Shugenja may remain bowed.

This spell is pretty simple, but can be devastatingly effective.  Most people admit that Death of Ryoshun (the event) is strong and can often be a game winner in a tournament setting.  Well, this spell does the same thing for as long as you want.  Take one of your boxable (expendable) shugenja, target a serious threat (say Bayushi Sunetra) and remove ALL of her abilities.  Until you DECIDE to straighten your shugenja or he gets killed, your spell is in effect.  Don’t forget that the only cards that are not cards are strongholds.  That means you can target Rings, Winds, In-play events, Items, Followers, etc.  All for only 3 gold, 1 for us KAx boys.

Fun Trick: Target a face down ninjitsu personality with the spell.  They can react and turn them face up (as per the rulebook), but cannot use the reaction on the other side!

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 4

            Cost: 4/3

Essence of Air

5

Air Elemental Limited: Bow this Shugenja, who may remain bowed: Turn all cards in your Provinces face-up. Your Provinces fill face-up, and cards filling them this way may not have their costs reduced. These effects last until this Shugenja is not bowed or in play, or a number of your Provinces equal to this Shugenja’s Chi fill in one turn.

A late game spell.  You need to have a shugenja to bow (or keep bowed) and enough gold to support you enlarged market of cards or this spell is a waste.  It also has the penalty of not allowing you to buy the second people for cheap.  All for 5 gold?  I’ll pass.

            Power: 2

            Versatility: 4

            Cost: 2/2

Essence of Gaki-do

8

Ritual Battle: Target and bow any number of Shugenja you control, including this one: Create a number of 2F/2C Unaligned Spirit Personalities at the current battlefield equal to the number of participating Shugenja. Remove these Personalities from the game after the battle ends.

The third spell in the personality creation set.  While this spell’s personalities are not permanent, they do have the effect of being “super-cavalry”.  They assign during battle and can therefore avoid any opponent’s defense early on.  This spell is the cornerstone to an entire decktype by itself.  Get the spell, cats away with as many Kazushi’s and followers as you can and sack provinces.  Throw tokens against an opponent’s army.  You don’t care, they will die soon anyway.  Use overwhelm if you can.  Even if you only beat your opponent by 1 force, all of his units die and you gain a lot of honor.

            Power: 5

            Versatility: 3

            Cost: 4/2

The Fire from Within

5

Fire Elemental Battle: Bow this Shugenja: Produce two consecutive Ranged Attacks with

strengths equal to the caster's Chi.

Fire Elemental Battle: Bow this Shugenja: Produce a Ranged Attack with strength equal to twice the caster's Chi.

Always a good solid spell.  Not much to say here, it’s pretty straight forward.  Ranged attack death.

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 5

            Cost: 4/3

Fires of Battle

1

Elemental Fire Ritual Battle: Bow any number of Shugenja you control, including this Shugenja: Once per turn, target a number of opposed Personalities in the current battle up to twice the number of participating Shugenja. Give each target +2F or -3F. For each that is a Dragon Creature, you may also straighten it.  

Free spell! (out of KAx).  You can’t beat that, especially with all of the attachment checking going on in Lotus.  This is a well designed spell.  It works wonderfully in either KAx or CoRx.  Out of CoR, who doesn’t want to cripple the opponet’s army and boost yours while straightening all your dragons?  This will really help Dragons late game in the big, opposed final battle (if there is one).

Fun Trick: Combine this with Legacy of Dragons and that should be your battle, no questioned asked. 

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 4

            Cost: 5/4

Fist of Osano-Wo

5

Limited: Bow this Shugenja and destroy this card: Target a Holding. Destroy it.

Still a simple, yet effective spell.  Best used for super Shadowlands gold or anything that builds (e.g. Secluded waystations).  Sadly, this spell is very deck dependent on your opponent.  Does he even have holdings worth blowing up?  Well, destroying your opponent’s gold is never a bad thing, but will it have a strong enough impact to justify taking a fate slot or three and costing 5/3 gold? Let’s just say that I don’t use it and probably won’t in Lotus unless some new holding breaks the game.

            Power: 3

            Versatility: 2

            Cost: 4/3

Isawa's Scrolls

6

Unique

After this Spell enters play, put five Scroll tokens on it.

Limited: Bow this Spell and remove a Scroll token from it: Search your Fate deck for a Spell with a Focus value less than the number of remaining Scroll tokens. Show it. Put in your hand.  

I can’t convince myself that this spell is worth its cost.  First, it can never retrieve a spell with a 4 focus.  It can only ever retrieve 3 spells (a 3,2,1 focus).  As far as I can tell, there are no 0 Focus spells in Lotus.  The only bonus to it is that it bows the spell, not the shugenja. 

Fun Trick: Attach it to Agasha Fumihiro, and then search for Kuro’s.  Attach Kuro’s to Fumihiro.  Attack your opponent.  Destroy Isawa’s Scrolls for PK/honor.  Then cast Kuro’s.

            Power: 2

            Versatility: 3

            Cost: 2/2

Kuro’s Fire

5

Fire Elemental Battle : Bow this Shugenja: Announce a number of Ranged Attacks up to the caster's Chi, with a total base strength up to the caster's Force plus Chi. Target and resolve them consecutively in the order announced.

Another good solid spell, not much to say here.  Don’t forget that in Lotus Force can still be raised pretty high.  This spell combines nicely with Kushojin’s ability to gain +4 force.  This is also a great spell on an Elemental Dragon with a sneak attack.  No need to bow with CoRx.

            Power: 5

            Versatility: 5

            Cost: 4/3

Osaku's Lifeblood

3

Elemental Water Battle: Bow this Shugenja: Target a number of opposing Personalities with no attached cards up to the number of Cavalry Personalities in this army. Bow the targets.  

The only potential use of this spell for Phoenix is with Elemental Dragons.  Throw a few Dragons at the opponents and bow their defenders.  I think this spell will be strongest with a Sneak Attack and a decent sized army.  You do have the Cavalry advantage of knowing how many units you need to send at the opponent.

            Power: 3

            Versatility: 1

            Cost: 1/3

Plague of Insects

7

Maho Limited: Bow any number of Bloodspeaker Shugenja you control, including this Shugenja, and destroy this card: Give the participants the ability "Maho Battle: Produce Fear equal to this Personality's Chi that affects Personalities as if they were Followers." Straighten the participants when the phase ends.  

The cost is a little much for my tastes, but I think that can be worked around with a good gold structure (too bad it still blows up).  Bloodspeakers will be interesting in Lotus with no more auto-bloodspeakers (City of Blood).  We’ll have to use actual bloodspeakers to get what we want, but with more coming out, that shouldn’t be hard (as of Lotus we will have 5Phoenix bloodspeaker shugenja).  Fear is always good because it doesn’t bow, but you can only take one action at a time.  There may be stronger actions you should be taking with a bloodspeaker deck (PK?)  I probably won’t use this at first, but maybe later.

            Power: 3

            Versatility: 1

            Cost: 3/1

Rite of Travel

3

Ritual Limited: Bow this and one other Shugenja you control, and destroy this card: Search your Dynasty deck for a card. Show it. Shuffle the deck. Put the card on top of the deck. 

The effectiveness of this card relies solely on your need for certain cards.  The nice part is that it retrieves any Dynasty card, not just personalities.  Need that event, here it comes.  Now you just have to wait a turn.  It’s not too bad for its gold cost, but it’s not a general use spell.

            Power: 3

            Versatility: 2

            Cost: 3/2

Sapphire Strike

7

Ritual Limited: Bow this Shugenja and one other Shugenja Personality you control, and destroy this card: Target a bowed Personality. Destroy him.  

This spell will be gaining some power come Lotus.  We have 2 clan boxable shugenja in Lotus plus one in Code.  Combined with the out of clan boxable shugenja, that makes plenty of chumps to bow for a solid kill.  Combined with Seal The Way, this is an Assassin’s strike.

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 3

            Cost: 3/2

Scribing the Tao

6

After this Spell enters play, target a Ring in play or in any discard pile. Copy one ability from it to this Spell until this Spell leaves play. (Any cost of bowing the Ring becomes "Bow this card".) 

This will be very strong with the new Rings.  You can play the ring as an action card, and then copy it with Scribing.  Your choice of unbow tech, province protection/sabotage, PK, card draw, or battle move.

Fun trick:  Think “My life for the Phoenix”.  Copy the Ring of Fire and throw an Elemental Dragon defender in the way of an opponent’s army.  Kill the opponent’s best unit.  Storm of Isawa your Dragon back.

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 3

            Cost: 3/2

Sculpting Flesh

5

Maho Limited: Bow this Shugenja, who must be a Bloodspeaker, and target and destroy a Personality you control and own: Lose 3 Honor. Create a Shadowlands Nonhuman Goblin Personality. Set its printed Force and Chi to any values that do not total more than the destroyed Personality's Gold cost; its Chi may also not exceed the caster's Chi.

;;Going evil, eh? Really this spell is just a conversion of chi to force.  Most of our personalities have pretty even distribution of gold cost vs force+chi.  The most efficient I can imagine is overlaying Isawa xp7, then making a 14 stat goblin.  I’m not a real big fan of this spell since they Lotus-fied it.  In its current rendition, you cannot make the goblin’s chi higher than the shugenja’s.  No more 0/14 dueling goblins, oh well.

            Power: 3

            Versatility: 2

            Cost: 3/2

Seal the Way

4

Open: Bow this card: Target a Personality with less Chi than this Shugenja and with fewer cards attached. Bow the Personality. 

A very strong new spell is coming our way.  First of all, it’s an open action.  The best kind of action as you can use it whenever needed.  Less chi, well with flattened chi in Lotus this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.  Bow the spell, not the shugenja.  Nice! Fewer attached cards shouldn’t be too much of a problem with the amount of spells we will be using.  All this for 4 gold, 2 KAx.

Fun trick: After you bow the spell to cast it, Fumihiro can blow it up to kill someone else.  That’s two opposing personalities down for 1 spell.

            Power: 5

            Versatility: 4

            Cost: 5/4

Shadow of Amaterasu

6

Reactions: After a ranged attack you announced targets a Personality, bow this Shugenja or this Spell: Target the Personality. Destroy him.   

This is obviously a Mantis spell.  It can work for Phoenix with some of our ranged attack spells.

Fun Trick: Soul of Hochiu (2 chi boxable) with Fire from within and Shadow attached.  Kisada with a small follower opposes you.  1^st ranged attack kills the follower, 2^nd ranged attack+Shadow kills Kisada.  Nice.

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 2

            Cost: 3/1

spell #400

1

Earth Elemental Battle: Target and destroy a Samurai Personality you control at the current battlefield, and destroy this card: Target a unit, or a card with no attached cards, that oppose the Samurai and has a lower Gold cost than his unit’s Gold cost. Destroy the opposing target. Gain 2 Honor.

I just about crapped myself when I saw this card.  For most of us, it’s free.  Combine your destroyed samurai with Isawa Sachi and he’ll be back on the table in minute.

Fun Trick: Attach the spell to Phoenix #137.  Use the spell on Tsukimi to destroy a small opposing unit.  Gain 2 honor from #137 and 2 Honor from the spell.  Use Sachi on Tsukimi, then buy her for full.  Gain 3 honor.  That’s one dead opposing unit and 7 honor for you.

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 3

            Cost: 5/4

spell #404

3

Water Elemental Battle: Bow this Shugenja: Target a battlefield and a Samurai personality you control. If he would be opposed, move him to the battlefield. If he moves and you are the Defender, gain 2 Honor.

More support for the Spell/honor deck.  I’m really intrigued by the possibilities.  Send home got you down?  Send him back and gain some honor.

Fun Trick: Use the action Courtesy to send home Tsukimi and an opposing big guy.  Gain 3 honor.  Spell#404 her back in and gain 2 more. 

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 3

            Cost: 4/3

spell #408

3

Ritual Battle: Target and bow this Shugenja and 2 other Shugenjas you control: Target up to 2 opposing units. Bow them. Move them home.

Ritual Battle: Bow and destroy this Shugenja and this card, and target and bow 4 other Shugenjas you control: Target up to 3 opposing units. Destroy them.

The first action on this spell is perfect with Kazushi and one of his followers.  That’s three shugenja right there.  Get rid of two units.  The second action is a little trickier.  Use 2 shugenja: Shugenja X with a Kazushi follower and Kazushi with a follower.  Bow Kazushi and both followers (4 shugenja), blow up Shugenja X.  Then Nuke three opposing units.  Nice.  It ignore attachments, gold cost, etc.

            Power: 5

            Versatility: 3

            Cost: 5/4

Spirit Made Flesh

6

Limited: Bow this Shugenja: Target one of your Provinces. Search your Dynasty discard pile and Dynasty deck for a Kami card. If you find one, discard a card from the Province and fill it with the found card. 

For 6 gold, I don’t see this spell as very useful for us unless you have some serious jank going on.  We can get Asako Yogo (not too bad) or Isawa exp (are you feeling ill?).  Most other Kami cards are loyal.  There is Test of the Kami (event), and Yogo for some silliness.  This card can be much stronger in a Shadowlands deck, but your mileage may vary.

            Power: 3

            Versatility: 1

            Cost: 2/1

Strange Magics

3

Elemental Void Limited: Bow this Shugenja: Look at the top card of your Dynasty deck. If it is a Personality, Holding, or Region, you may bring it into play, paying all costs. This effect may attach Regions and Fortifications to any of your legal Provinces. 

The late game spell.  When you have so much gold sitting around you have no idea what to do with it and a shugenja you don’t mind bowing, you can start buying stuff from your virtual 5^th province.  Or, if it suits you, you can just look at it to see what’s coming up next.  This spells seems really strong for Unicorn Khol Wall, maybe not as much for us.

Fun Trick:  Late game when you have lots of gold, cast Rite of Travel, then pop off this spell.  It’s like a summon personality spell. 

            Power: 3

            Versatility: 2

            Cost: 3/1

Stranglehold

7

Ritual Limited: Bow a number of Shugenja Personalities you control, including this one equal to the number of units the target controls: Target a player. Bow all units he controls.  

This card is best used with Isawa Sezaru.  I bow you, I straighten, and then I attack.  With the loss of Plans within Plans, it loses some of its effectiveness.  If Sezaru is not out, you have to have a solid army, excluding your shugenja, to make it useful.  This spell also sidesteps Kazushi’s followers, but works great with his “I’m two people” ability. 

            Power: 3

            Versatility: 1

            Cost: 3/1

Suitengu's Surge

3

Reaction: After an action targets a unit you control, bow this Shugenja: Target the unit.

Remove it from the game, preserving bowed status and all attachments, including tokens. Its owner returns it to the game in that state after the next turn begins, in his home under his control, without considering it to be entering play.

One of the strongest spells of late diamond is here in its new form.  The change only affects the CoRx Honor bomb, not that big of a deal.  It is still a spell that can save any unit.  In battle, you can either surge a unit out or watch it be destroyed.  Keep in mind that this spell is not limited to battles and the Limited phase can be a very dangerous time.

            Power: 5

            Versatility: 4

            Cost: 5/4

Summon Undead Champion

3

Maho Limited: Bow this Shugenja and destroy this card: Lose 4 Honor. Create a 5F/2C Shadowlands Undead Champion Personality.

The final personality creation spell. For a deck that doesn’t mind some honor loss (or that can mitigate it), this spell offers you a permanent 5/2 for 1 gold.  Not bad.  It can be a fair exchange for you small boxable shugenja near the end of the game, or even the key to a strong blitz if your draw it early.

            Power: 4

            Versatility: 2

            Cost: 4/2

The Wolf's Mercy

5

Limited: Bow this Shugenja: Target a Shadowlands Personality. Give him a -2C token. 

Wow, talk about a card that people hate.  If you’re not playing Obsidian Halls of the Lost and are using this card, you need to be hit, hard.  Maybe someday some super combo will come along, but it’s not here yet.  Leave this spell alone.

            Power: 2

            Versatility: 1

            Cost: 2/1

To Seek the Truth

3

Elemental Air Limited: Bow this card: Target a card in one of your Provinces and an Event in another player's discard pile. Discard the card and fill the Province with the Event, face-up. The Event may resolve an additional time this game. After the Event resolves, remove it from the game.  

I can see maybe throwing in one copy of this spell in a deck, but you’d hate for your opponent to have no events or ones useless to you.  If you are lucky, your opponent will be playing with Death of Ryoshun and you can use it against them!  The strategy of this spell just depends entirely too much on your opponent’s deck build and luck.  I don’t really like this spell.  Want to “Seek the Truth”?  The truth is that this spell sucks.

            Power: 2

            Versatility: 1

            Cost: 2/1

Walking the Way

4

Limited: Bow this Shugenja and destroy this card: Search your Fate deck for a card. Put it in your hand.

This spell is being printed in Lotus just as it has been in every base set since pre-Imperial.  Why, you might ask?  It’s a strong card for low cost.  Simple, yet powerful.  For most of us, it allows us to get any fate card we need for 2 gold.  Any deck can use this.  Most decks rely on a few cards to really work, this will get them.  Even if you only put one copy in your deck, just count it as a fourth copy of some other card.

            Power: 5

            Versatility: 5

            Cost: 5/4