Flagship Build: Chronurgy Magic Wizard

Author: pandaniel

Wizards, who already had their fill of incredibly powerful subclasses, were given what is widely considered as the strongest subclass in the game in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount: Chronurgy Magic. It gets access to both powerful dunamancy spells and numerous amazing features. 

This Flagship, similarly to our Basic Build Wizard, is a powerful primary controller and becomes absurdly powerful at high levels. Our subclass adds amazing goodies to the Wizard spell list, which was already the best in the game. At later levels we don’t just have spells like wall of force and simulacrum, but features like Convergent Future and Arcane Abeyance that allow us to get to even higher highs, but no lower lows.

Before Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything was released, the typical way to improve a wizard’s defenses was a 1 level dip in Artificer, giving the build proficiency in medium armor and shields, as well as Constitution saves rather than Wisdom saves. However, with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, several powerful new subclasses were released. We decided to opt for a level in Peace Domain Cleric in both variants for proficiency in armor and shields, the amazing Emboldening Bond, and spells that’ll stay useful for our entire career. 

But Tabletop Builds! Artificer is right there! What is this!?

We speak highly of Artificer dips in our Guide To Optimized DnD 5E Multiclassing article. However, we believe the value of having a Peace Domain Cleric is superior. We lose Constitution saving throw proficiency, but both progressions compensate for this loss; racial flight in the main progression, and the Resilient (Constitution) feat in our variant. Both versions also take the magic jar spell, which yields you the proficiencies (and often high Constitution score!) of the jarred creature. Meanwhile, we start off with Wisdom saving throw proficiency granted by Cleric, which is vital at higher levels where Wisdom save effects are as common as they are deadly.

The reason we believe the Peace Domain Cleric dip is superior to the Artificer dip is because of Emboldening Bond. As explained in our multiclassing guide, Emboldening Bond takes an action to use and you can use it a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus before needing to complete a long rest to use it again. It grants a number of creatures equal to your proficiency bonus a 1d4 which they can add to any ability check, attack roll, or saving throw once per turn while within 30 feet of another bonded creature, for 10 minutes. This is basically half of a Paladin’s Aura of Protection that works for both saving throws and attack rolls! Especially with optimized martials, the latter can dramatically increase party damage. Its 10-minute duration is long enough to have the ability used before combat in most adventuring environments like dungeons, and a boost to ability checks (an area that even bless doesn’t cover) means a boost to initiative rolls as well. Its effect even works in tandem with save-boosting effects like Aura of Protection. 

The opportunity cost for Wizard to take a Peace Domain Cleric dip is also the lowest among members of an optimized party, since Cleric offers medium armor proficiency while Chronurgy Magic covers concentration protection and defensive spells usually gained through dips. Emboldening Bond’s contribution far exceeds that of magic stone, which could be gained from an Artificer dip.

If someone in your party already has a level in Peace Domain Cleric (for example, if their build is primarily Peace Domain Cleric), it might be worth taking Artificer instead. That being said, given the relatively low opportunity cost of you taking this dip compared to similarly powerful characters, good party optimization says you should be the one to take the Peace Domain Cleric level.

So before we move on, which version of the build would you like to see?

Class: Cleric

The reason we pick our Cleric level now instead of later is because it allows us a better chance to get through level 1 due to its armor proficiencies. However, if your game starts level 2 or later, consider starting off as Wizard, with a level of Cleric at level two. Starting with a level in Wizard would allow us to pick up Arcana and Investigation through our class, Perception and Stealth through our background, and it would give us proficiency in Intelligence saving throws instead of Charisma, which is helpful if you later decide to pick up contact other plane. 

Skills – History, Religion. We don’t have great choices here, as explained above, but at least these key off of our Intelligence score. 
Divine Domain – Peace Domain. One of the highest value dips in the game. Its pièce de résistance is Emboldening Bond, which is what we are after. In a high optimization party, Wizard is one of the premier options for a character to pick up a level in Peace Domain Cleric, but even without a Wizard, someone should pick up a level in this subclass.
Implement of Peace (Peace Domain feature) – Insight. Feel free to pick up something else here if you want.
Emboldening Bond  (Peace Domain feature) – This feature gives you and your allies a 1d4 bonus that is applied once on each turn, so the saving throw benefit functions basically like half a Paladin’s Aura of Protection—and we all know how valuable that is. As icing on the cake, the bonus to ability checks can apply to dispel magic and counterspell checks, as well as rolls for initiative. The bond lasts 10 minutes and scales with your proficiency both in number of targets and uses (6 at level 20), which ensures very consistent uptime. Unless your party is extremely spread apart, being within 30 feet of any other bonded ally should not be an issue at all. 
Spellcasting – Magic is one hell of a drug. We get some nice spells that will stay useful for a long time. 

Bless – One of the best 1st level spells in the game. Adding 1d4 to attacks and saves may not sound like much, but if three people’s attack rolls go from having a 65% chance of hitting to having a 77.5% chance of hitting, that’s like adding over half a turn of attacks to your side every round; more against high AC enemies. For a concentrating caster with 14 Constitution who isn’t proficient in Constitution saves (like you), this spell cuts the chance of failing a DC 10 save by about a third (from about 35% to about 23%). If you like Kobolds, as you should, a particularly bright one spoke about bless here. While this spell is similar to Emboldening Bond, they are not the same spell or feature, so you can even use them together on a target who can then enjoy both bonuses!
Healing word – Use only in case of emergency, to pick someone back up from 0 hit points. Rarely do you want to use this preemptively, and never to “top people off”; it’s just not an efficient use of your spell slots. 
Heroism ^D – This provides a modest amount of temporary hit points, but more notably, immunity to fear to an ally. We won’t often be using this.
Sanctuary ^D – A bonus action casting time spell that forces any enemy that tries to target us with an attack or harmful spell to make a Wisdom save or redirect or lose the attack or spell. While this does take away some pressure from your target, the low spell DC means you’re better off saving your slots for better things instead.
Guidance – Add a d4 at will to anybody’s ability check. Use this whenever you can. If you know combat is coming, can safely make noise, and don’t want to pre-cast a leveled spell, cast this on yourself or another caster for an initiative boost.
Mending – While you shouldn’t heal people too often, heal objects as much as you want.
Toll the dead – Your party should be focusing on one enemy at a time, so you should usually be able to use this on a monster who’s missing HP for the d12 version of the damage. We take this despite it being Wisdom-based because we would rather use a shield for level one instead of a light crossbow. If you are starting above level one, feel free to grab thaumaturgy or something else. Bong!

Bless – One of the best 1st level spells in the game. Adding 1d4 to attacks and saves may not sound like much, but if three people’s attack rolls go from having a 65% chance of hitting to having a 77.5% chance of hitting, that’s like adding over half a turn of attacks to your side every round; more against high AC enemies. For a concentrating caster with 14 Constitution who is proficient in Constitution saves, the chance you fail a DC 10 roll is cut in half (from 25 to about 13%. If you like Kobolds, as you should, a particularly bright one spoke about bless here. While this spell is similar to Emboldening Bond, they are not the same spell or feature, so you can even use them together on a target who can then enjoy both bonuses!
Healing word – Use only in case of emergency, to pick someone back up from 0 hit points. Rarely do you want to use this preemptively, and never to “top people off”; it’s just not an efficient use of your spell slots.
Heroism ^D – This provides a modest amount of temporary hit points, but more notably, immunity to fear to an ally. We won’t often be using this.
Sanctuary ^D – A bonus action casting time spell that forces any enemy that tries to target us with an attack or harmful spell to make a Wisdom save or redirect or lose the attack or spell. While this does take away some pressure from your target, the low spell DC means you’re better off saving your slots for better things instead.
Guidance – Add a d4 at will to anybody’s ability check. Use this whenever you can. If you know combat is coming, can safely make noise, and don’t want to pre-cast a leveled spell, cast this on yourself or another caster for an initiative boost. 
Mending – While you shouldn’t heal people too often, heal objects as much as you want.
Toll the dead – Your party should be focusing on one enemy at a time, so you should usually be able to use this on a monster who’s missing HP for the d12 version of the damage. We take this despite it being Wisdom-based because we would rather use a shield for level one instead of a light crossbow. If you are starting above level one, feel free to grab thaumaturgy or something else. Bong!

Background (Custom)

Skills – Arcana, Stealth. Arcana proficiency will allow us to scribe scrolls during downtime. This is especially useful if there’s another Wizard in the party who can learn spells from those scrolls, but even if not, it’s nice to have extra spells on hand. You can read more about this here. If you play with the spell identification variant rule from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, proficiency in Arcana becomes even more important. We are now left with a tough choice between Perception and Stealth. We have decided to go with Stealth as failing a Dexterity (Stealth) check ruins the ability to surprise an enemy for the whole party. Stealth will help us sneak up on enemies to surprise them, and will give us a nice floor on our rolls when we have pass without trace active. However, Perception is not at all a bad choice either. It is one of the most common rolls in the game and is very important against being surprised.  
Tools – Smith’s tools, cobbler’s tools. We can use smith’s tools to make early money by repairing and selling off broken weapons and armor you retrieve from the battlefield. Later, if we can get access to fabricate we can use it with our smith’s tools to obtain a lot of gold. Our additional pick will be cobbler’s tools, which are not the flashiest tools in the game, but the ability to increase movement speed in the exploration phase can very easily come in handy and hiding things can help you carry contraband (or your arcane focus) into cities. As always, tool usage and downtime activity can vary heavily from table to table, so talk to your DM before you commit to anything. You can read more about tools and what might fit your campaign better here. 
Feature – Ear to the Ground. Information is power, and having someone that can give you information in any city you visit is especially useful. You know someone in the City of Brass, Sigil, or any other distant place (that you visit). Pretty cool.
Creator’s Note – Making a custom background is RAW, as page 125 of the PHB states: “The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions. To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.” Using this, we are making a custom background and using the Ear to the Ground feature.

Equipment

Cleric Starting Equipment

• A mace
• Scale mail
• A light crossbow and 20 bolts
• A shield
• Explorer’s pack
• An emblem

Urban Bounty Hunter Starting Equipment

• A set clothes appropriate to your duties
• A pouch containing 20 gp

Purchasing Goals

• Spells! Whether in the form of spellbooks or scrolls.
• Component pouches
• Costly material components for spells that require them, like planar binding and magic jar 
• Healer’s kit, potions of healing
• Smith’s tools
• Cobbler’s tools
• Plenty of ball bearings and caltrops

Level 1 Strategy

At this level, we’ll mostly be casting toll the dead or using our light crossbow, if the extra range is more useful than the AC we get from a shield. We should be aiming to commit either bless or Emboldening Bond in a difficult fight, while saving at least one spell slot for healing word in case a teammate goes down. It’s usually prudent to pick yourself as one of the targets of bless because it helps you maintain concentration on itself, but the other targets (at least at this level) should probably be whoever does the most damage with attacks. If possible, use Emboldening Bond before a difficult fight, which should be possible with a 10 minute duration, as it works on initiative and “nets” us an extra action in combat. Once you have Emboldening Bond up and running, try and get most use out of it by running from fight to fight. 

In downtime, we can scribe scrolls of healing word, bless. You can also try to scribe a scroll of detect magic ahead of our Wizard level to copy in your inevitable spellbook

Level 2: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 1)

Arcane Recovery – This currently lets us regain our highest level slot each day. As we are multiclassed, we will only be getting to regain our highest level slot every even level, but also have the ability to regain a few lower level slots instead. This ability is capped out at regaining 5th level spell slots, but combined with our access to economical spells like web, this will let us be one of the best casters at resource management.
Spellcasting – Our most important feature, which defines the strength of our class.

Absorb elements – We likely won’t be using this much at low levels, but it will only become more valuable throughout your adventuring career. Elemental damage tends to come in singular large blasts, and the option to halve that amount will significantly improve your survivability. 
Detect magic – Detect the presence of magic within 30 feet of you for ten minutes. A useful ritual that you should have up by default in dungeons.
Find familiar – Gain the service of a familiar which you can conjure or dismiss at will. Extraordinarily useful in and out of combat. At this level we recommend an owl so that it can give the Help action and get away with Flyby. At higher levels you’ll want to switch to a bat for Blindsight. We have a full spell spotlight on this spell here.
Shield – Gain +5 AC for a round using a reaction. With your hit points at this level, shield can be the difference between life or death. Try to position yourself so that you don’t need to use it.
Silvery barbs – This is a brand new spell that is both potent and flexible. With this spell you primarily inflict a debuff on a target without an attached saving throw, and then if that wasn’t good enough for a first level spell, you simultaneously buff an ally as well. We will mostly be using this to make spells that are reliant on enemies failing their saving throw land more. The advantage you grant to an ally is less important, but it’s nice regardless. This is a must pick for anyone that can get it.
Unseen servant – Create a mindless, shapeless force which acts at your command within 60 feet of you for an hour. Can solve a lot of problems and prevent a lot of headaches. Another spell that you should have up by default in dungeons, potentially even multiple.
Fire bolt – On a hit, deal a bit of fire damage to the target, which can be a creature or an object. Believe it or not, this is a utility spell as much as it is a damage one. You can use this to destroy objects like locked doors. The range is also useful in combat, since you want to be as far away as you can.
Minor illusion – Create a minor visual or auditory illusion. Very versatile utility cantrip.
Ray of frost – On a hit, deal a bit of damage and reduce the target’s speed by 10 feet. Slowing an enemy by 10 feet can cost them an entire turn of effectiveness, as enemies will often have to use their action to Dash to get into range with you.

Level 2 Strategy

While dungeoneering, your standard operating procedure should be to have detect magic and at least 1 unseen servant up at all times. The unseen servant(s) should have ongoing orders to administer potions to downed party members, if you have any. Use your familiar almost exclusively for vision so that you can explore from safety and take advantage of its keen senses. Anywhere you suspect a secret door, check by dismissing your familiar to its pocket dimension and then attempting to summon it on the other side of the wall or floor. Interact with everything from a distance using unseen servant to avoid being caught by traps.
In combat, keep an eye out for situations where ray of frost can deny an enemy turn. Have your unseen servant and familiar use items like oil, caltrops, or ball bearings to deny enemy movements. Otherwise, our combat strategy has mostly stayed unchanged.
We can now also scribe scrolls of our reaction spells: shield, absorb elements, and silvery barbs.
If you have a scroll of detect magic you can scribe in your spellbook by now, or would rather wait until you do, or have otherwise get any of the mentioned spells, consider adding some more level 1 ritual spells to your spellbook:
Alarm – A decent way to protect our party while resting as a ritual spell. There are a bunch of neat things you can do for the paranoid among you here, which if you are playing a Wizard…
Identify – Learn how to use magic items or other magic-imbued objects. The typical use of this spell is to identify magic items, but many don’t know that the spell can reveal how to use any magic-imbued object–including many tricky doors and magical obstacles in dungeons.

Level 3: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 2)

Arcane Tradition – Chronurgy Magic. Some say Chronurgy Magic Wizards only get to use dunamancy spells labeled as chronurgy spells, and the same goes for Graviturgist Wizards with graviturgy spells. However, the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount says “These spells are available to the wizard subclasses previously mentioned in this chapter”, which means we get to pick from all of the spells. However, the spells labeled as graviturgy spells that we will pick up aren’t build defining, so if this is disallowed in your game, feel free to pick other strong spells (see our Basic Build Wizard for recommendations beyond this build). A final note about Dunamancy spells is that RAW you cannot use their scrolls to cast spells, but you can scribe them down, so talk with your DM to see if they rule otherwise.
Chronal Shift (Chronurgy Magic feature) – Silvery barbs, but twice per long rest without taking a spell slot. Two big differences are that this only works within 30 feet vs. the 60 feet of silvery barbs, and that it can be used on a failure, which allows you to help your allies or yourself. Before silvery barbs, the main use case for this was to make saves stick on enemies, but we are now able to stay further away from enemies and reserve this for supporting teammates when they fail important saving throws, and use silvery barbs against enemies instead.
Temporal Awareness (Chronurgy Magic feature) – Winning initiative is valuable; among other things it amounts to extra turns and the ability to reposition before enemies act. This is especially desirable for a fullcaster, and its value will only increase as you acquire more impactful spells.
Spell Changes: +gift of alacrity, +magnify gravity.

Gift of alacrity – Increasing our chance to go first in initiative increases the likelihood that we can take away enemy actions with disabling spells before they have a turn to attack. Combine this with Temporal Awareness and guidance and we get an average of +12 to our initiative. This is a fantastic spell to rest cast.
Magnify gravity – This is one of the best damaging first level spells, and one of the few spells that is actually a good blast for its level in general. This even has a nice control debuff on top!

Level 3 Strategy

Our spellcasting strategy is mostly unchanged, but we have another nice option for combat: magnify gravity. For now our second level slots are used for this and bless.
Try to cast gift of alacrity on as many of our party members as we can, prioritizing casters with control options, such as web, hypnotic pattern, and the like, over other teammates. This is another valuable option for scribing if your DM rules that the scrolls can actually be used.

Level 4: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 3)

Spell Changes: +rope trick, +web.

Rope trick – Create an extradimensional refuge as an action. The best 2nd level defensive spell in the game. Once you’ve cast a concentration spell, maintaining concentration should be your highest priority, and rope trick helps you do that far better than something like mirror image would. Allies can also join you in the refuge when necessary. 
Web – Create a 20 foot cube of webs which restrain enemies. One of the most potent 2nd level spells in the game. Right now, this is the biggest thing we can do, but even as we reach high levels, we’ll continue to use web for its value-in-slot, and it’ll continue to be effective.

Level 4 Strategy

Our go-to in large encounters is now web. Use rope trick when corners are unavailable to you, like in closed off whiterooms filled only with chalkboards scribbled with random math.

Two fun spells you can pick up now are magic mouth, and Tasha’s mind whip.

Magic mouth – An incredibly open-ended spell that allows for the creation of what are essentially custom magic items. Similar to glyph of warding, you enchant an object, and provide the spell with an audio and/or visual trigger within 30 feet of the object. This has no upper limit in terms of complexity for a trigger, as long as it is within the range, and the enchantment does not go away after being triggered. When triggered, the spell will play back an auditory message in your own voice. A simple application is a perfect 30 foot radius creature detector. On the upper end, the spell can also make advanced computers.
Tasha’s mind whip – This allows for extra control while concentrating on another spell. A great shutdown option that does not require our concentration and upcasts quite well. It has the additional use of cheaply burning an enemy’s Legendary Resistances. If an enemy has to live with it, it allows the whole party to move away for free. At the moment we would rather be casting something like rime’s binding ice, but in further Tiers, when enemies get better bonuses to their Constitution saving throws, and we can upcast more with our slots, it is very valuable.

Level 5: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 4)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – War Caster. This offers concentration protection in the form of advantage, but crucial to this is the ability to cast spells while both hands are full. We are wielding a shield, and it is likely that we will find a magical staff in the future that we want to be holding at all times, and thus can’t drop and pick up.
Spell Changes: +locate object, +Rime’s binding ice, +mind sliver.

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Telekinetic (+1 Int). We now have 18 Intelligence. This half-feat gives us an enhanced version of the mage hand cantrip, but more importantly it also lets you move a creature who is willing or who fails a Strength save 5 feet toward or away from you. This can be useful to get an ally out of a hazard or a grapple, or pull enemies into our spell hazards. We are delaying picking up War Caster compared to the Winged Tiefling variant, as we already have picked up some concentration protection through Resilient (Con).
Spell Changes: +locate object, +Rime’s binding ice, +mage hand ^TK, +mind sliver.

Locate object – An incredibly versatile utility spell that can do way more than meets the eye, more information here.
Rime’s binding ice – The recently released Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons included a bunch of new spells, and while most of them are pretty uninteresting, Rime’s binding ice is a stellar option. It delivers significant area-of-effect control and damage on a level comparable only to web at this spell level. It’s less sticky than web, but doesn’t use your concentration, so it makes for a great sidegrade or nova depending on the situation, especially at this level. 
Mind sliver – Debuff an enemy’s next saving throw. Casting this in cooperation with another caster in your party is a great economical play. You can also consider casting this on your first turn if the party isn’t in imminent danger and it’s not clear yet what spell will be best to concentrate on.

Locate object – An incredibly versatile utility spell that can do way more than meets the eye, more information here.
Rime’s binding ice – The recently released Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons included a bunch of new spells, and while most of them are pretty uninteresting, Rime’s binding ice is a stellar option. It delivers significant area-of-effect control and damage on a level comparable only to web at this spell level. It’s less sticky than web, but doesn’t use your concentration, so it makes for a great sidegrade or nova depending on the situation, especially at this level. 
Mage hand ^TK – Utility cantrips are always nice, and the ability to fiddle with things that may be trapped without having to be close enough to be affected by the trap is convenient.
Mind sliver – Debuff an enemy’s next saving throw. Casting this in cooperation with another caster in your party is a great economical play. You can also consider casting this on your first turn if the party isn’t in imminent danger and it’s not clear yet what spell will be best to concentrate on

Level 5 Strategy

As our proficiency bonus has gone up, Emboldening Bond scales to 3 targets and 3 uses per long rest, ensuring its uptime in a bigger share of the encounters in a day.
Rime’s binding ice presents us with another layer of control that we can use on top of our existing web, or when enemies get uncomfortably close.
Prepare locate object once you are done clearing an area to find all the loot you missed.
This is around the level where you should swap your familiar from owl form to bat form. Since martials are getting Extra Attack, the marginal utility of the Help action has gone down a lot, and as you level you’re more likely to encounter illusions, invisible creatures, and the like, so the bat’s Blindsight is major. 

Rime’s binding ice presents us with another layer of control that we can layer on top of our existing web, or when enemies get uncomfortably close.
This is around the level where you should swap your familiar from owl form to bat form. Since martials are getting Extra Attack, the marginal utility of the Help action has gone down a lot, and as you level you’re more likely to encounter illusions, invisible creatures, and the like, so the bat’s Blindsight is major.

Level 6: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 5)

Spell Changes: +fireball, +hypnotic pattern.

Fireball – Deal a good quantity of damage in a 20 foot sphere. Damage is damage. Very different from our other spells, which is a good thing. Some players overrate fireball, but many underrate it as well. Even though its damage won’t scale as we level, its relative cost will go down, and troublesome hordes exist at all levels, so this will remain a solid preparation, especially since it doesn’t require concentration. You can always use this liberally against four or more enemies unless the encounter is won already, otherwise use it in situations where nova is advantageous.
Hypnotic pattern – Force enemies in a 30 foot cube to make a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed, incapacitated, and immobilized with no additional save to break out in subsequent turns, although they can be woken up by damage or other enemies spending their actions. Capable of single-handedly shutting down encounters. Be careful not to cast this on enemies immune to being charmed, though.

Level 6 Strategy

Now we have two new big guns in hypnotic pattern and fireball. However, as much as you might be itching to show off, keep in mind that web will remain the most effective option in many encounters.
Regarding hypnotic pattern, make sure your allies know to avoid waking hypnotized targets unnecessarily, and how to Ready actions to focus down hypnotized enemies one by one. Finally, note that incapacitated targets automatically fail grapple contests, so you can reposition them, throw them into hazards, and so on. If an ally is hit in the area of effect, it might not be a big deal if you use your familiar to wake them up.
A good ritual spell we can now scribe into our spellbook is water breathing:

Water breathing – A handy ritual which makes any water related adventure easier. The 24 hour duration can easily cover a whole adventuring day, so remember to cast this at the end of your day. 

Level 7: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 6)

Momentary Stasis (Chronurgy Magic feature) – This is not the most exciting Chronurgy Magic feature, but it has its uses. Its downsides are that it only lasts for a round, and is gated behind a failed Constitution save, the type of saves enemies are best at on average. However, if we see it as an alternative to using cantrips, it can be pretty good, as it can burn an enemy’s turn, break an enemy caster’s concentration, and works through full cover. 
You might find yourself in a situation where it is better to use the Ready action to use this feature for after an ally’s turn, or an enemy approaches. In such a scenario, you only expend a use of this feature and your reaction when you take this reaction. Additionally, you don’t need to maintain concentration to ready Momentary Stasis, unlike with spells.
Spell Changes: +phantom steed, +sleet storm.

Phantom steed – Create mounts with excellent mobility as a ritual, potentially for the whole party. (The duration is 1 hour, and it takes 11 minutes to cast as a ritual, so this won’t be possible if your party size is too big). This is great for fast travel as well, since the steeds can gallop to travel at 26 miles per hour, and since you renew them every hour they won’t get tired. Note that you can use this with locate object to scan approximately 1.64 square miles per second level slot. You should consider keeping this up in any space that has room for it, since there’s basically no cost to doing so. In combat, you can use it to run circles around enemies. You should be casting this while mounted during travel, as to circumvent downtime between a fading steed and a new one. Do keep in mind that casting the spell requires your concentration, and your action each turn.
Sleet storm – You make a very large area incredibly difficult to leave by making it difficult terrain, heavily obscuring the area (which means that most teleportation effects including misty step no longer work since they need to see the space they teleport into, but dimension door still does) and even proning flying creatures. Because of the mechanics of the effects, the way that enemies will typically escape this horrifying spell is individually or in small groups, which the party can easily pick off one by one.

Level 7 Strategy

Our core strategy remains the same, but we add sleet storm to our arsenal, making it easier for us to deal with enemies immune to the charmed condition, enemies spread out over a wide area, or enemy spellcasters. The addition of phantom steed also raises party defense by allowing people to increase the gap between them and the enemy, and significantly reduces travel time. 

Level 8: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 7)

Spell Changes: +polymorph, +Leomund’s tiny hut.

Polymorph – Very powerful at this level, and versatile too. While it is possible to use on enemies, you’ll more often use this on an ally to turn them into a giant ape, which both buffs their offense and gives them a big pool of hit points to absorb any damage they take before their own health is touched. This spell has a very long duration, so if your party has scouted ahead and knows a fight is coming you can cast this proactively and have your allies begin combat immediately as polymorphed beasts (which are likely as strong as or stronger than your party’s martials, and certainly more durable due to the massive health pool despite low AC), to save you from having to use your action in combat.
Leomund’s tiny hut – Create a dome of force that your allies can pass through freely, but outsiders can’t, as a ritual. Resting has never been easier. This spell can be potentially countered by dispel magic, but you can protect against this as well by casting the spell multiple times at offset altitudes, creating multiple nested domes which would require several castings of dispel magic to get through. However, as spell effects cannot extend through the dome, all the nested domes will lack a floor, so keep that in mind.

Level 8 Strategy

Some other staple options for polymorph include: Tyrannosaurus rex, huge giant crab, and situationally, a sperm whale or quetzalcoatlus.
We can now look at adding fourth level spells, and these are some standout ones:

Fabricate – Fabricate allows us to turn mundane items like metals into armor with the tool proficiencies we have. You can very quickly make several sets of plate armor, shields, or weapons and sell them for a gold boost. We go into more details here.
Galder’s speedy courier – This allows for interdimensional transport of items with the biggest constraint being that it needs to fit in a chest. A bag of holding gets around this constraint, and can make this into an early fast travel. Pretty nifty.
Sickening radiance – Use this in a sufficiently cramped room, or in combination with wall of force (your own or someone else’s) and see the enemy struggle. This can later be used in combination with Arcane Abeyance.

Level 9: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 8)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Telekinetic (+1 Int). We now have 18 Intelligence. This half-feat gives us an enhanced version of the mage hand cantrip, but more importantly it also lets you move a creature who is willing or who fails a Strength save 5 feet toward or away from you. This can be useful to get an ally out of a hazard, an area of effect spell you’re about to cast, or a grapple. Likewise, you can push or pull enemies into hazards—from spells, natural terrain, or caltrops dropped by your familiar.
Spell Changes: +dimension door, +immovable object, +mage hand ^TK.

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – War Caster. This offers additional concentration protection in the form of advantage, but crucial to this is the ability to cast spells while both hands are full. We are wielding both a shield, and it is likely that we will find a magical staff in the future that we want to be holding at all times, and thus unable to drop and pick up. 
Spell Changes: +dimension door, +immovable object.

Dimension door – Teleport up to 500 feet with few restrictions, bringing a willing creature with you if you like. Sometimes you need to get out of dodge and/or rescue an ally.
Immovable object – Does what it says on the tin. Completely block off an enemy’s way of escape with to start default kills, and many other options for shenanigans. With a 4th or 5th level spell slot this lasts for a day. If you have gotten a tiny spool of black thread that never runs out through your background, this is a premier option for a target.
Mage hand ^TK – Utility cantrips are always nice, and the ability to fiddle with things that may be trapped without having to be close enough to be affected by the trap is convenient.

Dimension door – Teleport up to 500 feet with few restrictions, bringing a willing creature with you if you like. Sometimes you need to get out of dodge and/or rescue an ally.
Immovable object – Does what it says on the tin. Completely block off an enemy’s way of escape with to start default kills, and many other options for shenanigans. With a 4th or 5th level spell slot this lasts for a day. If you have gotten a tiny spool of black thread that never runs out through your background, this is a premier option for a target.

Level 9 Strategy

Our proficiency bonus goes up again, allowing our Emboldening Bond to affect 4 targets and be used 4 times per long rest, which covers everyone in a typical party.
Telekinetic is a versatile tool that will see regular use, while dimension door is a stellar contingency option. If your 5th level slot goes unused at the end of the day, and you think it might be worthwhile, immovable object can be cast to last for 24 hours. 

Level 10: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 9)

Spell Changes: +wall of force, +counterspell.

Wall of force – Create either a wall, a sphere, or a dome of indestructible force which cannot be dispelled and gives enemies no saving throw to avoid or escape. This spell is absolutely game-changing, and will open up the possibility of defeating enemies that would be otherwise unrealistic. The typical use of this spell that most players are aware of is splitting an encounter into two much easier ones. 
An interesting property of this spell is that if the wall cuts through a creature’s space when it appears, the creature is pushed to one side of the wall of your choice. As the wall only has to touch any square the creature occupies, this allows you to “suck” creatures into the wall of force.
Many also know about the technique of “microwaving” enemies by locking them in a wall of force with an ongoing damage effect such as sickening radiance. Another way to use wall of force is by creating a dome floating off the ground that entraps one or more enemies without closing them off from attack completely. Depending on the situation, any of these techniques can allow your party to win an encounter with little risk and no saving throws, which is why wall of force is a Wizard’s ultimate weapon.
Counterspell – Attempt to negate the casting of an enemy spell using your reaction. A powerful counter to other spellcasters. However, be mindful that they may be able to counterspell your counterspells, so it’s best to have at least two counterspell casters in the party. You should also be aware of your own ability to counterspell enemy counterspells. This spell has its own tactics which deserve their own article, but in short, it’s limited by range, line of sight, and the use of a reaction. Casters can circumvent it by casting from afar, by readying a spell from cover and then stepping out to release it, or by taking away their opponent’s reaction (such as with multiple counterspells). As a final thing to keep in mind, more and more creatures are getting “spell-like” abilities instead of spells which cannot be counterspelled, making counterspell less commonly useful.

Level 10 Strategy

The big game-changer here is wall of force. Before, you were limited in the CR of enemies that your party could take on. Now, those limitations have changed, and you must keep an eye out for size, teleport actions, and other abilities which might allow powerful enemies to circumvent your wall of force spells. 
We now have access to fifth level spells, some you should consider are:

Animate objects – Animate ten tiny items which together can deal impressive single-target damage. Your 5th level slots should be reserved for wall of force by default, but occasionally focused damage might be a better option against enemies too large for wall of force for example. Be mindful of immunities and resistances to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks; silver (coins) or adamantine items can potentially get you past some of these, but against other enemies animate objects will be a waste of your best slot. The most important thing here is to stay disciplined and avoid using your 5th level slots when they’re not necessary to defeat an encounter. Dealing big damage with animate objects is flashy and cool, but it’s not worth being caught without a wall of force later in an encounter where you need it. 
Contact other plane – If you can succeed a DC 15 Intelligence saving throw, gain the chance to ask a knowledgeable extraplanar entity 5 questions to which they will respond with one-word answers. We don’t have proficiency in Intelligence saving throws, but with a Paladin in the party, we are pretty likely to succeed. Even if you don’t, there’s no reason not to cast this every night or very early morning, potentially multiple times, since the negative effects of the spell wear off after a long rest. 
Rary’s telepathic bond – Create a telepathic link between up to ten creatures which lets them communicate over any distance while on the same plane. Coordination with your party is essential in and out of combat. This spell can let you discuss plans silently in the presence of others or stay in contact when separated. It should be up by default when adventuring. Also note that this spell can circumvent language barriers. 

Level 11: Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 10)

Arcane Abeyance (Chronurgy Magic feature) – One of the most powerful subclass features in the game, hands down. This lets you have two concentration spells running at the same time through the use of a bead. It additionally lets you use spells that normally have a casting time longer than an action as an action, similarly to wish. The only restriction to this is that the spell that you put in the bead has to be of fourth level or lower, but generally we can get a lot done with this. Get your familiar or another ally to use the bead and reap its benefits. If you choose your familiar to do this, make sure to protect them in some way or another from enemy fire, like by dismissing them or having them fly away, to ensure whatever spell you use does its job properly.
Spell Changes: +synaptic static, +Mordenkainen’s private sanctum, +mold earth.

Synaptic static – Fireball, but with an Intelligence saving throw, psychic damage, and an ongoing debuff to attack rolls and ability checks. You’re at the point where you can use relatively high level slots on non-concentration options, and this is a good one.
Mordenkainen’s private sanctum – This can be used for base building, but the big thing is that we can put it in a bead from Arcane Abeyance and use it in conjunction with other spells. For now, we can overlap the spell’s area with a wall of force a bit off the ground upon which enemies can neither see nor hear us, effectively leading them to need to guess our location, whereas we know they are in the wall of force and can slowly whittle them down. It also allows us to keep those pesky enemies with teleporting options or dimensional travel inside of our wall of force, as this is one of the things Mordenkainen’s private sanctum can block.
Mold earth – This cantrip can be used to create cover on some battlefields, and it also comes in handy for creating graves to respectfully send off enemies (or fallen allies, should that come to pass). Feel free to pick something else here if you wish.

Level 11 Strategy

Some outstanding options for spells to put in our Arcane Abeyance bead are: find familiar so that all our allies can have a little friend, Mordenkainen’s private sanctum to combine it with our wall of force, or Leomund’s tiny hut to create an instant fortress impervious to many enemies from which we can slowly kill them (or make them turn tail). However, even just concentrating on two powerful spells at once for a greater degree of battlefield control, such as a hypnotic pattern on one side of the map and a sleet storm on the other, is a powerful use of this feature on its own.
Prepare either Mordenkainen’s private sanctum or Leomund’s tiny hut depending on your game plan with Arcane Abeyance on a given day.
We can now also cast immovable object at sixth level, which makes it permanent.
Using our sixth level slot as another casting of wall of force is a good idea, even if the spell doesn’t get any extra benefit from upcasting. Since we can potentially cast wall of force four times in a day now, we can be a bit more proactive about casting it to save the party other resources.
You might wonder why we didn’t pick up sickening radiance for Arcane Abeyance. This is because generally any situation in which it would be applicable, Mordenkainen’s private sanctum does its job better together with some cantrips.

Level 12 Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 11)

Spell Changes: +contingency, +magic jar.

Contingency – Set up a spell of 5th level or lower which affects only you to go off when some trigger occurs. We’ll likely be using this with dimension door. A good trigger is “when I wink three times within one second or am unwillingly rendered unable to do so.” 
Magic jar – Possess a humanoid indefinitely, gaining most of their statistics while maintaining your own class features. As this has a 1-minute casting time, we will keep this as an off prep, but if you can capture a strong humanoid you can gain a lot of power by using this spell. Before you get to the point of having possessed a powerful creature, and expect to run into humanoids, it might be worth preparing this over polymorph to possess one during an adventuring day. Keep in mind that you do lose your own racial features, besides our increase in Intelligence, as this is explicitly retained. A big loss is our racial flight, but it is often worth the trade-off. Notable features to gain in general include higher Dexterity and Constitution scores, heavy armor proficiency, more hit points, and spellcasting. Just keep the gem close by, and be mindful of dispel magic. Do take note that one might interpret the interaction between magic jar and dispel magic in several ways and identify different targets for dispel magic. For example a DM might consider just the possessed body or just the material component (the ‘jar’) to be the only valid target, or either one of them. If the jar is deemed to be the only valid target in your game, you can just keep the jar in a safe place. At level 18 we will list off some good forms for magic jar purposes, as we get true polymorph and thus a way to guarantee them, but to summarize: keep your eyes open for strong martial enemies or ones with spellcasting. Here you can find a video by Treantmonk’s Temple on the spell, which is an excellent primer. Stay tuned for a Spell Spotlight on this in the future, as there is still a lot more to talk about!

Contingency – Set up a spell of 5th level or lower which affects only you to go off when some trigger occurs. We’ll likely be using this with dimension door. A good trigger is “when I wink three times within one second or am unwillingly rendered unable to do so.” 
Magic jar – Possess a humanoid indefinitely, gaining most of their statistics while maintaining your own class features. As this has a 1-minute casting time, we will keep this as an off prep, but if you can capture a strong humanoid you can gain a lot of power by using this spell. Before you get to the point of having possessed a powerful creature, and expect to run into humanoids, it might be worth preparing this over polymorph to possess one during an adventuring day. Keep in mind that you do lose your own racial features, besides our increase in Intelligence, as this is explicitly retained. A big loss is our starting feat (Resilient (Con)), but it is often worth the trade-off. Notable features to gain in general include higher Dexterity and Constitution scores, heavy armor proficiency, more hit points, and spellcasting. Just keep the gem close by, and be mindful of dispel magic. Do take note that one might interpret the interaction between magic jar and dispel magic in several ways and identify different targets for dispel magic. For example a DM might consider just the possessed body or just the material component (the ‘jar’) to be the only valid target, or either one of them. If the jar is deemed to be the only valid target in your game, you can just keep the jar in a safe place. At level 18 we will list off some good forms for magic jar purposes, as we get true polymorph and thus a way to guarantee them, but to summarize: keep your eyes open for strong martial enemies or ones with spellcasting. Here you can find a video by Treantmonk’s Temple on the spell, which is an excellent primer. Stay tuned for a Spell Spotlight on this in the future, as there is still a lot more to talk about!

Level 12 Strategy

You may notice that we don’t have any 6th level spells prepared. This is because we shall continue using these slots for wall of force, like we were already doing at the previous level. If you would like a 6th level spell prepared however, a good one is scatter:

Scatter – Cause up to five creatures you can see within 30 feet of you to be teleported to a point on the ground or floor that you can see within 120 feet. Unwilling creatures get a Wisdom saving throw. This is a great way to get the entire party out of dodge while simultaneously shunting enemies away. It can also shunt enemies into a wall of force or similar.

Level 13 Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 12)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Lucky. This gives us a way to reroll critical saves that we fail the first time. We can use this for important concentration saves, but we will likely be using this on failed mental saves. Keep in mind that rerolling a failed saving throw in which you have a high chance to succeed is more reliable than one in which you have a low chance to succeed.
Spell Changes: +planar binding, +summon greater demon.

Planar binding – At this level planar binding can last for 30 days with a 7th level slot. You can use the spell to bind a summon from another player, or an extraplanar monster the party deliberately knocked out instead of killed. At higher levels the duration lasts even longer and we can very quickly amass an army with enough downtime and castings of this spell. It can be difficult to bind your own summons with this spell as most summons last an hour and this spell takes an hour to cast, causing your summon to depart 6 seconds before you finish the casting. However, casting a summon spell into a bead from Arcane Abeyance and having a friend use it allows us to circumvent that timing issue quite handily. Talk with the rest of your table to make sure you aren’t capturing too many abyssal chickens and such, as an army of extraplanar allies can sometimes be too much for games.
Summon greater demon – Drop a greater demon right behind the enemies you’re fighting and make sure your allies keep the enemies between you and the demon you have summoned. Even if it makes its Charisma saving throw against you, as long as another non-demon is in between you and it by Rules as Written it’ll go after the other thing first. Immediately order it to give you its true name when you summon it for disadvantage on the saving throw. Arcane Abeyance allows us to combine this masterfully with the above planar binding.

Level 13 Strategy

We can now target 5 creatures using Emboldening Bond 5 times per long rest! Maybe your party has recruited a friendly Kobold that can now also benefit from this amazing feature.
Some options for summon greater demon that are especially interesting:

Barlgura – Barlgura are great for brawling scenarios due to their Reckless feature together with 3 attacks with Multiattack. In these scenarios, they mostly outclass the similar tanarukk. Remember, Multiattack works off turn if you Ready your action, it just doesn’t for opportunity attacks.
Babau – This bad boy can fit so many nice spells in it. The at will capability to cast dispel magic is bound to come up, and will be incredibly useful when it will.
Dybbuk – Exploration pillar? Begone! This demon gets dimension door at will with some extra goodies of fear and phantasmal force 3/day each. Dimension door at will is just incredible for moving the party quickly (which makes it a great planar binding option). Another thing of note is that the dybbuk loses its Magic Resistance trait while possessing a corpse, so keeping some bodies around could lengthen your control over it.
Vrock – You can access this with a 5th level casting of summon greater demon. In general this is not too interesting, but it can make for an incredible mount when combined with planar binding. “Nice vrock bro.”
Later we can summon a glabrezu or master of cruelties and planar bind those.

Level 14 Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 13)

Spell Changes: +forcecage, +simulacrum.

Forcecage – Create a box or cage of indestructible force which can’t be dispelled. This isn’t so much of a game changer as wall of force, since we already have it, but forcecage doesn’t use concentration and can hold slightly larger creatures, so it makes for an even more powerful option. Oh, and creatures who attempt to escape using teleportation or interplanar travel have to make a Charisma saving throw or waste the use of the spell or effect.
Simulacrum – For a bit of money, play as two characters. Seriously, that’s what this spell does. It’s a bit expensive, but you shouldn’t have a problem paying for the material components at this level—the average level 11-16 treasure hoard contains over 30,000 gp. This spell is one of the biggest reasons why Wizards dominate at high levels even compared to other casters. 

Level 14 Strategy

Congratulations, you are now playing two characters. Take some time to think of spell combinations that you can use with your simulacrum and a preparation list for it which could include spells that you don’t prepare. One idea you can immediately tinker with is doubling up on Arcane Abeyance to concentrate on up to 4 spells at once.
Note that the simulacrum does not have to be a copy of you, so if your party has another powerful spellcaster ally, you can cast this on them instead so the simulacrum can have its full spell slots available. A Warlock ally is an interesting candidate, as their simulacrum can regain Mystic Arcanum uses after a long rest.
If money is a limiting factor, you should use your own spell slots before using your simulacrum’s, since theirs don’t recharge. However, if you’re flush with gold (which you should be) or your simulacrum is low on hit points, you should use their resources before your own since they might be destroyed.
Your resource management should be focused around your wall of force and forcecage slots. It is often worth several lower level castings to save a wall of force.

Level 15 Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 14)

Convergent Future (Chronurgy Magic feature) – This feature basically allows you to make someone roll one above what they needed to succeed, or one below what they needed to fail on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw. By itself, this is an incredibly potent ability with a rather limiting cost. Guarantee spells with a saving throw like planar binding and magic jar to work, or save allies from dangerous enemy effects.
Of course there are ways to decrease the cost; you can use one of the useful items in our non magical items guide, your simulacrum can use this feature in your place, who can also rest to recover from exhaustion, or you take on a useful form using magic jar that counters the downsides. We will discuss that latter option at level 18, where we get to cast true polymorph to pick and choose the ideal forms ourselves.
As a final note: it is unclear what is meant with “the number rolled.” It could mean either one of the check total, or the die face. If it is the latter, you can potentially force critical hits, if it is the former, this is not the case. Make sure to clear this up at your table.
Spell Changes: +mirage arcane, +plane shift.

Mirage arcane – This is a truly insanely potent spell, because the illusions it creates is interacted with physically, and there is no restriction on the kind of interactions. Lower level illusions such as major image specify that the illusions can’t do damage, while this limit is removed on mirage arcane, and in fact, Jeremy Crawford has confirmed the design intent that this spell can have real, physical, and even lethal effects. With a range of sight and an affected area of a mile, you can use this spell to create a complex net of adamantine walls, pitfalls hundreds of feet deep, lava pools, difficult terrain, and other creative uses to absolutely demolish any tactical advantage your enemies might have. It even works on enemies with Truesight! This lasts for 10 days, but feel free to prepare it on adventuring days as well. We discuss some other questions on this spell that may arise at your table in this article.
Plane shift – Take your party to a general location of your choice on another plane (which requires a tuning fork attuned to that plane, whatever that means). You could also try to send an enemy to another plane, but that shouldn’t be your primary use of this spell. This spell serves as both an escape plan for the party and a way of getting around. It’s better than teleport because it doesn’t have a chance of failure, and you can use it to go somewhere on the plane that you’re on by entering the extradimensional space of a rope trick first, as you are no longer on the same plane.

Level 16 Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 15)

Spell Changes: +antipathy/sympathy, +demiplane.

Antipathy/sympathy – Use antipathy to make anyone who carries the item you cast it on into walking control machines, making creatures of a certain type have to succeed on a Wisdom save once they get within 60 feet or be frightened of the target and as such be unable to approach any further, which spells doom for most creatures. Its long duration means you can have multiple castings for different creature types stocked up. 
Demiplane – It’s like a bag of holding, but large enough for furniture, a house, or a dragon’s hoard. This is a premier spot to put glyphs from glyph of warding, which we pick up next level, or bound creatures from planar binding.

Level 16 Strategy

Wow! We are getting close to becoming godlike. Here is another spell of interest:
Clone – This is not a spell the psionics would tell you about. You can help to prevent not only your own death, but the entire party’s to boot. This is truly a “TPK killer” when you can cast it on all your fellow party members, and brings them all one step closer to immortality, as a bonus. Your personal demiplane is one of the most secure places to store your clones.

While we don’t particularly rave about time ravage, there is some tech worthy of noting that may or may not work at your table:

Level 17 Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 16)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Alert. Another hefty initiative boost, that we can use to better place some of our spells before enemies scatter out. Going first is big for any controller, because it’s often the difference between a monster getting 1 turn where they can be effective and 0 turns. Surprise is also a big party killer, so having the controller immune to that is great. Unseen attackers not getting advantage is also another nice benefit. 
Spell Changes: +mind blank, +glyph of warding.

Glyph of warding – The main use of this spell is placing them at strategic locations, such as inside portable spaces like a Genie’s Vessel, bag of holding or (our) demiplane spell. Upon triggering the glyph, you can then activate the spell(s) and give you or your allies a desired spell effect without using any spell slot or concentration. You can even cast demiplane in combat to trigger these spells if this leads to an easier fight. 
Mind blank – This is a 24 hour buff: we can cast it at the end of any day when we haven’t used our 8th level slot to get some protection against some fairly nasty things throughout the next day, getting the slot back in the morning for an extra forcecage. Keep in mind that it makes you immune to the likes of gift of alacrity, a divination spell, so weigh your options.

Level 17 Strategy

Our proficiency bonus gets increased for the last time. Rejoice, for we can now use Emboldening Bond 6 times and target 6 creatures each time!
While the rules are not clear on the subject, Jeremy Crawford has stated that if you are on two different planes of existence, you are infinitely far away from each other so we cannot easily “bring” most spells (besides applied buffs) from glyph of warding over from the prior mentioned spaces, but spells with a range of sight, e.g. mirage arcane work regardless of the interpretation of distance. Check with your table and see what spells you have gathered by now that you can make use of.

Level 18 Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 17)

Spell Changes: +true polymorph, +wish.

True polymorph – Turn a creature into another creature, a creature into an object, or an object or into a creature, potentially indefinitely. Many people think wish is the best spell in the game, but true polymorph gives it a run for its money.
Wish – This lets us cast any spell, on any list, of 8th level or lower, with a single action and no material component cost. Using wish to cast simulacrum saves you 12 hours and 1500gp, and that’s just the start of what you might use this for. However, unless the campaign is about to end, don’t fall into the trap of trying to use this for anything other than casting other spells, as few if any uses are worth the 1 in 3 chance that you give up the use of this spell forever. We have a spell spotlight on this here.

Level 18 Strategy

This is it! You’ve won D&D. You have a new ultimate resource, bigger and badder than all the ones you’ve had previously, which is your 9th level slot. By this point you can cast spells like wall of force relatively freely and throw out fireballs with abandon.
By this point, the resource management game is almost completely focused on your high level slots, which can evoke effects without saving throws. Think carefully before committing to a forcecage.
A world of options has now opened up to you with true polymorph. First of all, there is the option to obviously turn you, your simulacrum, or your friends into creatures. It is time to very carefully convince your teammates about the wonders of new forms. You should be trying to turn creatures into these to magic jar them, to retain your class features. Here are just some prominent options:

Duergar Despot – This humanoid’s benefits include something very important to us: immunity to the exhaustion condition. This allows us to use Convergent Future as much as our heart desires when we magic jar into it. It also has a nice natural AC of 21, proficiency in Constitution and Wisdom saving throws, innate spellcasting which includes counterspell, Magic Resistance, and a powerful multiattack. Keep in mind that it leads to a hefty decrease in your Dexterity, but this is a small price to pay.
Adult Silver Dragon – Legendary Resistances, nice proficiencies, great flight, breath weapons, Frightful Presence, and Change Shape! Notably, Change Shape grants flexible access to humanoid stat blocks like the duergar despot. This is a fantastic option for an ally or your own jarred body. 
Planetar – Solid actions, proficiencies, flight, half decent Innate Spellcasting, and immunity to exhaustion. Pretty good! We’ll get into more things you can do with this lad in the future.
Draconic Shard – The big part of this creature is its ability to inhabit objects, buff the creature wielding that object, and cast telekinesis at will. It otherwise shares some of its abilities with other dragons, like a breath-esque ability and flight. Overall a great way to hide a Huge creature until you have space for it to use its fullest potential while still having it contribute the rest of the time. 
Lesser Star Spawn Emissary – Not necessarily the strongest creature in the list, but it indirectly allows you to get a CR 21 creature, a greater star spawn emissary, to, for example, true polymorph. This creature is CR 19, so keep that in mind (you might need to wait with your endeavors).  
Sibriex – A lovely looking creature with Innate Spellcasting, Legendary Resistance, Magic Resistance, Truesight, and decent actions.

Besides this, there are plenty of other options. You can combine it with planar binding to give you custom made, ever expanding armies. You can use it to turn a rock into a CR 9 creature, like a Diviner with 8th level spells. Another option is to make someone or something with proficiency in Arcana scribe scrolls for you while you are busy adventuring.

Magic jar, true polymorph, and simulacrum are all incredible beasts that require their own article(s) to be properly explained, so stay tuned. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Level 19 Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 18)

Spell Mastery – silvery barbs, fortune’s favor. Here you get to choose a 1st level spell and a 2nd level spell to be able to cast at will, which you can switch with 8 hours of downtime. For your 1st level pick, we recommend silvery barbs, as it is more spammable than shield because we can use it proactively. However, if you have found some way to make yourself immune to the exhaustion condition, silvery barbs is a direct downgrade to Convergent Future, so look at something like shield instead. For your 2nd level pick, we recommend fortune’s favor, which we are picking up right at this level. We’ll explain the power of fortune’s favor at will right below.
Spell Changes: +dark star, +fortune’s favor.

Dark star – This spell works nicely as a disruptive area of effect, since the area becomes difficult terrain, it blocks sight and can stop spells from being cast with verbal components. It has both a huge radius and a big range, and damages anyone inside. This will ruin an enemy mage’s day, and can be quite a good combination with someone casting forcecage or wall of force to microwave them, as a lot of ways they could otherwise teleport out rely on spells they can no longer use (either because of the sight requirement, or verbal components). Additionally, casters won’t be able to cast dispel magic to dispel dark star from within, as it also relies on verbal components.
Fortune’s favor – With the ability to cast this at will with Spell Mastery and our bounds of wealth from Tier 3 and Tier 4 treasure hoards we can give all our party members “Lucky-like” points limited only by time (money should no longer be an issue). This stacks similarly to death ward described in our Death Warden build. Keep in mind a similar interaction with mind blank as gift of alacrity.

Level 19 Strategy

Fortune’s favor reinforces our dominion over probability itself, introducing another layer of protection to our entire party’s rolls. While forcecage is still absolutely worth casting with 7th, 8th, or even 9th level slots, dark star is another big gun option to choose from that can devastate medium to large scale battles.  
Picking silvery barbs as our Spell Mastery provides benefit to resource conservation in the long run, since we can use silvery barbs liberally in an average encounter to speed up play and increase the value of our lower level spell slots. However, in a particularly deadly fight, your reaction is often reserved for more impactful options like Convergent Future or counterspell.

Level 20 Wizard (Cleric 1/Wizard 19)

Ability Score Improvement – +2 Int. It’s time to get our Intelligence up to 20 and max our spell save DC, and get an additional spell we can prepare, yay!
Spell Changes: +foresight, +maze.

Foresight – Gain advantage on everything for eight hours. This “stacks” with fortune’s favor that we picked up last level, as that spell’s effect doesn’t count as advantage on a roll! This is an excellent rest cast, so you shouldn’t feel bad about leaving 9th level slots unused. We don’t actually prepare this as we expect that wish and true polymorph will usually be enough for any given day, but you might run out of targets for true polymorph and have the desire to swap it out. If you think there is another spell that will help you more now, feel free to pick it up instead.
Maze – Send a target to an extradimensional maze with no saving throw. Attempting to return requires an action and a DC 20 Intelligence check. This is for those very special creatures who need to be put in time-out and can’t be trapped in a wall of force or forcecage. This is also another spell we can use in conjunction with a bead of Mordenkainen’s private sanctum: When maze ends, their target is returned to the space they left or, if it is occupied, in the nearest unoccupied space. If at that point in time the ability to travel to that spot is no longer available for them due to Mordenkainen’s private sanctum, they would be stuck in another plane if they lack planar travel options. 

Level 20 Strategy

Our strategy hasn’t changed much, but we can now deal with an even wider array of threats.
To recap, now that we are at the end of our progression, we have basically everything an archmage could ever want and we are as close to the abilities of Mystra as one could get.
We have excellent defenses, with a base armor class of 19 (or higher with potentially acquired forms), shield, absorb elements, some tail protection options provided by Lucky, Alert, Chronal Shift, Convergent Future, and silvery barbs and fortune’s favor at will. The initiative bonuses from Alert, Temporal Awareness, and gift of alacrity ensure that we and our party can always have the first move. Convergent Future can be used both offensively and defensively to great effect. Our other offense and control includes spells like web, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, wall of force, synaptic static, forcecage, dark star, and maze. We can even use Arcane Abeyance to double up on these or other spells like Mordenkainen’s private sanctum! Antipathy/sympathy is an amazing cheat code whenever it is applicable.
We have many miscellaneous tools that allow us to deal with a multitude of problems that might come up during adventuring. Ritual casting will never stop coming up. Locate object, immovable object, rope trick, dimension door, mirage arcane, and plane shift are spells that can get you and your party out of many troublesome situations. 
Whether it be during rest casting or downtime, we have a myriad of ways to further maximize our party’s capabilities. Glyph of warding, planar binding, contingency, magic jar, mind blank, demiplane, and wish are some of the tools that will contribute to our boundless expansion of power.

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