The Power of MAGIC! [Basic - Advanced Grimoire Guide]

What's Grimoire? How do I get it? How will it help me get cookies?
and many more questions about Grimoire will be answered in this guide for beginners and advanced players!

Introduction

Before I start the guide, I would like to thank The Cookie Clicker Wiki[cookieclicker.fandom.com] and The Official Cookie Clicker Discord[discord.gg] with most of the information in this guide!

This Steam guide is really just a way for new players (and advance players who have not dwell into guides) to find information about Grimoire! Be it how to get started with magic or abusing the powerful spells the game lets you use, this guide will have lots about it!


Edit: I have yet to make an new category for the new building ability (+ the small amount from Javascript's ability) for the dragon yet, but honestly you shouldnt really use it just for grimoire since it aint too worth it for the higher chance of backfiring UNLESS you want to change the cycle for Force the Hand of Fate, thats bout it.

What is Grimoire

Grimoire is one of four unlockable Mini-games in Cookie Clicker.

It allows you to cast 9 different types of spells, ones that can give you cookies, give you golden cookies, decrease upgrade costs and more!

How to Unlock Grimoire

Grimoire can be unlocked by spending 1 sugar lump on Wizard Towers.

Sugar lumps will appear after baking 1 billion cookies.

You should always spend your first sugar lump on your Wizard Towers when possible, as it allows you to start doing "Combos" (More about combos will appear later on in this guide)

Magic and Magic Regeneration

Before we get into spells, we need to know about Magic and Magic Regeneration.



Maximum Magic can be increased by buying more Wizard Towers, however the cost of spells will increase along side it.


(1 Wizard Tower compared to 100 Wizard Towers)



Magic Regeneration is determined by the amount of Wizard Towers you have too.
The closer the magic is to the Maximum Magic, the faster the Magic regenerates.



You might have already seen it, but it is possible to refill 100 Magic by pressing the sugar lump icon next to the magic bar and spending 1 sugar lump. You would only do this for "Quad Casting".

Spells

Spell	Name	Effect	Backfire	Should you use this?
	Conjure Baked Goods	Summon half an hour worth of your CpS, capped at 15% of your cookies owned.	Trigger a 15-minute clot and lose 15 minutes of CpS.	Not really, is only useful in Early Game when you cannot cast Force the Hand of Fate and is only okay after the end of a "Combo" , but the magic is much better spent on Force the Hand of Fate when you can already do "Combos"
	Force the Hand of Fate	Summons a random golden cookie . Each existing golden cookie makes this spell +15% more likely to backfire.	Summons an unlucky wrath cookie .	Yes! This spell is the main way to really start doing "Combos" . Incredibly powerful even during Endgame, and even if you do summon a Wrath Cookie , you can simply, just not click it.
	Stretch Time	All active buffs gain 10% more time (up to 5 more minutes).	All active buffs are shortened by 20% (up to 10 minutes shorter).	no. Decent for "finisher combos" if you're "scumming" .
	Spontaneous Edifice	The spell picks a random building you could afford if you had twice your current cookies, and gives it to you for free . The building selected must be under 400, and cannot be your most-built one (unless it is your only one).	Lose a random building.	UNLESS YOU'RE DOING A NO ASCENSION RUN , no . Considering you can only use this during midgame due to it's high cost, and even then, it's much more efficient to do a "combo" instead. Doesn't even work if all your buildings are over 400! Terrible!
	Haggler's Charm	Upgrades are 2% cheaper for 1 minute.	Upgrades are 2% more expensive for an hour.	Sure, if you're close to getting an upgrade like a kitten or a cursor upgrade, casting this definitely helps! (also the cheapest spell excluding Gambler's Fever Dream , so you can spam this if you're going for casting achievements with no big risks)
	Summon Crafty Pixies	Buildings are 2% cheaper for 1 minute.	Buildings are 2% more expensive for an hour.	Sure, similar to Haggler's Charm , casting this can be useful to get the next new building or the last few cursors, though it loses value during late game, as building costs are simply too high.
	Gambler's Fever Dream	Cast a random spell at half the magic cost , with twice the chance of backfiring.	-	Only if you're getting the casting achievements OR taking advantage of it's casting mechanic with Force the Hand of Fate (Scrying)
	Resurrect Abomination	Instantly summon a wrinkler if conditions are fulfilled.	Pop one of your wrinklers.	Useful to determine if the next cast is a Backfire or not if Grandmapocalypse is inactive. For it's actual use? Never, if you're trying to get wrinkers, it's best to just continue waiting than to risk one of your existing wrinklers to pop. (If you don't have any it can be okay? Still not worth the magic and it's easier to get the first wrinkler just by waiting)
	Diminish Ineptitude	Spells backfire 10 times less for the next 5 minutes.	Spells backfire 5 times more for the next 10 minutes.	Unless you're doing tryhard strats, not really, can help if you don't want an hour's debuff from Haggler's Charm/Summon Crafty Pixies (though those can be removed by casting a successful cast of it again). Unfortunately, does not work with Gambler's Fever Dream .

Combos

With magic by your side, you now have the power to do COMBOS. Combos are made with multiple types of frenzies/buffs that accumulate days, weeks or even months worth of cookies in just a few minutes!

Simple combos usually consists of 2 buffs, examples are "Frenzy + Clicking Frenzy" and "Frenzy + Elder Frenzy".
Just wait till you have a Frenzy (or Elder Frenzy) and Cast FtHoF, golden cookies spawned by the spell have a higher chance to be a Clicking Frenzy than normal golden cookies.

Note: It is important to have Godzamok on the Diamond slot in the Pantheon, so that you can sell buildings to gain another buff, increasing cookie gain!

And if you're in Midgame - Lategame, you could wait for a Frenzy + Building Frenzy before using FtHoF! Remember, the more buffs, the more cookies!

Another method is to take advantage of the way the game manages it's Magic, by "Dual Casting".

"Dual Casting" can be done by casting "Force the Hand of Fate" at a high magic cost and selling Wizard Towers to bring "Force the Hand of Fate's" cost down to the point where you can cast it again.


And with this knowledge, you can even do "Quad Casting", by re-buying the Wizard Towers back and spending 1 sugar lump to do another Dual Cast.

Optimal amounts for Dual Casting are 321 into 21 as you only need to sell 100s 3 times OR 537 into 37 as this has more Wizards to slightly boost cookies per second.

Scrying Part 1

What's Scrying?

To put it in simple terms, casting "Gambler's Fever Dream" for ANY SPELL will guarantee the next normal casting of the same spell, will have the same effect.

Example:

You have casted Gambler's Fever Dream, it's outcome was "Force the Hand of Fate". Force the Hand of Fate's outcome was Clicking Frenzy.

The next NORMAL cast of Force the Hand of Fate is a GUARANTEED Clicking Frenzy.

This means you can wait for the perfect time (such as a double Building Frenzy + Frenzy) and have a Clicking Frenzy to pop.

HOWEVER, this effect will disappear if:
Seasons are changed
Ascending
Casting a different spell

Scrying Part 2

What's this? You're scrying but getting a guaranteed Elder Frenzy takes far too much time and luck?

...well, what if there's a way to get one A WHOLE LOT FASTER?

But before I explain that, I'd need to explain another obscure mechanic with "building levels".

As you know, buildings can level up using sugar lumps, 1 lump for the first level and scaling by 1 more for each consecutive level. However, certain buildings have unique "abilities" when leveled up, such as: Farms increasing Garden plot size, Banks being able to change Stock Market's resting value. Wizard Towers on the other hand gets 1 Wizard Tower worth of magic when their building level increase.

With this knowledge, you can now do "Elder Scrying"! That is to cast Gambler's Fever Dream with 1 Wizard Tower right after you ascend, INSTANTLY. That means, you can cycle Gambler's Fever Dream without needing to wait for your magic meter to regenerate.

In simple terms, you can get "Elder Frenzy" with level 2 Wizard Towers incredibly quickly (well it still might take a few hours but its better than weeks of spamming spells!)

Steps:

1. Have level 2 Wizard Towers
   
2. Cast Gambler's Fever Dream and hope for an Elder Frenzy
   
3. Didn't get one? Ascend and try again until you do get one!

Note: You should probably only do this when you're close to ascending to a higher prestige level or not working on other minigames like Garden or Stock Market. Pressing the Escape key can also skip the cookie cracking animation too! And this is the fastest way to get the Grimoire achievements! (Though at this point, you've probably gotten all of them)


For extremely advanced players who's done these already to the point that simple combos like Frenzy + Building Frenzy + Clicking Frenzy doesn't give much anymore, I highly suggest reading these combo guides! They're a lot harder to set up and needs more micro-management, but gives months or even years of cookies.

Advanced Combo Guide by Fillex
https://pastebin.com/dbVyTDCi

Endgame Combo Guide by Taru
https://pastebin.com/bMHEJ3R9

Achievements

Grimoire only has 3 achievements obtainable, all three are accumulative and stays between ascensions, you shouldn't worry about them as they'll come by when you're playing the game normally, but if you want to rush them, casting Haggler's Charm or Gambler's Fever Dream is a fast way to do so if you're not bothering with doing "combos".

Achievement	Name	Objective
	Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo	Cast 9 spells.
	I'm the wiz	Cast 99 spells.
	A wizard is you	Cast 999 spells.

End

And that's it! Grimoire isn't too complex or in-depth as Garden or Stock Market, but it definitely makes the game a lot more strategic with combos.

Thank you for checking out this guide, if you have other suggestions, please do comment them down!

Some guides for players if you haven't seen yet:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2591407770

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2592504937

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2591569046

[red_uwu]

@rosie There is! people usually worry more about the certain points for double casting FTHOF (which certain people in the community already made some level up stages for this: https://imgur.com/a/DHasY9j )

I'm not exactly sure about the calculations on the spell scaling depending on wizard buildings but if you follow those number of wizard buildings in the link you should be doing the most optimal set up. If you want more info i'd definitely suggest checking the cookie clicker discord! much smarter people are there.

Though if you want faster regen, smaller max magic will do, which means less buildings.

[Puppyg1rl Hyp3rp0p G4m1ng ♡]

One thing I've never really been sure about with the grimoire is if there are ever any diminishing returns for getting more wizard towers? Like will there ever be a point where the increased cost of a spell like force the hand of fate will outpace the increase mana pool and take longer to regen then if you just had less wizard towers?

[Petit_burger86]

did it change? it doesn't look the same for me

[Nyan Cat]

supreme intellect is quite relevant, when youre scrying for an elder frenzy (for grail) you want to check if itll backfire via ra, and if that says itll be a success, you would want to check with SI, which will just overall increase the amount of grail attempts you can do

[red_uwu]

oh, the links seem to be fine to me, might be you then

[red_uwu]

aha, the original creators of those pastebins probably made new ones cuz of the update, you can try to join the official cookie clicker discord if you need help on those though!

[Samiversal]

definitely needs will need an update after everything that just dropped. Also the old pastebins linked in the guide seem to not work well unless I am doing something wrong, at least with dual/quad casting.

[red_uwu]

major update dropped, guess ill need to update my guide soon!

[awesome cat-bird hybrid]

kek, tossing you some points

[red_uwu]

thank you! and yeah! Elder Scrying is crazy efficient (and doesn't even involve any savescumming tech too!)