Merlee

Jdaster and I (imglower) manually tested the properties of Merlee the wizard in Paper Mario today (2/8/2020).
- When you first purchase a spell it can be any of the 4 spell types (+3 ATK, +3 DEF, x2 EXP, or x2 Coins).
- 50 coins = 20 spells; 20 coins = 10 spells; 5 coins = 5 spells.
- When you first purchase a spell of any cost (50, 20, or 5), the amount of turns before the spell activates always ranges from 1 to 3.
- When "turns left until spell activates" counter goes to 0, the first curse is activated and the spell count total is dropped by one (If you had 20 spells, it goes to 19). After the curse is activated, any of the 4 spell types will be randomly chosen, and the "turns left until spell activates" counter is randomly set to a value between 5 and 15.
Refilling the spell count:
- If you purchase a curse, it keeps the number of the highest amount of spell counts left. Purchasing the spell count does however change both the current spell effect and amount of turns left with a value between 1 and 3 based on the RNG value.
Example 1: If you have 7 curses left and buy the 5 coin curse, it will keep the count of 7.
Example 2: If you you have 10 spells left and then purchase a 50 coin curse, the amount of curses will be set to 20 instead of 10.
Exploits:
- If you have a "turns left until spell activates" counter value that is above 3, you can purchase the 5 coin curse to drop that value to 1 2 or 3, speeding up the process of getting a curse, at the cost of it being randomized.
- The "turns left until spell activates" counter ticks down by 1 per turn at the beginning of a turn, but if the player first strikes an enemy (Jump, Hammer or partner attacks work, but not Dizzy Attack) it will tick down an additional time (Only if the spell curse is set to Coins, or EXP) (resulting 2 taken away instead of 1). Running away preserves the turn count as is. This means that if the battle started with 4 turns until the spell is activated, and then it ticks to 2 during the battle, the value of 2 is stored instead of 4.
- On the turn the count reaches 0, the number of remaining curses ticks down, and the effect of the current curse is stored until it can activate (Mario's next attack for ATK, the enemies' next turn for DEF, end of battle for EXP or Coins). If a curse effect was already stored, it is overwritten, and the stored curse effect is lost if you run away (or if it otherwise never has the chance to occur that battle, such as killing all the enemies before their next turn on a DEF curse).
- At the start of the next battle after the curse is used, the game chooses any of the four spell types and turn count (between 5-15 inclusive) at random. If your previous curse was an ATK or DEF curse, this can occur on the next turn of the same battle if you get to it; otherwise, it will occur on the first turn of the following fight (after the First Strike, if applicable).