Pay-to-play Magic training

Effective ways of training magic are typically mundane and usually involve repetitive clicking. However, many players find achieving the appropriate levels for teleports, high-level jewelry enchantments, combat spells, and improved magic defences well worth the time and monetary investment. Magic is relatively easy to train, but can be time consuming and expensive.

Level 1 - 13
Cast the basic strike spells on monsters such as goblins, cows, and other weak creatures. You can also head to the Edgeville Monastary to train on Monks, as they heal themselves and do negligible damage.

Alternatively, 'splashing' Confuse or Weaken (-65 or less magic bonus) can be an effective option. This allows the spell to be cast repetitively without having to wait for the draining effect inflicted on the enemy to wear off. One recommended target for this strategy is the Zamorak mage behind the Varrock castle's staircase.

Players can complete the Imp Catcher and Witch's Potion quests for a total reward of 1,200 Magic experience. This allows players to quickly reach level 10 Magic without spending coins on runes.

Level 13 - 17
If currency is an issue, using Fire Strike on monsters is an effective training method. Make sure to equip either a fire or air staff. Good targets are anything that drop coins or advance a slayer task.

Alternatively, if wealth is not an issue, a player can simply use the best available strike, bolt, or blast spell.

Good options for training include:
 * Flesh Crawlers and Chaos Druids which commonly drop herbs.
 * Hill Giants which drop big bones and limpwurt roots, and are also able to be attacked from safe spots.
 * Lesser Demon in Wizard's Tower which drops runes and other valuables. Note: telekinetic grab is required to collect the drops.

Level 27+ (Possibly Profitable)
Depending on whether or not the prices are agreeable, a player can use Enchant Level 2 Jewellery to make money. When they reach level 27 magic, one can purchase an equal amount of Emerald Rings and Cosmic Runes(as well as a Staff of Air or 3 Air Runes, and use the spell on an emerald ring to make a Ring of Dueling(8). These can later be resold for a profit. A typical inventory would consist of the player's stack of cosmic runes, and 27 emerald rings (with a Staff of Air equipped). Although it is physically impossible to tell the difference between the two rings, a player can withdraw 27 cosmic runes from their bank (per inventory) to know that they have enchanted every ring.

NOTE: The prices of Emerald rings and Cosmic Runes change every day, as well as the Ring of Dueling. Check the Grand Exchange prices to make sure you will at least break even with this method.

Experience per hour can reach 55,000 if the player is consistent.

Profit per hour depends on the prices of the items.

Level 19 - 45/55 (Cheap method)
Starting at level 19, one could repeatedly 'splash' Curse to gain Magic experience. Note: If Curse lands on an enemy, it cannot be recast on that enemy until the effects wear off. 'Splashing' bypasses this timer, as the spell never landed on the enemy in the first place. Recommended equipment includes Staff of Earth (or alternatively a Mud battlestaff) with armour that provides negative magic bonuses (ex. Iron armour or Dragonhide, and metal shoes). A magic bonus of -65 or lower is strongly recommended. Good spots to train with Curse include the skeletons at level 1 Wilderness (you could safespot using the wilderness ditch), the caged Monk of Zamorak at Varrock Palace (not recommended for higher levels), or the caged Lesser Demon inside Wizard's Tower (best option due to its high magic defence and drops).

Each spell yields 29 experience; around 33,000 experience per hour if clicked excessively.

Level 43+ (Alternative)
Use Superheat Item to create steel bars. Selling the bars will result in at least a 100gp loss. This is a favourable option if you need to also train your Smithing skill.

Level 45 - 55 (Expensive method)
Equip a Staff of Air and hold about 1,895 law runes, then repeatedly cast Camelot teleport. Players receive 55.5 experience per cast, so assuming law runes cost 300 coins each, the price per experience point is approximately 5.4 coins. This will give you about 70,000 experience per hour.

Level 55+
Cast High Level Alchemy on various items for 65 Magic experience per cast. Popular items include yew longbows, maple longbows, rune daggers, and others. It is common to lose money casting High Level Alchemy for the purpose of increasing experience, but astute players may find profit in purchasing and alchemizing some items.

One may also consider participating in the Alchemist's room in the Mage Training Arena. Players receive bonus experience and are given a chance of negating rune costs when alchemizing certain items in the arena, although often with little monetary gain.

Level 70+
Level 70 Magic introduces one of the most expensive and fast Magic training methods in the game: ice bursting skeletal monkeys in the Ape Atoll dungeon. Although this method is expensive, it offers very high experience per hour for both Magic and Hitpoints. Players can also use this method in Pest Control, as of 18 December 2014, Pest Control gives full experience from casting spells.

Tan Leather Alternatively, players that have access to the lunar spellbook and also completed Fremennik Diary Hard (Also requires Easy and Medium as well) can use Tan Leather that grants 81 experience points per cast and can tan up to 5 leather. It is suggested to have 25 spaces open for the leather, 2 for the runes, and have any item to act as a filler to fill up the last inventory slot to prevent the extra loss of gold from runes (Take a look at the image to see how it is set up). With this technique, it is possible that the player can gain very small profit if using dragonhide to tan. It is recommend to be at the Grand Exchange while doing this technique to constantly buy leather and to sell them. This technique can gain over 80k per hour or even higher if focused.

Stun-alching
At level 80 Magic, Stun-alching becomes available, but does cost much more than high alchemy which is generally free or low loss. The player is to cast High Alchemy, then cast Stun on an NPC, and repeat until desired. For this, you'll want a mud staff (provides free earth/water runes), and find a suitable NPC to safespot. Wear magic attack bonus reducing gear, in order to be able to cast stun and high alchemy at a 1:1 ratio. Experiences rates of 150k+ per hour are possible.

String jewellery
Alternatively, players who have access to the lunar spellbook can cast String Jewellery. The spell takes 1.8 seconds per amulet strung, or 48.6 seconds for an inventory, and gives 4 crafting experience and 83 magic experience per amulet. Once clicked, it will string each amulet one by one in your inventory, giving you experience for each amulet strung. Using a mud battlestaff is recommended.

Experience rates peak up to 130,000 magic (along with 6,265 crafting) experience per hour.

Level 94+
At level 94, players can cast Ice Barrage on skeletal monkeys at Ape Atoll, similar to ice bursting them. This is the fastest possible Magic experience in the game but even wealthy players may choose to continue using Ice Burst after 94 Magic due to the high expense of Ice Barrage.

Splashing
A very popular way to train Magic is by 'Splashing'. Due to this method being 100% AFK, some people may consider it cheating; however, it is not against the game rules. To start splashing, one needs at least -65 Magic attack, and a weak opponent that can't be interacted with by other players (such as any NPC that can be pickpocketed, or rats which can be killed by cats). Simply bring enough runes, turn auto cast and auto retaliate on, then go AFK.

This can be a cheap and effective way of training magic through low levels because xp rates are based off of the spell you cast rather than armor/damage bonuses and 6 hours of training with strike spells typically costs less than 40k. However, its effectiveness quickly dimishes once higher level spells are used as just a single hour of training bolt spells can cost over 100k (though the xp rate is not even doubled). It's worth noting that you get no HP experience for casting these spells since you do no damage.

Recently, Jagex changed the way splashing works, and now invisible random events will interrupt combat after being AFK for a few minutes. To avoid this, enter a PvP world, the Nightmare Zone, or Clan wars.

To obtain -65 magic attack, you need to equip any full set of melee armor(full helm, platebody, plateskirt/legs, kiteshield), though higher defence armor would be better to minimize damage taken. You also need metal boots or snakeskin boots and green d'hide vambraces. Some special armor like a Fighter torso are even better to use. If using PvP worlds, make sure that your armor does not protect over your Smoke staff.

You also need to turn off accept aid, as players can interrupt you if you have it on.

With the new update players splashing via a PvP world can be interrupted during combat by a PKer using a bond, though if the player splashing is not AFK, they can accept the bond if they're quick enough and teleport to safety (Bond Poaching). it is still highly recommended that if you are splashing in a PvP world that you find a remote place where PKers are unlikely to find you.

You can use an Air or Fire staff, but using a Smoke battlestaff would be best since it provides both runes, but it has a high price (as of December 2014 about 4M gp). You also need around 7.2K runes. You can only cast 7.2k spells in 6 hours, at which time your account will automatically be logged out regardless of combat. It is therefore not recommended to bring additional runes to a PvP world in the event that you die.

Best places to train would be in NMZ on a weak boss such as the Witch's Experiment, or on the Gnome inside the gnome stronghold bank near the agility course and slayer cave. PVP worlds can also be used, but this can be dangerous. There are also some quest locations where there are no randoms. You can also splash on other splashers inside clan wars.

Exp rates and gp/xp with smoke battlestaff (using average sell prices on Zybez, as of 20 December 2014):

Fire strike - 0.4 gp/xp, at ~4 gp per cast. 13.9k xp per hour

Fire bolt - 4.6 gp/xp at ~100 gp per cast. 27k xp per hour

Fire blast - 6.5 gp/xp at ~225 gp per cast. 41.3k xp per hour

Fire wave - 7.1 gp/xp at ~300 gp per cast. 50.7k xp per hour