What Earthen Grasp offers up is the option to take the restraining action on subsequent turns with the fist, conceivably moving from creature to creature until all your foes are dead. This can represent restraining four or more creatures in a single encounter as needed, making it flexible. It doesn’t care about size, creature type, or anything else.

The absolute best case scenario with Flame Arrows is getting all 12d6 damage with a single 3rd level slot. In the upper tiers of play, this can be as few as two or three rounds. This can leave it in a space where you don’t even feel like it's that much of a burden on your concentration, and more so a prep spell for the first round or two of combat.

Erupting Earth is a great excuse to bust out your d12; it can do enough damage, and has an effect you’ll be glad you prepared now and then.

Earthbind is simple, yet effective. The higher level you get, the easier this will slot onto your sheet. Sorcerers can struggle to find room on their known spell list for these kinds of niche effects, and Warlocks outright should never use Earthbind with their pact magic slots.

Animal Friendship isn’t ever something you’ll need. This is a spell for the druids out there who want to befriend every animal in the forest, and take it primarily as a flavor option. It can act as a recruitment tool, or can occasionally sway an animal to act a certain way for you, but at the end of the day a spell slot isn’t worth what Animal Handling checks already can do no problem.

Alter Self is lying to you. It's not one spell, but three. Each is kind of wildly different from the other, and while I think all of them would work just fine as 1st level effects, having them packaged together doesn’t really matter when only one of the options is what you’ll realistically want from it.

Alarm is a low cost, decent utility option. This is a spell classic dungeoneers know and love, but also can be a tool for the creative schemere to set some grand plans in motion. You probably won’t ever NEED Alarm; taking shifts watching over the campsite over a long rest will cover the basics of this.

Minimum damage is a massive element of 5e combat I think people should consider more often when building characters. When you’re taking your turn casting spells or smacking people around, knowing the bare minimum of possible outcomes can be a useful tool when deciding what is tactically your best bet. This is why so many cantrips feel horrendous to use; Acid Splash is no exception.

Of all the traps DMs have at their disposal, by far most flexible is Glyph of Warding. If player’s aren’t actively investigating for traps, one encounter with a Glyph of Warding and they’ll never make that mistake again.

At minimum, Hypnotic Pattern is a fine area of effect save or die. At its best, it's giving you a way to pick off a group of creatures one at a time. At its worst, it's eating a pair of lackey’s actions, and doing little to nothing else. You won’t ever be bummed out to have Hypnotic Pattern on your sheet.

Arcane Eye is a great spell to have at your wizard’s spellcasting disposal If you are interested in scouting, espionage and have a great imagination. It’s arguably the best 4th level Divination spell that Wizards have access to, Divination and Locate Creature included.

When you’re preparing healing magic, you’re often wanting to prepare the least amount necessary, and upgrading dice for reduced range and inflexible casting makes Mass Cure Wounds worse than Mass Healing Word in the majority of cases.

Greater Restoration is a legacy spell when spells had duality and multiple tiers of power. It’s been grandfathered into the game as a means of empowering your character using Lesser Restoration by growing it into Greater Restoration.

Flame Strike is the cleric Fireball. It’s 8d6 damage, two spell levels higher than Fireball, for the same damage. It might innately seem like that makes this a bad spell, and if you’re a light domain cleric with access to Fireball, that’s absolutely true.

Plane Shift is kind of like Water Breathing in that it just opens up more areas to explore otherwise cut off from the group. Your adventures no longer need to obey the laws of physics or be stationed on an earthly biome; now, you can explore hell and heaven, delve into a realm of pure fire, and retrieve magic from the worlds of fairies or undead spirits.

Remove Curse is probably a net positive at the table, but not something I’d ever recommend players learning or preparing without knowing a cursed item or cursed individual is in their future. Take it when you need it, forget it when you don’t. 

Pull out your Tiny Hut, pop up on the couch, and get some well deserved R&R in your own private getaway, anytime, anywhere! If you’ve got a minute, you’ve got a long rest!

Major Image is the poster child for this kind of magic; in the right hands at the right table, it can break the game in half. At other tables or in other hands, it can be a gigantic waste of a spell slot.

3rd level is a very steep price to pay for this effect, and for some reason this isn’t a ritual spell, but sometimes you need a translator you can trust. Tongues gives you that. This lets all the perks of varying languages stay, while giving the players a tool to navigate any circumstance where unknown languages pop up.

Phantom Steed is a ritual summon spell, meaning you’re getting an extra entity summoned into existence for the low cost of spending 11 minutes casting it. You don’t need to spend spell slots to get this free; if you want a 100 ft. move speed attached to a 1 hit point riding horse, all you need to do is extend the end of your rests by ten minutes and BAM! Free horse!