How do Magus class features interact with Shadow Conjuration/Evocation?

Question

Several of the magus class features involve casting spells from the magus spell list. They do not specify that the spell must be prepared, or cast with magus spell slots.

Spell Combat:

As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty).

Spellstrike:

At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack.

Magus Arcana and Knowledge Pool use similar language.

Now suppose a magus can cast Shadow conjuration using non-magus features (such as by multiclassing or as a spell-like ability).

Shadow conjuration can mimic any sorcerer or wizard conjuration (summoning) or conjuration (creation) spell of 3rd level or lower.

Or alternatively, they cast Shadow evocation:

You tap energy from the Plane of Shadow to cast a quasi-real, illusory version of a sorcerer or wizard evocation spell of 4th level or lower.

Shadow conjuration/evocation are not on the magus spell list. However, there are multiple conjuration and evocation spells shared between the wizard and magus spell lists, which could mean simulating conjuration or evocation spells from the magus spell list.

Could a magus use Shadow conjuration/evocation with Spell Combat (or other magus features) by simulating a spell from the magus spell list?

Answer 1

A shadow spell remains that shadow spell during its casting

On Casting Time, in part, says, "You make all pertinent decisions about a spell (range, target, area, effect, version, and so forth) when the spell comes into effect." Thus, when a caster casts, for example, the spell shadow conjuration, onlookers use the Spellcraft spell to identify as its being cast the spell shadow conjuration rather than the spell that's to be mimicked when the spell shadow conjuration comes into effect. Similarly, attempts to counterspell the shadow conjuration spell fail if a spell other than another shadow conjuration spell (or a select few others) is used to counterspell it; a shadow conjuration spell can't typically be countered with the spell it'll mimic when it does come into effect.

In other words, until the shadow conjuration spell comes into effect, the shadow conjuration spell is not another spell but the actual spell shadow conjuration. This makes the shadow conjuration spell (or the shadow evocation spell or other similar spells) technically ineligible for casting during spell combat by the typical magus; e.g. a magus who, instead of adding the shadow conjuration spell to the magus spell list, casts the shadow conjuration spell using another class's spell slots.

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Note: Former Pathfinder developer Sean K. Reynolds says No to the idea of a magus during spell combat casting a spell that appears on the magus spell list by using another of the magus's casting class's spell slots in a 2013 Paizo messageboard threads in posts here, here, and here. Nonetheless, it's probably not a big deal to allow a complicated magus to use spell combat to take a full-round action to both make his melee attacks and cast such an on-the-magus-list-but-not-with-a-magus-spell-slot spell. I mean, the magus would be doing the same thing but with magus spell slots had the magus just stayed a magus. By giving up more magus class features for another class's class features, the complicated magus usually just gets to do spell combat more often… which is a little weird but certainly not terrible.

Answer 2

Obligatory: Ask your GM.

If you are the GM, then consider: The spell your magus has cast is not on the magus spell list, even though it's mimicking one of those. Spell combat might use a quirk of the casting of spells from the magus spell list to ease the blending of swordplay and magic, and performing spell components and concentration for a spell that a single-class magus can't cast in between slashes of a sword might be infeasible. Likewise, the particulars of the shadowy nature of the spell might make it infeasible to bind the spell to a melee weapon long enough to deliver it.

However, I advise being a fan of the player characters when making rulings. It makes sense to me that a magus/wizard or magus/sorcerer would learn to eke every advantage from a new and versatile spell they learn.