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Magic the Gathering card analysis: Thousand-Year Elixir

by Elton Gahr

Having played cards like Concordant Crossroads in the past which are able to give your creatures haste it is surprising how often attacking is not the point of the card. This is because haste does two valuable things, the first and most obvious is that it allows you to attack with a creature immediately rather than waiting and late in the game this is a very valuable thing because you are playing large creatures, but early in the game attacking isn't the main reason you play most creatures, and so using their abilities immediately is just as valuable or more so. Thousand Year Elixir is a rare artifact from the lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering that recognizes this desire to use abilities with creatures immediately. Costing three colorless mana it has two abilities. The first is that it allows all of your creature to use activated abilities on the turn they come into play. This is very valuable in decks with cards like birds of paradise, llanawar elfs and other small mana creatures because it allows you to play them for a net of 0 mana. Also valuable are many of the elves that can tap to put tokens into play, and the blue and red creatures able to tap to do damage to creatures or players. In fact there are so many activated abilities which require taping in the game that this card gives nearly limitless possibilities for speeding up decks. The second part of the card works well with the first, this costs one mana and requires you to tap the thousand year elixir but allows you to untap a creature. This clearly is meant to be used along side creatures with tapping abilities but it doesn't require that and so it can effectively give any creature on your team vigilance if you wish to or allow you to use any tap ability a second time for one one more colorless mana. For some of the abilities this is minor but there are others such as the prodigal sorcerer in which it makes it far more effective because it allows you to put this into play and for one colorless mana kill any 2/2 creature it can target and if the opponent has no creatures it will quickly begin to wear down the opponent's health. If you use a lot of creatures with tapping abilities or have a combo that requires a creatures ability this is a card that can speed up everything by a full turn and for three mana that is well worth playing.