by Can Tran

Created on: November 05, 2009

"Thousand-Year Elixir" is a colorless artifact printed as a rare for the Magic the Gathering expansion set known as "Lorwyn." This is perhaps one of the most interesting cards that I have ever come across for the most part. If you have creatures with abilities that require tapping in order to be activated, the Thousand-Year Elixir comes in very handy for the most part. If you have a deck with such cards, you may want to have the Thousand-Year Elixir on hand.

The converted mana cost for the Thousand-Year Elixir is three. You will need three colorless mana to play the Thousand-Year Elixir from your hand and onto the battlefield. For what Thousand-Year Elixir can do, the converted mana cost is well worth it for the most part. Keep in mind that Thousand-Year Elixir is an artifact. Therefore, Thousand-Year Elixir is susceptible to anything and everything that affects artifacts. For many decks, Thousand-Year Elixir seems to be quite the invaluable card for the most part.

What does Thousand-Year Elixir do in the first place?

The first ability of the Thousand-Year Elixir allows you to activate the abilities of creatures you control as though those creatures had Haste. It means you can play the activated abilities that require you to tap those creatures. However, you cannot attack with those creatures.

The second ability allows you to pay one colorless mana to tap Thousand-Year Elixir. Doing so lets you untap a target creature. This is handy if you have cards with abilities that allow you to untap permanents let alone artifacts. You can use the interaction with such cards to tap Thousand-Year Elixir a few times and then untap a few creatures.

In this respect, the two abilities of Thousand-Year Elixir work great together. There are plenty of cards that have activated abilities that cannot be used initially on the first turn because of the summoning sickness rule. While they cannot attack, Thousand-Year Elixir allows them to use their activated abilities.

One could play "Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer" on the battlefield and immediately use its ability of placing a bribery counter on a target creature. That alone is handy because you can neutralize an annoying creature with Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer's ability.

You could play "Archivist" and immediately draw a card. Being able to draw a card is always good due to wanting to have the card advantage.

You could play "Empress Galina" and immediately use its main ability to steal legendary permanents. You could play "Kiku, Night's Flower" and immediately start taking out creatures with its activated ability.

Overall, Thousand-Year Elixir is quite handy for cards that have activated abilities that require tapping. If you have those types of cards in your deck, then Thousand-Year Elixir is a card worth having.

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