This has been a staple of quite a few control
and even mid-range decks ever since it was first
printed. It's cheap, it's colorless, and it
gives an effect that not every deck really
needs, but every deck can make use of. Everybody
has a library, a graveyard, and a life total,
and this helps keeps you from running out of the
two that you need to not run out of. If you've
got a full four of these, you can let the game
progress at your own pace knowing you're not
likely to run out of anything any time soon.
It's also a valuable card to have in your
sideboard, in the event of a mill deck matchup.
It's funny that for all the work Wizards of the
Coast has done to increase the power of milling
as a strategy recently, they've included one of
the most powerful anti-milling cards in every
recent core set. For two mana, it literally
invalidates all the hard work the milling deck
did. I'm sure it's considered an important
"safety valve" or whatever, but that's just not
how Magic players think - they tend to be very
conservative and avoid a strategy that has an
obvious counter. Elixir of Immortality is
actually a pretty decent inclusion in a lot of
decks even when there's not a dangerous milling
strategy in the metagame, as five life is
significant and a chance to re-draw and reuse
removal spells and the like is welcome. I most
recently used it in a Maze's End deck as a hedge
against Ghost Quarter and the like, and there
are few things more demoralizing than getting a
Turbo-Fog deck to blow several of its namesake
spells only to see them all get shuffled back
into circulation.
Today's card of the day is Elixir of
Immortality which is a one mana artifact that
for two mana can be tapped to shuffle itself and
your graveyard into your library and you gain
five life. This is a strong sidedeck card
against mill or cards that strongly benefit from
your graveyard. By itself it can be of some
benefit to recycle cards that are searched out
from the library, though it does cost this card
and three mana to do so. Overall this is a
decent effect on a card that probably won't see
much play unless mill is a serious threat to the
metagame.
In Limited this isn't very compelling as it
is primarily life gain and a chance to reclaim
expended cards. Other plays are more aggressive
and in general a playable creature or support
card will have more value in a game. An easy
pass in Booster until the later picks in a pack
and should only be included in Sealed if life
gain is a supportable theme or filler is needed
to minimize the number of colors used.
