Ironically, this thing is a star player in my mill/control deck o_o
Although it might seem counter-intuitive, running four of these suckers practically guarantees that you're going to have enough answers to your opponent's threats as the game runs long. The 5 life helps recover from that awkward early game period that aggro decks typically create, and as you refresh your deck again and again, you gradually weed all of the lands out of it, leaving yourself with nothing but helpful draws.
Meanwhile, your opponent struggles to keep up, as you counter or kill each of his plays, and mill away those that he can't reach fast enough. Throw in a couple Crypt Incursion to keep those creatures from coming back, and you've got more than enough life and mana to win the game.
Fantastic core set material.
Posted By:
Ataraxiom
(7/26/2013 12:46:32 AM)
Brings value even without playing it against mill.
Say you are 13 turns into a game with 10 cards in the graveyard, 10 in play, and 1 in your hand. If your deck runs 23 lands and 8 are out, your library has a 15 in 40 chance of pulling a (probably) increasingly useless land, or 37.5%.
Shuffle this and the other 10 cards in your graveyard into your library and the chance of pulling a land drops to about 29%. When one good pull can swing a close game that's huge, especially when you're hand is low on cards and you can't afford dead draws. Plus 5 life gain late in games is never unwelcome.
4/5 stars, nifty core card.
Posted By:
Drescale
(8/7/2013 11:55:37 AM)
After the horribly OP Consuming Aberration and Wight of Precinct Six, this thing is a life saver.
Posted By:
yesennes
(8/15/2013 5:16:05 PM)
It mixes really nicely with Sanguine Bond. Leave it to a vampire to weaponize immortality,
Posted By:
CaptainNV
(10/4/2013 3:12:38 AM)
I like this card. I think it has a lot of uses, which have been mentioned by now.
But what I like most about it? Five life isn't really much, so at I thought it wasn't really powerful enough to be considered "immortality". But then I remembered that in legends and stories about the Elixir of Life, one needs to keep drinking it in order to sustain their life. So it's perfectly in flavor, too.
Posted By:
mikeejimbo
(10/28/2013 7:30:49 PM)
A lot of times when I look at this, I see "Elixir of Immorality." Then I'm left wondering what devious thing the Elixir of Immorality would do...
Posted By:
EGarrett01
(11/27/2013 3:41:11 AM)
The best answer to mill decks and can be played very early. If you do play it early, try to always leave up the 2 so you can activate it in response to an Oblivion Ring or what not.
Posted By:
Purplerooster
(7/11/2013 11:23:36 AM)
Why is this rated so high?
I mean, it's good against mill decks, but for the rest this card is bad even in limited.
2.5/5, decent card but wouldn't draft.
Posted By:
wern212
(8/8/2013 12:00:42 AM)
My personal favorite win condition... too bad i dont have any friends.
Posted By:
spartan7023
(8/28/2013 6:28:13 PM)
I built a deck using this, Reliquary Tower, Training Grounds, Azure Mage, Dimir Guildmage, Dreamscape Artist and Time Warp. It was surprisingly effective in getting to infinite turns, even won a few games against a Modern Jund list on MTGO.
Posted By:
Taudisban
(7/14/2013 8:30:42 AM)