Josh Foley, a.k.a. Elixir—the literal golden boy of the New X-Men. In my eyes, this guy won the mutant lottery. Right from the start, he was classified as an omega-level mutant—a term commonly used to describe mutants with powers that have no foreseeable limits. His biokinesis allows him to manipulate organic material, from fixing ingrown nails to regrowing bones. He typically uses his abilities to heal his allies of any malady.
He didn’t always look like an Oscar statuette—that transformation happened after he essentially healed himself out of a coma after a tragic accident involving star-crossed lovers. You know, the usual X-Men stuff.
New Mutants #2
At first, his powers were quite limited. He needed to concentrate intensely and make physical contact with whoever he was trying to heal, often straining himself badly from the effort. But with time and practice, his abilities grew stronger and his limits expanded. Eventually, he could heal a room full of people without breaking a sweat. His feats became more and more astonishing—he brought people back from the brink of death, manipulated life force itself, and even resurrection became within his reach. If you’ve read my lore article on the Pit of Exile, you might recognize him as a member of the Five—the group of five specific mutants who, together, could resurrect any mutant who had ever died. Like, ever.
You might be wondering—can he use his powers to harm others by manipulating their life force? The answer is a scary yes. Although he generally prefers to use his abilities for healing, Josh has found himself in extreme situations where he had to be the aggressor. And believe me, he’s incredibly dangerous in that role. He can rewrite a person’s DNA and even strip them of crucial powers like regeneration. Let’s just say he’s one of those mutants who could take out Wolverine, straight up. Whenever he uses his powers to cause harm, his skin shifts to a deep metallic black. The contrast between harm and healing gives him an appearance like a lava lamp—flowing with gold and black.
Uncanny X-men Annual #1
Golden God?
He resurrects cards. Elixir is joining with a lore-accurate but extremely conditional On Reveal ability: he revives one of your cards that was destroyed last turn at his location. I’d say there are a couple of hoops you need to jump through to get the most out of his effect. First, you have to play a card that’s powerful enough to be worth reviving, then destroy it—and only after that can you bring it back with Elixir on the following turn. The first two steps of this sequence need to be completed before the final turn of the game, or you won’t have time to play Elixir. Tricky, right?
Heroes Never Die
Before moving forward, I have to say—Elixir is a difficult card to work with. He doesn’t fit into traditional Destroy decks because the usual suspects aren’t actually destroyed for real. So it’s a no-go on Deadpool, Wolverine, Sabretooth, and X-23. For Elixir’s ability to trigger, the card needs to be truly destroyed.
You might be able to play an early Death, destroy her with Venom, and then bring her back on the final turn with Elixir—but I wouldn’t count on that strategy working consistently.
In fact, our golden boy has a lot working against him. He’s not self-sufficient—he needs at least two other cards and a full turn of setup to make his On Reveal impactful. Plus, he’s not like Fenris Wolf, who brings back the strongest destroyed card. Elixir selects randomly from the pool of your cards destroyed last turn. And to make things worse, he has a ton of counters.
With that warning out of the way, let’s focus on how to go for gold with Elixir. What we need to make our golden boy glow is some…
Destructive Tendencies
No matter what type of Elixir deck you’re building, if you’ve got a reliable core of powerful On Reveals, you might want to consider slotting in the wonderfully lethal pairing of Firehair and Misery. Here’s one potential line: play The Hood, follow up with Firehair, then destroy The Hood using Carnage, Deathlok, or even Killmonger by turn 3. Bring him back on turn 4 with Elixir, then destroy both The Hood and Elixir again with Misery on turn 5. That sequence gives you precisely six Demons to play with throughout the game.
Similar to Firehair, there is another card that loves destruction. Phoenix Force might need a ton of fine tuning but she has enough of an overlap with Elixir that they might work well together in the same deck. I’ll definitely give it a try.
Can you smell the hopium? It might finally be time for Attuma to rise above the waters! He got one of the coolest reworks ever, but so far, we haven’t been able to fully capitalize on his new effect. That could change with Elixir entering the scene. If we play Attuma on the board by turn 4 and he automatically destroys a powerful card on turn 5, we could bring that card back on turn 6 with a single drop of Elixir.
If we’re able to pull off some serious ramping, we could play Arnim Zola before turn 6 and then finish the game with Elixir bringing back the original card Zola destroyed. For plays like this, we’d need at least two strong Ramp cards in the deck—think Electro, Luna Snow, and maybe even the newcomer, Surge.
Another card that could elevate Elixir is the unreleased Kid Omega. Destroy decks have been anxiously waiting for a card that banks a destruction on the board for the following turn—and Kid Omega not only does that, but also gains the power of the destroyed card. He’s scheduled to arrive next season as a reward for a limited-time game mode. The hype is very real, as always—but keep it in check. Datamined content can always change before release.
Now that we know where the destruction comes from, we need to see some potential targets for said destruction we need some…
Cannon Fodder
There are a few cards that can be destroyed to further your goal and, honestly, I don’t think they’d mind it that much. Let me tell you about some of my favorites.
I’ll start with one of my all-time favorites: Nimrod. I love this card, and whenever a new destroy-focused card drops, I immediately try to make something work with him. The issue is that he’s pretty expensive at 5 Energy. We need to find a way to get Nimrod on the field a turn early if we want enough room to destroy him and still set up Elixir for the final play. Ramp cards like Electro, Luna Snow, or even the newcomer Surge could help with that, giving us the tempo we need to make the combo viable.
Another great card for some crazy revival shenanigans is Black Panther. He shares the same issue as Nimrod, though—we’ll need a solid game plan to get him on the field by turn 4 with some ramp. If we pull that off, we can follow up with Arnim Zola on turn 5 to get two Black Panthers on the board, then finish the game with Elixir on the last turn, bringing back the original Panther. And if you’re feeling greedy, play Grandmaster or Odin on Zola for an unexpectedly massive power boost on that final turn. Just to be thorough, the last of the Fivers that I would like to destroy and revive is White Tiger. She works wonders with Misery and it can be quite difficult for your opponent to beat a board full of Tiger Spirits. Keep her in mind as an alternative play line for those Black Panther decks.
Let’s drop a couple of mana points lower. There are a few three-drops I wouldn’t mind destroying after their powerful On Reveals—especially if I had Firehair on the field. Picture this: you play Firehair on turn 2, follow up with Cassandra Nova or Sage on turn 3, then destroy one of them with Misery on turn 4 or 5, and top it all off by bringing that card back with Elixir.
Another thing that I want to underline is how valuable 1-Drop On Reveals are. My plan is to trigger them a crazy number of times using Firehair, Joaquin Torres, Grandmaster, and Misery—all working together with our boy Elixir. Just imagine how huge a Rocket or Nico can get, or how frustrating Iceman will be when he sends your opponent into the Ice Age.
Dualgloves's Day One Elixir Decks
Fighting Gold
I don’t care if it isn’t reliable, I’ll be running this for the potential pop off. This deck lives and dies by Nimrod. If you grab him, he’ll carry you hard. We have ways to force him into the field in time for Elixir to bring another Nimrod on the field, thus making the Days of Future Past into a real scenario for your opponent. Be sure to set up your Venom playlines on one of the side locations because he is simply the best card in the deck to use Grand Master on.
Tomahawk 2
Like I mentioned, Misery and FIrehair will be great with Elixir, however they don’t make a deck by themselves, we need another package. I believe Darkhawk and his friends might be what we need to complete the set. Some decks like Thanos and Arishem simply get demolished by Cassandra Nova. Imagine triggering her effect three times in a row with our destroy package. Darkhawk is your big guy that could potentially win a lane by himself, especially if you can replicate Korg’s effect.
Ramp of Gold
This might need some fine-tuning but I’m always up for some good ol’ ramp. Get your extra energy from Luna or Electro, get White Tiger or Black Panther on the field early by playing them or using Blink, Zola or Venom, and top it all off with Odin or some combination of Elixir and Grand Master to make some funky plays. You live by your On Reveals so be careful with Cosmo being in every Thanos deck.
Elixir Drop
Get your Demon Horde, your Ice age and your cheap 4s. Joaquin Torres together with Firehair will trigger your 1-Cost On Reveals so many times that your opponent will have a hard time counting how many demons you’ll have in hand by the end of the game, that is if they have the time to do that after being turned into a popsicle by Iceman. Get the most out of Joaquin by playing Elixir and Phoenix force on his location. Death is your end-of-game powerhouse when she'll often be free.
Variants
With his launch, you’ll have the option to grab the quiet council variant for only 700g. However, at the end of the month you’ll find his anime variant done by Creative House Pocket for 1200g. I can’t decide which one I like best. What do you think?
Final Thoughts
Okay, I have to be honest with you guys— I don’t think Elixir will make much of an impact on the meta. He feels too clunky and difficult to work with. He might actually end up being the worst card of the season: hard to use, easily countered, and pretty limited in scope. Things might improve once Kid Omega arrives later on, but for now, I don’t think Elixir is worth the hassle.
It’s a shame, because I love how unique he is, but I can’t, in good conscience, recommend grabbing him. If you enjoy working with fussy cards, go ahead and pick him up and try to make it work—that’s exactly what I’ll be doing. But if you’re short on resources and want only the very best, I’d skip Elixir without a second thought.