Food

Food
Artifact Type
(Subtype for artifact cards)
Rules	, , Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.
Storm Scale	2
Statistics	10 cards 10% 20% 70% 110 Food creation cards 1.8% 14.5% 1.8% 20% 0.9% 32.7% 4.5% 0.9% 5.5% 4.5% 2.7% 7.3% 2.7% as of Fallout
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type:"Food"

Food is a predefined token and artifact type introduced in Throne of Eldraine.

Description

Although it does appear in the type line of some cards, the type mostly appears on tokens. Food tokens have “, , Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.”

Nontoken Cards

Cards with the Food type are:

• Candy Trail (also a Clue)
• Eriette's Tempting Apple
• Gingerbrute
• Golden Egg
• Krovod Haunch (also an Equipment)
• Lembas
• Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender
• Three Bowls of Porridge
• Tough Cookie
• Vegetation Abomination

Since the Food type does not inherently grant the ability possessed by the predefined Food token, it is possible for cards with the Food type to not have that ability. However, for thematic reasons, all of these artifacts also have some form of ", , Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life." Notable deviations from the standard ability include the following:

• Candy Trail's ability also draws a card, as it is meant to represent a combination of the standard Food and Clue abilities.
• Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender's ability gains life equal to her power, which is 3 by default but may change.
• Three Bowls of Porridge has a modal ability where the standard Food ability is one option among three. As a consequence of the templating, the sacrificing occurs during the resolution of the ability when this mode is chosen, not as a cost of activation like with the standard Food ability.
• Vegetation Abomination makes one roll a six-sided die to determine how much life they will gain.

History

R&D made food tokens because they realized fairy tales were overrun with food references and it would allow them to design a lot of fun cards.

Food tokens returned as a one-off in Commander 2021 (Gyome, Master Chef), and got six new producers in Modern Horizons 2. Food was not considered deciduous, until Streets of New Capenna.

In The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth and Wilds of Eldraine, Food tokens are a larger mechanical draft theme. R&D noted the problematic gameplay issue in original Throne that the payoffs for making Food tended toward shrinking the board and bogging down the game. Hence, the secondary uses of Food in these newer sets tended towards more proactive play.

Rules

From the glossary of the Comprehensive Rules (June 7, 2024—Modern Horizons 3)

Food Token

A Food token is a colorless artifact token with “{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.” For more information about predefined tokens, see rule 111.10.

From the Comprehensive Rules (June 7, 2024—Modern Horizons 3)

• 111.10. Some effects instruct a player to create a predefined token. These effects use the definition below to determine the characteristics the token is created with. The effect that creates a predefined token may also modify or add to the predefined characteristics.
  • 111.10a A Treasure token is a colorless Treasure artifact token with “{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.”
  • 111.10b A Food token is a colorless Food artifact token with “{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.”
  • 111.10c A Gold token is a colorless Gold artifact token with “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.”
  • 111.10d A Walker token is a 2/2 black Zombie creature token named Walker.
  • 111.10e A Shard token is a colorless Shard enchantment token with “{2}, Sacrifice this enchantment: Scry 1, then draw a card.”
  • 111.10f A Clue token is a colorless Clue artifact token with “{2}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”
  • 111.10g A Blood token is a colorless Blood artifact token with “{1}, {T}, Discard a card, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”
  • 111.10h A Powerstone token is a colorless Powerstone artifact token with “{T}: Add {C}. This mana can’t be spent to cast a nonartifact spell.”
  • 111.10i An Incubator token is a transforming double-faced token. Its front face is a colorless Incubator artifact with “{2}: Transform this artifact.” Its back face is a 0/0 colorless Phyrexian artifact creature named Phyrexian Token.
  • 111.10j A Cursed Role token is a colorless Aura Role enchantment token named Cursed with enchant creature and “Enchanted creature has base power and toughness 1/1.”
  • 111.10k A Monster Role token is a colorless Aura Role enchantment token named Monster with enchant creature and “Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has trample.”
  • 111.10m A Royal Role token is a colorless Aura Role enchantment token named Royal with enchant creature and “Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has ward {1}.”
  • 111.10n A Sorcerer Role token is a colorless Aura Role enchantment token named Sorcerer with enchant creature and “Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has ‘Whenever this creature attacks, scry 1.’”
  • 111.10p A Virtuous Role token is a colorless Aura Role enchantment token named Virtuous with enchant creature and “Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each enchantment you control.”
  • 111.10q A Wicked Role token is a colorless Aura Role enchantment token named Wicked with enchant creature, “Enchanted creature gets +1/+1,” and “When this Aura is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, each opponent loses 1 life.”
  • 111.10r A Young Hero Role token is a colorless Aura Role enchantment token named Young Hero with enchant creature and “Enchanted creature has ‘Whenever this creature attacks, if its toughness is 3 or less, put a +1/+1 counter on it.’”
  • 111.10s A Map token is a colorless Map artifact token with “{1}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Target creature you control explores. Activate only as a sorcery.” See rule 701.40, “Explore.”
  • 111.10t A Junk token is a colorless Junk artifact token with “{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. Activate only as a sorcery.”

Rulings

• Food is an artifact type. Even though it appears on some creatures (such as Gingerbrute), it is never a creature type.
• If an effect refers to a Food, it means any Food artifact, not just a Food artifact token. For example, you can sacrifice Gingerbrute to activate the last ability of Tempting Witch.
• You can't sacrifice a Food token to pay multiple costs. For example, you can't sacrifice a Food token to activate its own ability and also to activate the ability of Tempting Witch.
• Some spells that instruct you to create a Food token have targets. You can't cast these spells without choosing all required targets, and if all of those targets become illegal targets, the spell won't resolve and you won't create any Food. If some but not all of those targets become illegal, you'll do as much as possible, including creating Food.
• Whatever you do, don't eat the delicious cards.

Food tokens

Tokens marked with are created by Acorn cards.

Token Name	Color	Type Line	P/T	Text Box	Source	Printings
Food	Colorless	Artifact — Food		, , Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.	Academy Manufactor Bake into a Pie Bakery Raid Bartered Cow The Battle of Bywater Bill the Pony Bradywine Farmer Bristlebud Farmer Butterbur, Bree Innkeeper Cirith Ungol Patrol Concession Stand Curious Pair Eastfarthing Farmer Elanor Gardner The Eleventh Hour Experimental Confectioner Fae Offering Farmer Cotton Feasting Troll King Feed the Cauldron Fell the Pheasant Field-Tested Frying Pan Fierce Witchstalker Food Coma Foreboding Fruit Fortifying Provisions The Fourth Doctor Galadriel, Gift-Giver Generous Ent Giant Mana Cake Giant Opportunity Giant's Skewer Gift Shop Gilded Goose Gingerbread Cabin Gingerbread Hunter Gluttonous Troll The Goose Mother Greta, Sweettooth Scourge Gyome, Master Chef Have for Dinner Icing Manipulator Intrepid Trufflesnout Killer Service Late to Dinner Many Partings Meriadoc Brandybuck Mintstrosity Night of the Sweets' Revenge Nuka-Cola Vending Machine Oath of the Grey Host Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit Oko, Thief of Crowns Old Flitterfang Orchard Strider Overencumbered Oyaminartok, Polar Werebear Peregrin Took Pippin, Warden of Isengard Provisions Merchant Questionable Cuisine Rapacious Guest Restless Cottage Return from the Wilds Revive the Shire Rocco, Street Chef Rosie Cotton of South Lane Sam, Loyal Attendant Samwise Gamgee Savvy Hunter Scream Puff Second Breakfast Shelob, Child of Ungoliant Shelob's Ambush Sierra, Nuka's Biggest Fan The Shire Skybeast Tracker Sorin, Ravenous Neonate Stew the Coneys Survivor's Med Kit Sweettooth Witch Taste of Death Tempting Witch Tempt with Treats Tireless Provisioner Tough Cookie Trail of Crumbs Transmutation Font Treebeard, Gracious Host Turn into a Pumpkin The Underworld Cookbook Vault 101: Birthday Party Voracious Fell Beast Welcome to Sweettooth Wild Goose Chase The Wilds White Glove Gourmand. Witch's Oven The Witch's Vanity Wolf's Quarry

Trivia

• Unlike Clues (Investigate), Food creation was designed without an associated keyword. If R&D had decided that Food would have needed a keyword, they would have wanted it to be generic to allow as many flavor interpretations as possible, so something like “prepare Food" - though Rosewater wishes to avoid "cook".
• Icing Manipulator makes +1/+1 counters into Food tokens.
• Candy Trail is the first card printed with multiple predefined token subtypes.

External links

• Mechanic Spotlight: Food (Video). YouTube.