With the upcoming Throne of Eldraine set, Magic: The Gathering Arena is getting ready to introduce new mechanics to the game. There are three new mechanics coming with the new set: Adventure, Adamant, and Food. Last time, we looked into the Adventure mechanic and how it can change strategies. You can read more of that here.
This time we dive deep into Food and how it impacts the game.
To start off, who doesn't like food? With the new Throne of Eldraine set, fairy tales are coming to MTG Arena. We all know that quite a number of fairy tales have food. There's the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel and the apple in Snow White, to name a few, and who could ever forget the magic beans in Jack and the Beanstalk?
In MTG Arena, Food works a little bit differently. One example of Food in Throne of Eldraine is a colorless artifact token with this ability:
2, T, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.
What this means is that you need to tap two lands, tap the artifact, and then sacrifice in order to get three life. In essence, what you are doing is "eating" in order to replenish your health, so to speak.
While this may appear to be a simple game addition, it actually has a larger impact on the gameplay. While MTG: Arena has only revealed a few cards of the Throne of Eldraine set, we focus on how they affect the game.
The first thing we learn is how to make food tokens. Without even looking at the cards, we know that this involves Instant spells and Sorcery spells. It can even be triggered by abilities.
This example shows that you can change a target creature to a Food Token.
This one, meanwhile, is more "powerful" since it can create a Food Token any time.
However, it’s not all tokens as there are also actual Food Artifacts like this one.
So what do you do with Food Tokens?
The Animating Faerie is a good combo. Say you have a food token and then cast this card. By the next round you have a 4/4 artifact creature and this flying 2/2 creature.
Here's another good combo. You can save up you food tokens and then have Oko build your army.
Savvy Hunter, on the other hand, also works well with food tokens. All you need to do is protect Savvy Hunter and you get a fresh supply of food tokens that you can then use to go through your deck.
Finally there is Shinechaser. Imagine if you have four food tokens in play. Once you summon Shinechaser, you get a 5/5 Faerie that has flying and vigilance. Pretty neat, huh?
As we mentioned, these are just some of the cards that have so far been revealed to be part of the set. There are sure to be more cards, especially those that deal with Food.
Hopefully this gives you an idea on how the Food mechanic works and lets you start to come up with a strategy to make the most out of it.
