The Dining CarHow it works & interactions with other cards

What it Does

The Dining Car has three distinct effects. First, it provides immediate value upon arrival by giving every player a Food token. Second, it features the Sixty-Six Seconds ability, a mandatory upkeep trigger that forces you to sacrifice your weakest creature before letting you investigate. Finally, its chaos ability provides a significant discount to the activated abilities of your artifact tokens, turning your Food and Clue tokens into free or low-cost resources for the turn.

Step-by-Step Resolution

When you planeswalk to The Dining Car, the triggered ability goes on the stack and each player creates a Food token. During your upkeep, the Sixty-Six Seconds ability triggers. You must identify which creature you control has the lowest toughness; if there is a tie, you choose one among those tied to sacrifice. After the sacrifice is complete, you investigate by creating a Clue token. If the chaos symbol is rolled, a delayed trigger applies for the rest of the turn, reducing the activation costs of artifact tokens you control by {2}.

Common Mistakes

A common error involves the Sixty-Six Seconds ability: you cannot choose to skip the sacrifice to avoid losing a creature; if you control any creatures, one must be sacrificed to proceed with investigating. Additionally, note that the chaos ability only reduces costs for artifact tokens. While it works perfectly for Food and Clues, it does not reduce the costs of non-token artifacts like Sol Ring. The reduction also cannot reduce the mana cost of an ability to less than zero.

When to Play It

The Dining Car is most effective in decks that can generate expendable 1/1 tokens to feed the Sixty-Six Seconds ability. It is also a powerhouse for decks that rely on artifact token synergies. If you can trigger chaos, your Food tokens become free to crack for health, and your Clues become free to crack for card draw, allowing you to cycle through your deck rapidly without spending mana.

Interaction examples

The First Course

FoodCommand Tower

Upon planeswalking to The Dining Car, you use Command Tower to produce mana. Every player, including you, creates a Food token. This Food token is an artifact token with an ability that normally costs {2} to activate.

Sixty-Six Seconds Sacrifice

Food

At the start of your upkeep, you control only one 1/1 creature token. You must sacrifice that creature because it has the least toughness. After the sacrifice, you investigate, creating a Clue token. You now have both a Food and a Clue token on the battlefield.

Chaos in the Kitchen

FoodSol Ring

You roll the planar die and chaos ensues. For the rest of the turn, the {2} cost to sacrifice your Food token to gain life is reduced by {2}, making it free. However, if you had an artifact token with a mana-tapping ability, the discount would apply there too. Note that Sol Ring is not a token, so its abilities are unaffected by this discount.