Pithing Needle and Eternal dragon

[Holo_rip]

just a question, if we name eternal with pithing, does plaincycle still work ?
and does the capacity of eternal dragon to came bacl from graveyard still work too ?
Thanks folks.

Holo.

[Taurelin]

No, both are activated abilities of the dragon, so needle stops them effectively.

[Tacosnape]

Eternal Dragon
:3::w::w:
Creature - Dragon Spirit
Flying
:3::w::w:: Return Eternal Dragon from your graveyard to your hand. Play this ability only during your upkeep.
Plainscycling :2: (:2: , Discard this card: Search your library for a Plains card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)

Neither ability will work if the Dragon becomes Pithing Needled.

Pithing Needle stops all activated abilities that aren't mana abilities. Therefore Pithing Needle stops everything on the card its naming that meets the following two requirements.

1. It has a ":" or colon in it. This marks it as an activated ability.
2. It doesn't produce mana upon resolution, meaning the half after the colon can't add mana directly to your mana pool.

All forms of Cycling are activated abilities in the form of "Cost, Discard This Card: Do Something." Therefore as long as the "Do Something" clause doesn't add mana to your mana pool, that colon after Card will stop it.

The return Eternal Dragon part is worded differently than, say, Genesis. The Returning the Dragon to your hand is an activated ability that can only be played during your upkeep, whereas Genesis's ability is triggered. The wording of Eternal Dragon and the presence of the colon marks it as an Activated Ability, and since again, it doesn't produce mana upon its resolution, it's not a mana ability and is also stopped by Pithing Needle.

Hope this helps.

[iOWN]

To add on: Because Pithing Needle says to name a 'card', it's ability will affect the card in all zones (if it only specified a card type it would stop abilities from being activated in play, and if it specified type + spell it would prevent its abilities from being activated on the stack if that meant anything. A card is a card in any zone).

[Tacosnape]

To add on: Because Pithing Needle says to name a 'card', it's ability will affect the card in all zones (if it only specified a card type it would stop abilities from being activated in play, and if it specified type + spell it would prevent its abilities from being activated on the stack if that meant anything. A card is a card in any zone).

Er, yeah. Correct. I forgot to mention that part. :)

[Cait_Sith]

6/1/2005 Pithing Needle affects cards regardless of what zone the card might be in. This includes cards in hand or in the graveyard as well as cards in play. For example, a player can't cycle Eternal Dragon or return an Eternal Dragon from his or her graveyard to hand if Pithing Needle naming Eternal Dragon has been played.

Straight from Gatherer.

Also:

They errated for both clarity and function. It now says:

As Pithing Needle comes into play, name a card.
Activated abilities of permanents with that name can't be played unless they're mana abilities.
Activated abilities of cards with that name that aren't in play can't be played unless they're mana abilities.

Under the old wording copies of the named card could play activated abilities.

[Holo_rip]

Ok, so that's what i was thinking.
I've been thinking about that when i had problem when i played against a deck who abuse of eternal dragon...
was right, next time i'll just side in pithing and name dragon
Thanks all for your help.

Holo.