Stickers are an incredibly complex new mechanic introduced in Unfinity. Many different and unique functions are being presented here, like persisting between public zones and changing art and names on MTG cards. With this introduction, players will have many rules questions since Stickers interact with parts of a card in ways we haven’t seen before. One of the most common questions, and one that came up in our other articles, is how name Stickers will interact with cards like Pithing Needle.
Pithing Needle
For the record, Pithing Needle is a common sideboard card that has several infamous stories throughout competitive MTG history. Any card that Pithing Needle names cannot activate its activated abilities that aren’t mana abilities. In one famous instance, as mentioned in Rhystic Study‘s video, more crafty MTG players have used Judge calls to fool an opponent into allowing a Pithing Needle to resolve, naming a Fetch Land like Polluted Delta and blowing them out. This isn’t the most famous story out there regarding Pithing Needle. If you’re one of the few unaware, feel free to watch the video above.
Stickers and Needles May Break your Names
Matt Tabak from Wizards of the Coast clarified that Pithing Needle and Stickers would interact as Mutate does with the needle. No matter the cause, Pithing Needle will no longer affect a card that does not have a name on the card. The most common corner case has been addressed, but there are a few more strange cases of naming corner cases that Stickers will change.
Narcissists
Many cards in MTG reference their name in their text, and Bomat Courier is just one example. I mention this card because of its bizarre interaction with Stickers that many other cards will share. If you use a naming Sticker to change Bomat Courier’s name to something else (to be honest, I’m not sure why this would happen since you can’t Sticker your opponent’s cards under any circumstances), its abilities stop working. This is because the creature attacking is no longer ‘Bomat Courier.’ Since the trigger cares about ‘Bomat Courier’ attacking, the trigger won’t recognize the attack. The sacrifice ability will follow the same sentiment. It won’t work since you can no longer sacrifice ‘Bomat Courier.’
Why Even Use Naming Stickers?
Whether it’s to accomplish a theme in your EDH deck or find more ways to turn Vecna into a build-your-own-creature experience, we hope there will be some fun interactions with name Stickers available in games of EDH. Putting stickers on your expensive MTG cards may be scary, but you could just use a sleeve to avoid unnecessary worry. There are some interactions I would love to use with name stickers, like abusing the Legendary Creature rule to create new loops. Regardless of what ends up happening here, there is much potential! For those worried about Stickers affecting Eternal constructed play (outside of Commander), there is no need. WOTC creators have ensured that they purposefully made the Sticker mechanic much weaker than Legacy’s power level. Want to learn more about Stickers? You can do so here.
