Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day

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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day

Image from Wizards.com

Pithing Needle
Saviors of Kamigawa

Reviewed June 03, 2005

Constructed: 4.00
Casual: 2.67
Limited: 2.88

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ... average.
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our
Card of the Day Reviews

Jeff Zandi 5 Time Pro Tour Veteran	Pithing Needle It comes to this! Years ago, it was hard to believe that Meddling Mage was really going to be an important card. The idea of playing a card to stop a card from being played in the FUTURE seemed crazy. Well, Meddling Mage turned out to be an enormously useful card. Now, it comes to this, a card like Pithing Needle. With the Needle, you aren't even keeping your opponent from playing a certain card, merely from using its activated abilities. Amazing! This card seems so defensive and so situational that I can't believe it's really going to be good. Well, I'm going to learn from my past mistakes, and so I believe it, and you better believe it too! Pithing Needle is already highly collectible, if you didn't know, commanding gigantic prices for a card from a set that just made it to the retail stores a week ago! Let me explain it another way. In the olden-days, what made a creature powerful was how big and powerful it was and whether or not it could fly. More recently, what made a creature card powerful was what that card did when it came into play. Today, creature cards' power is often determined by what abilities the creature has after he comes into play. Pithing Needle, while not killing the creature, gives players an amazingly cheap COLORLESS way to eliminate a creature's special capabilities from affecting a game any further. In constructed, this card will be used, as Meddling Mage, to preemptively restrict the opponent from using certain card's activated abilities EVEN BEFORE THE NAMED CARD IS IN PLAY. In limited, Pithing Needle will be used to "turn off" an offending card that the opponent already has in play. This card is mighty. CONSTRUCTED: 4.0 CASUAL: 3.0 LIMITED: 3.5
Paul Hagan	Pithing Needle -- Gimme an O! Gimme a V! Gimme an ERRATED! What does it spell? Don't get me wrong, this card is solid, especially for Extended play. But does it really deserve all of the attention that it is getting? Probably not. I put this card in the same category as Cranial Extraction, where it really shouldn't be going for as much as it is, but I'll sell mine for the highest amount possible the moment I get one. I'm not quite sure if Pithing Needle should be main deck or sideboard, but it should probably hang out in most decks in one way or the other. Just don't forget that artifact removal does actually still exist. Constructed Rating: 3.5 Casual Rating: 3.0 Limited Rating: 3.0
Antman	Hello Peoples, today is my first day as a Magic CotD person, so let me tell ya a bit about myself before i get started. some of you might know me from hero clix CotD and duel masters CotD. but sadly heroclix got too expensive and duel masters just died out where i live. so i decided to help out here at the MTG CotD (my dream has come true!). I have been playing magic ever since either 7th or apocalypse (which ever came out first). and i became competitive (somewhat) when i went to my first gaming convention (gen con) in 2002. ok now that we are done with my brief magic life story lets get to today's card. Pithing Needle- Rare- SoK Well today we have probably the chace rare for SoK, Pithing Needle there isnt probably one deck in T2 right now that doesnt play some sort of activated ability. that is what makes this card so good. Ohhh your playing MUC (Mono Blue Control)? ok i play pithing needle and call shackles. Ohhh, your plaing TnN (tooth and nail)? ok i play pithing needle and say O-Stone. Ohhh, your playing MGA (Mono Green Aggro)? ok then i play pithing needle and say ascetic. this card is so versitile its crazy. but the question is should this card be main decked? I say no. the card may have the versitility for a main decked card, but you never know what you are playing against (fully) till game two. This card is a SideBoard star. Ratings: constructed - 4.7/5 Great card, but not a full 5 worthy casual- 2/5 not a very fun casual card limited- 2/5 not useful enough to be good (but i would still take it ^.^) Final Thought- this card IS NOT a $17 card. if you plan to buy one wait a while for it to cool down to $5 then get some.