Sunburst and Astral Slide

[serracollector]

This question pertains to any card with the sunburst mechanic being removed from the game, but specifically it has to do with the interaction of the cards Etched Oracle and Astral Slide. Here's the wording for Etched Oracle as it appears on the MTGNews spoiler.

Etched Oracle -
Artifact Creature
Sunburst (This comes into play with a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana used to pay its cost.)
1, Remove four +1/+1 counters from Etched Oracle: Target player draws three cards.
0/0
Illus. Matt Cavotta
121/165
Uncommon

Say you paid four different colors of mana for this guy, found some way to add another +1/+1 counter on it, activated his ability, and upon resolution of the ability cycled a card to Slide it out of play. When Etched Oracle returns to play, does it remember the four colors of mana you used to pay for it the first time, thus returning with 4 counters, or does it forget and come back as a 0/0?

[Jebus]

Cards always forget what they were when they leave play (excepting PHasing).

It will return with 0 counters.

[DEA]

same theory as kicker
you don't get to pay it unless you played it from hand

[ProZachar]

same theory as kicker
you don't get to pay it unless you played it from hand

This isn't correct.  

A)  You can pay the kicker cost any time you play a spell with kicker.  That means playing a [card]Dismantling Blow[/card] from your graveyard while under the influence of [card]Yawgmoths Will[/card] or playing a [card]Jilt[/card] off an [card]Isochron Scepter[/card] both give you the opportunity to pay the kicker cost.

B)  In reference to the Etched Oracle, again, where you played it from doesn't matter.  You could play this from your graveyard and it would still get the counters for the right types of mana.  If, however, it leaves play and then returns to play, it will not get any counters because no mana would have been paid for it at that time.

Playing a card is not the same as putting a card into play.
Putting a spell on the stack is not necessarily the same as playing a spell.

[DEA]

sorry
let me rephrase that
you can't pay kicker costs unless you're playing the spell