Hidden Gibbons
Enchantment
When an opponent casts an instant spell, if this permanent is an enchantment, it becomes a 4/4 Ape creature.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Urza's Legacy
- Price
- $12.37
- EDHREC rank
- #17965
Hidden Gibbons enters as a 4/4 for one green mana if an opponent played an instant this turn — an absurd rate that punishes the most common thing opponents do in Commander. Kibo, Uktabi Prince decks run it as a near-automatic inclusion, and outside of that shell it still earns a slot anywhere that can reliably flip the trigger.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Kibo, Uktabi Prince
Kibo, Uktabi Prince distributes Banana tokens that opponents cash in as instants, which means Hidden Gibbons has a trigger window on almost every turn of the game — it's effectively a one-mana 4/4 with no meaningful downside in that deck.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Hidden Gibbons is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but its home is Commander by a wide margin. In a four-player pod, someone is casting an instant almost every turn cycle, so the enchantment condition is trivially satisfied and a 4/4 for G is just a free threat. Legacy and Vintage have the raw instant density to trigger it, but those formats demand faster, more resilient threats, and a do-nothing enchantment that telegraphs the creature a turn early isn't competitive there. In Oathbreaker it's a fine inclusion in any green aggressive shell where opponents interact on the stack.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
There's no direct budget replacement for Hidden Gibbons — the combination of one-mana cost and 4/4 body tied to a common trigger is unique. The closest analogs are other Hidden creatures from the same cycle, like Hidden Predators, which also produce large bodies from enchantments for one mana but require different conditions that are harder to reliably trigger in Commander.
Price Context
Current price
$12.37 mid tier
At $12.37, Hidden Gibbons sits in the mid tier — expensive for a single creature enchantment, but its price is propped up by a narrow, dedicated demand from Kibo, Uktabi Prince players rather than broad cross-format play. That narrow demand makes the price fairly stable rather than likely to climb, so buy it when you need it rather than speculating.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.