Feral Gibberer 1 mana 1/1
“After this minion attacks a hero, add a copy of it to your hand.”
Summary:
Feral Gibberer does not add a copy of the minion to your hand. It simply adds a Feral Gibberer card to your hand. The distinction is important if there are buffs on the Feral Gibberer in play.
How to reproduce:
Open up this week’s Yellow Brick Tavern Brawl.
Create a Priest deck with Feral Gibberer, Pelegos, and a bunch of buff spells like Power Chord: Synchronize, Power Word: Feast and Velen’s Chosen.
Play a game of the Tavern Brawl.
Play a Feral Gibberer on the Charge side.
Buff the Feral Gibberer with a buff spell.
Attack the opposing hero with it.
What I expect to happen:
The copy of Feral Gibberer that appears in my hand has the buff, just like when I copy Pelegos using Power Chord: Synchronize.
What actually happens:
I just get a plain Feral Gibberer in my hand.
For consistency, it seems like either the copy of Feral Gibberer should copy stats and effects, or the text of Feral Gibberer should read “After this minion attacks a hero, add a Feral Gibberer to your hand.”
Funny you should say this, because it is consistent with any card going from the Battlefield into your hand (or any card going backwards). It reverts to the base version. But since you brought up consitency, surely you must have an example where you receive a copy of a card on the battlefield in your hand with all buffs intact. If you cannot, then what should it be consistent with if it’s the only case?
I agree that if a buffed Feral Gibberer were bounced back to my hand, it would lose the buffs and revert to the base version because it’s moving backwards in zones (like you said).
In this same Tavern Brawl deck, I was also running Pelagos and Power Chord: Synchronize. I don’t remember the exact details, but when I played a buff like Velen’s Chosen on a Pelagos, and then play Power Chord: Synchronize on it, the copy of Pelagos put in my hand by PC:S retains the buffs applied to the Pelagos put in play. I expected the same to happen with the Feral Gibberer on it’s attack trigger. I don’t think I’ve tested whether or not PC:S copies the base stats or buffed states of the Gibberer yet.
Power Chord: Synchronize has the effect of buffing both the minion on the board and the copy it creates if its Finale effect activates. First, the plain Gibberer is added to the player’s hand, then PC:S buffs them both if the conditions are met. It’s different than Gibberer adding a copy of itself to the player’s hand.
Thanks for pointing that out Skizzy, but that’s specifically why I cited Pelagos in my example. If I’m remembering correctly, the Pelagos was already buffed prior to my playing the PC:S, and the Pelagos copy in my hand had more than just the +1/+2 from PC:S.
The synchronize Spell gave you a carbon copy and also buffed it and the original in play thanks to finale.
The gibberer just by itself gives you a regular copy on its own terms of attacking a hero. different things are happening. you are too focused on the singular term of copy without looking at the actual differences of the way these copies are generated.
When a minion generates a copy of a minion in your deck, but after you’ve buffed your deck to have 2x stats, the copy they generate (at least in duels) is a base form copy, whereas if you used a spell to give a copy of a card in deck, it will give the buffed copy.
Thats been what ive observed while trying out the deathrattle clam deck in duels
Thanks for that response Cramer. I think that’s different from the behavior I saw with Pelagos. The example I gave in comment #3 above is about copying a Pelagos with Power Chord: Synchronize. If I’m remembering correctly, I had played a buff on the Pelagos Prior to the PC:S, and the copy of Pelagos in my hand retained those buffs, not just the ones from the PC:S itself. (The effect of the PC:S finale would have made Pelagos a 2/8, and it was much larger than that.)
I’m basing my understanding of the term “copy” on the changes to Irondeep Trogg and Saronite Chain Gang. In both of those cases, the original wording of “summon a copy” was changed to “summon another”. In both of these cases, the copy is in the same zone as the original, so any effects of changing zones don’t apply.
What I don’t understand in your deck buff example is that changing zones shouldn’t apply in that case because it is a forward change in zone (deck → hand) as opposed to a backwards one. If anything, I think your example of copying not retaining stats makes even less sense to me than my example in this thread.
According to the non-official Fandom Hearthstone wiki: “When Copying living minions, this includes Copying all damage and enchantments.”
It goes on to say " Additionally, whenever the term “new copy” is used for copying a minion, it refers to copying the minion without its enchantments or damage on it."
EDIT 2023-05-08:
I think I have a partial answer here from the release 12.0 notes. It tells the rules for when buffs persist and it is supposed to be forward or same zone only. That means that Feral Gibberer is working exactly as explained in that post.
That post wouldn’t explain the behavior I remember with Pelagos, but maybe my memory is mistaken here. It also doesn’t explain Cramer’s deck → hand example above.