Video Game / Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes

The lawn of a new battle!

Plants vs. Zombies Heroes is a Collectible Card Game for mobile platforms, and a Spin-Off of the popular Plants vs. Zombies series.

It was announced on March 10, 2016, through PopCap Games official YouTube channel and soft released in certain countries on the same day. On October 18th, 2016, the game was released worldwide on iOS and Android.

During an ordinary day of plants fighting zombies, Dr. Zomboss appears in his brand new Zombot Hero-Tron 5000, using its hero laser to give zombies super powers! He's so ecstatic that he ends up accidentally pressing a button that says "Do Not Push!", causing the Zombot to explode, transforming several other plants and zombies around the world into heroes!

Now the battle fully begins, as both sides are going to gather all heroes in the world to be the victor.

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Plants vs. Zombies Heroes contains examples of:

A-D

• A Wizard Did It: Wizard Gargantuar's Flavor Text directly references this trope.
  A wizard did it. An enormous, green, Zombie wizard.
• Acrophobic Bird: The Copter Commando is not amphibious and cannot fly over water lanes...because his pilot has a severe case of aquaphobia.
• Action Initiative:
  • Zombies with Overshoot will attack the Plant Hero directly before their turn starts. Again, this can also be blocked, unless it's from Kitchen Sink Zombie who also has Bullseye or a Zombie buffed by Disco-Naut.
  • Pied Piper starts in a gravestone, and upon being revealed during the Zombie Tricks phase he instantly summons rats to lower the Strength and Health of all plants in his lane by 1 each. This makes him useful for clearing out 1-health plants before the Fight phase.
  • Astro-Shroom will directly attack the Zombie Hero for 1 damage every time a new Plant is placed down. Best of all, this also has Bullseye, meaning that it WILL damage the Zombie Hero regardless of Block Meter.
  • Quickdraw Con Man will directly attack the Plant Hero for 1 damage every time the Plant Hero draws a card. Like Astro-Shroom, this also has Bullseye, meaning that it WILL damage the Plant Hero regardless of Block Meter.
• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • During the first zombie mission, Zomboss refers to Green Shadow (who's the hero version of Peashooters) as a "peashooting pain pronto".
  • In one mission, when Citron (accompanied with Rose and Grass Knuckles) start planting a flag on the moon, Zomboss refers to it as "lunar lunacy".
  • Crazy Dave refers to The Smash (who resembles a Masked Luchador) as a "lumbering luchador" in one mission.
• Airborne Mook: Certain Player Mooks have the ability to fly and thus sport the Amphibious trait.
• All Your Powers Combined: Kitchen Sink Zombie has Bullseye, Frenzy, Armored 1, Overshoot 2 and Anti-Hero 3 all at once. He seems to be an odd choice to have all of these abilities, but it's actually a Stealth Pun of the idiom "everything but the kitchen sink", meaning everything imaginable. (Of course, he has a kitchen sink as well.)
• Armor-Piercing Attack: There are two types of traits which do this; the Bullseye trait lets a teammate attack the enemy Hero without affecting their block meter, and Strikethrough which lets a teammate attack every enemy in their lane as well as the enemy Hero directly.
• An Ice Person:
  • Smarty plant heroes have access to various plants that revolve around freezing zombies.
    • Iceberg Lettuce is a trick that keeps one zombie from attacking for a turn.
    • Snowdrop gains increased strength and health whenever a zombie is frozen while she is on the field.
    • Snow Pea freezes zombies that he damages.
    • Chilly Pepper freezes a zombie upon play.
    • Winter Melon is similar to Snow Pea, but with higher sun cost, higher stats, Splash Damage, and no Pea synergy.
    • Winter Squash, unlike Squash, is a teammate that instantly destroys any zombie that gets frozen while it is on the field.
    • Jolly Holly freezes zombies to the left and right of her.
    • Cool Bean freezes gravestones as soon as they are revealed.
  • On the Zombie side, there are a small handful of cards in the Sneaky class dedicated to freezing plants.
    • The Frosty Mustache allows players to freeze a plant and conjure a mustache. Since it itself is a mustache card, the player can conjure infinite Frosty Mustaches, though the chances of this are unlikely.
    • The Ice Pirate freezes a plant when revealed on an environment.
    • The Cryo Yeti freezes a plant when it's revealed, and gets more health and damage whenever a plant or zombie is frozen.
    • Brain Freeze has a signature superpower - Frozen Tundra - which freezes all plants on ground lanes. Too bad he can only use his superpower once.
    • The Ice Moon environment freezes all plants on the lane it's played on, and also gives zombies on it Strikethrough. Just like Frozen Tundra, it's a Superpower.
• Anti-Hoarding: Players can only hold up to ten cards in their hands at a single time, and cannot block while holding ten cards.
• Anti-Magic:
  • The Gravestone trait prevents Zombies from being affected by most tricks or abilities until they pop out of the gravestone after the Plants' turn ends. As such they're mostly invulnerable to tricks or teammates that aren't Grave Buster, Blockbuster, Grave Mistake or Cool Bean for the turn.
  • The Untrickable trait makes a unit completely immune to being targeted by the opposing side's Tricks — every single one of them. They're not immune to teammate abilities or traits like Deadly, however.
• Anti-Rage Quitting: Players who Rage Quit a PvP game are automatically considered defeated and suffer a loss.
• Anti-Regeneration: The Sneezing Zombie prevents the Plant Hero and Plant Teammates from healing any health as long as she's on the field.
• Anti-Structure: Gravestones are immune to almost all Plant Teammates and Tricks during the "Plants Play" phase, but certain teammates and tricks are specifically made to counter Gravestones. These belong to both the Smarty and Guardian classes which means that both Citron and Beta-Carrotina are huge threats to any Gravestone team.
  • The Grave Buster destroys a gravestone and any zombie inside, just like how it worked in its source game.
  • Blockbuster destroys gravestones on its lane and adjacent lanes, but only when Evolved.
  • Spyris allows the Plant Hero to see what's inside the gravestones as long as she is on the field. This allows the Plant Hero to discern if the zombie inside is a threat.
  • Cool Bean freezes all Gravestones, preventing the zombies from attacking when they emerge. If used alongside Winter Squash, which kills any zombie that gets frozen, it's a One-Hit Kill on all of the Gravestones.
  • Grave Mistake bounces a Gravestone back to the Zombie Hero's hand while also drawing a card for the Plant Hero to maintain card advantage.
• Aquatic Mook: Certain Player Mooks with the "Amphibious" trait allow them to be played on water lanes, which are otherwise out of limits to most other teammates.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Escape Through Time^note makes a Zombie immune to damage for one turn then conjures a History card has the following possible side effects: creating a temporal paradox, unraveling the very fabric of reality, erasing your entire existence, and a mild foot rash.
• Artificial Stupidity: This game is known to have a quite stupid AI in most cases:
  • Opponents have the tendency to ignore gravestones or a weak zombie when you have a trick that may boost the zombie.
  • Kabloom A.I.s can use Dandy Lion Kings anytime, even if you are about to block.
  • Citron AI can very rarely use his Peel Shield on the first turn or if he has no plants only to draw a card. Similarly, Wall-Knight can use Uncrackable on the first turn even if the zombies you play are hardly a damaging threat. Immorticia, Nightcap, and Chompzilla are also prone to using their signature superpowers immediately, and usually when this happens, they are easy to counter.
  • In later missions Impfinity seems to still use the regular Imp. What's worse is that he has no Mini-Ninjas.
  • The Spyris helps detect gravestones for the player. However, if the AI manages to get this, they tend to ignore the gravestones.
  • Snake Grasses are used to duplicate itself to the lane to the right. The AI however will usually place it on the rightmost water lane in most scenerios, rendering the ability useless.
  • The Pineclone turns all other plants on the field into 3/3 Pineclones, meant to work in a Zerg Rush deck to turn your weak mushroom spam into far more dangerous 3/3 units. Naturally, the AI places Pineclone often when there are few or no other plants on the field.
  • Quasar Wizard's ability to conjure a random superpower requires that it be played next to another Zombie teammate. The AI tends to play it next to two empty spots, or even as the sole unit on the field.
• Ascended Meme: It would seem that Electronic Arts and Popcap Games took notice of the memehood of Weenie Beanie and Ra Zombie.
• Ash Face: A gag in Professor Brainstorm's Humiliation Conga involves a bunch of ash being left on his face due to an explosion.
• Ass Kicks You: The "Bungee Plumber" trick causes the Plumber (from Garden Warfare) to bungee onto a Plant or Plant Hero and land on them with his butt for 2 damage. The picture on his card even shows a close-up of his butt doing a smash.
• Asteroids Monster:
  • Banana Split splits into two Half Bananas on the lanes next to it when killed.
  • Atomic Bombegranate will split into two Seedlings on the lanes next to it when killed.
  • Just like in Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time, the Barrel Roller will spawn two Swabbie Imps on the lanes next to it when killed.
• Asymmetric Multiplayer: A downplayed example. The goals and premise are similar- a class-based card game with the goal of lowering the opposing Hero's health to 0. However, both Plants and Zombies have entirely different units, and par the series have to be pitted against each other. The turn order defines a large amount of the game's asymmetry- every turn, turn order is as follows:
  1. Zombies place their units first but cannot use Tricks (akin to Spells) nor Environments
  2. Plants play both their units and Tricks/Environments
  3. Zombies can play their Tricks and Environments, but not units^note unless they use Teleport or have a Teleportation Zombie on the field
  4. After that, the various units attack on both sides
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The legendary Crazy trick, Gargantuar's Feast. When used, it summons three random Gargantuars on random lanes. It's also the most expensive card in the entire game, being 11 brains. ^note It was originally 12. More likely than not, the match will end before you can play it.
  • The legendary Plant Doubled Mint. It's a 2 cost 1/2 whose strength and health doubles each turn. The card can prove to be genuinely dangerous, but in most cases Zombie players are wise enough to stop Mint from its tracks before it's allowed to grow even once. And that's not difficult to achieve, considering the card can be destroyed with cards as basic as Bungee Plumber and Rolling Stone.
  • Most Gargantuars have very high health and damage, which is offset by their high cost, limiting the tribe to top end plays. Normally, this could be excused, as such design philosophy is not new to CCGs, but this isn't the case with the current PvZ:H meta since the most effective plant options are control and midrange. Gargs will either be removed the instant they are put on board, or won't be played in a match at all because it finished too fast. It's no wonder that vast majority of the tribe is considered unplayable without Gargologist – a Hearty zombie that reduces Gargs' cost by 2 while she's on field.
  • The Heartichoke Flytraplanet combo. It's a Cycle of Hurting strategy that requires a plant hero to activate Heartichoke's ability^note Deal damage to the zombie hero equal to the amount of healing received by the plant hero while she is put on a Venus Flytraplanet environment^note Heals the plant hero for the amount of damage done by a plant on this lane. By letting themselves get significantly hurt, Solar heroes can use this combo to completely nullify zombies' efforts, while dealing insane burst damage to the opposing hero. Problem is, both cards in the combo cost 4 sun, and require a healing option to set it off. If they decide to commit to the combo, the Solar hero has to pray that either Heartichoke, or Flytraplanet won't get removed from the board on the same turn they are played. And then they have to hope that the block meter won't screw them up by rolling just enough threes for the Zombie hero. Alternatively, they can wait till the very late game in hopes of setting the combo up as a finisher, but then it becomes necessary for them to stall the game to this point, which then raises the question – if you can achieve that, why not use a more reliable alternative?
• Badass Bookworm: Almost every zombie in the Science tribe, and Bean Counter (once enough beans are played).
• Baguette Beatdown: Gargantuar Mime's weapon of choice against the plants is a huge baguette stick, fitting since he's based off a French mime.
• Banana Peel: A Mega-Grow Plant Trick, this makes a zombie "slip" (and hence forcefully moved to another lane) while also Conjuring a Banana tribe card.
• Bears Are Bad News: Bad news for the Zombies, at least:
  • The Hibernating Beary is a Berry Animal that has 0 attack and 8 health. However, each time it takes damage from any source, it gains 4 attack, meaning that it is not a good idea to poke the Beary with weak attacks. And if Spudow puts it on Hot Lava, they won't even need a Zombie to hurt them in order to activate.
  • The Pear Cub is a weak unit, being a 1/1 for 3 Sun, but as soon as it is killed the 5/4 Grizzly Pear immediately takes its place. Both of them are also Amphibious.
• Big Ball of Violence: Zombopolis Apocalypse!'s final comic has Green Shadow, Solar Flare and Spudow delivering one of these to Super Brainz.
• Blatant Lies: Early in the zombies' missions, Zomboss states zombies use brains to play because they're intelligent when most zombies are stupid. However, nobody seems to recognize what he said as a lie.
• Boring, but Practical: Some of the Basic - Common cards are actually great for what they do, despite being free/common rarity:
  • Berry Blast and Bungee Plumber can deal damage to an opposing teammate or enemy hero. They're frequently used to weaken the opposing hero or even finish them off if they're at low health, turning the battle around.
  • Snowdrop is priceless in freeze decks due to easily gaining stats whenever a zombie gets frozen, and this happens very often in Freeze Decks.
  • Smelly Zombie is a 2/4 for 3 brains that has Deadly, which means he will kill plants he damages, and his strength is just enough to get past Armored 1 plants. Against several high HP or untrickable plants, this is extremely useful. Furthermore, he has the Gravestone ability, which prevents most Plant heroes from being able to counter it on the turn it's played.
  • Team Mascot sees high-level competitive play in Sports decks since it will buff all Sports Zombies including itself by +1/+1 each turn. Combined with Zombie Coach to protect the sports team from damage for a single turn, and they'll steadily grow.
• Brainwashed: According to Crazy Dave in one of the missions, Professor Brainstorm brainwashed a university. It seems to be done so zombies could attend it.
• Bring It: In his introductory comic, Nightcap seems to be beckoning several Zombie Heroes (Immorticia, The Smash, and Rustbolt) to taunt them before fighting them.
• Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": Mana for playing one's cards is called Sun for plants, and Brains for zombies.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • Citron & Rose for the plant heroes, and Z-Mech & Super Brainz for the zombies. Kernel Corn, Captain Deadbeard, Captain Flameface and Hover-Goat 3000 also exist as teammates.
  • Mondo Bronto is from the Chinese version of Jurassic Marsh.
• Captain Ersatz: Each hero is a parody of a famous comic book hero, the comic book covers sometimes drive this point home.
• Circling Birdies: When a Hero is defeated, they'll get this. Plant Heroes have Suns circling them while Zombie Heroes have Brains circling them.
• Clark Kenting: Super Brainz is seen putting on glasses and a jacket at the end of his plant mission after the plant heroes have beaten him up. Dave, along with the plant heroes, fail to recognize Super Brainz after this.
• Climbing Climax: A Shadow Falls, the second zombie mission to involve Green Shadow, has all lanes replaced with height lanes.
• Combat Medic:
  • Plants:
    • Venus Flytrap heals the plant hero for the amount of damage they do with each attack.
    • Power Flower is more than durable enough in battle and deals good damage with their Strikethrough attacks. They also heal the plant hero by one point for every flower plant (including themselves) out on the field at the beginning of every turn.
    • Venus Flytraplanet transforms anything on it into a Combat Medic as long as it deals damage and survives.
    • Astrovera is this trope taken to the extreme: it heals the hero for 10, and allows the hero to have 10 more health than usual. It also has a decent 5/5 bulk.
    • Aloesaurus will heal all plants and the Plant Hero for 1 HP every time a card is drawn. It also has strong 4/7 stats for a 5-cost plant.
  • Zombies:
    • Medic can heal either another zombie or the zombie hero when played and is no joke in combat either.
    • Nurse Gargantuar has the strength and health associated with members of the Gargantuar tribe. They also heal the zombie hero for the amount of damage they do with each attack.
• Combat Pragmatist: Both Smarty and its Evil Counterpart Sneaky are able to hinder the enemy's progress and gain the upper hand. They can both bounce and freeze enemy units, while having a fair share of powerful Amphibious units. While Sneaky specialises in the Strikethrough, Anti-Hero and Deadly traits, Smarty units can attack in multiple lanes at once and overwhelm the enemy with Team-Up units as well as having Game-Breaker cards such as The Great Zucchini, Lima-Pleurodon, Dark Matter Dragonfruit and Brainana.
• Comeback Mechanic: The appropriately-named Ketchup Mechanic is a Plant which makes reference to this. When played, it gets +1/+1 and heals the Plant Hero for 1 HP for each zombie on the field.
• Confusion Fu: Anything with the "conjure" effect will give you a random card from the entire game. Other examples seen from both sides include:
  • Plants:
    • Seedling can turn into any plant that costs 6 Sun or less, provided they survive to the end of the turn.
    • Petal-morphosis turns a plant into another random plant from the game and draws a card.
    • Cornucopia fills every empty lane with a random plant from the game.
    • Molekale turns all other Plants on the field into random ones that cost 1 sun more.
    • When any plant is damaged while Transfiguration is on the field, it turns them into a random plant. This also applies to Transfiguration itself.
  • Zombies:
    • Summoning, a superpower exclusive to Professor Brainstorm and Immorticia, creates a random zombie that costs 2 Sun or less.
    • Tomb Raiser Zombie summons a random gravestone zombie in a random empty lane whenever it damages the plant hero.
    • Portal Technician summons a random zombie in his place upon defeat.
    • Zombot Plank Walker spawns in two random zombies from the Pirate tribe (except other Zombot Plank Walkers) in two random lanes when played.
    • Zombies on a Transformation Station will turn into a random Zombie that costs 1 brain more at the start of a turn.
    • Interdimensional Zombie will turn into a random 3-cost Zombie when a Science card is played.
    • Evolutionary Leap will transform a zombie into a random Zombie that costs 1 brain more.
    • The Zombot Aerostatic Gondola will move to a different lane and leave a random Zombie behind every time it hurts the Plant Hero.
    • The Zombot Dinotronic Mechasaur will spawn a random History Zombie in a random lane whenever a card is drawn.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Wing-Nut firmly believes that Elvis is alive, Zombies never walked on the Moon, and that Dr. Zomboss is secretly studying aliens at Area 22. Considering that Area 22 is an actual card with a Flavor Text of Zomboss going Move Along, Nothing to See Here, the conspiracies are quite believable.
• Counter-Attack:
  • Prickly Pear will damage the zombie in front for 4 damage when hurt, and otherwise has no attack power. This however also includes getting damaged by Galacta-Cactus or Hot Lava.
  • Jester Zombie will attack the Plant player directly for 2 damage when hit.
  • Mirror-Nut will damage the Zombie player directly for 2 damage when a Nut is hurt. This includes itself, of course.
  • Briar Rose will instantly destroy any zombie teammate that hurts a flower. This also includes itself.
  • Gas Giant will damage all other teammates on the battlefield for 1 damage when it's hurt.
• Crazy Cat Lady: The Cat Lady, whose strength increases for one turn whenever another pet zombie is played.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Multiplayer mode is like that. In some cases the game will match you with a player way above or below your rank, and usually those players have more or less cards than you which may make the battle very easy or even impossible.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Some of the bosses in the missions have much higher health than normal. Especially Guardians.
• Death-Activated Superpower: Several Plant and Zombie Teammates only use their special ability upon a "When Destroyed" condition. These can vary from damaging the opposing Hero (Grapes of Wrath, Galactacactus and Gas Giant), spawning other Teammates (Banana Split, Pear Cub and Barrel Roller), to spawning a useful Trick card (Turkey Rider).
• Deployable Cover: There are several methods to block incoming attacks on a lane, although it should be noted that Strikethrough units will render this useless.
  • Wall-nuts and similar plants retain this role from previous games.
  • Gravestones are immune to all damage and Tricks with the exception of Grave Buster. Using a trick like In-Crypted or teleporting in a Mixed-Up Gravedigger can allow the zombie Hero to avoid damage from the lanes the gravestones are in.
  • In a pinch, any plant or zombie can be used as a meat-shield for the hero.
  • Poppin' Poppies uses this trope when planted by creating three Lil' Buddies with Team-Up on the lane she's on as well as adjacent lanes. They also heal the Plant Hero by 2 health each when spawned.
• Detachment Combat: Spudow can toss his head to create a Hothead, which is a much more powerful Potato Mine.
• Die, Chair, Die!: A game in one of the zombies' missions seems to let the players destroy objects, as we see Impfinity pick up a crate and smash it on top of Solar Flare's head in the game.
• Distracted by My Own Sexy: Super Brainz can't help but look at himself in the mirror. His vanity allows Green Shadow, Solar Flare, and Spudow to get the jump on him at the end of the plant mission involving Super Brainz. Despite this, he does use his own mirror to his advantage in the zombie mission involving Rose, deflecting her Forced Transformation spell and turn her into a goat instead.
• Ditto Fighter:
  • The Zombie side has Synchronized Swimmer, which when played copies the stats of another Zombie in play. It doesn't copy their abilities, however.
  • The Plant side has Imitater, which transforms into a copy of the next Plant that is played, traits, abilities and all.
• Domesticated Dinosaurs: The Zombie Teammates with the Dino-Roar ability are all zombies riding tamed dinosaurs from Jurassic Marsh.
• Don't Wake the Sleeper: Hibernating Beary normally has zero strength, but it gains 4 strength when it is woken by taking damage. Combined with its high amount of health, it will prove to be an effective Lightning Bruiser until it is finally destroyed.
• Draw Extra Cards: Many cards have the ability to draw more. Two of the most basic examples are Flourish and Fun-Dead Raiser, three-cost cards that each draw two cards when played.

E-M

• Enemy Mime: The "Mime" tribe is one of the few tribes shared by both sides, and both Plants and Zombies have a unit in that tribe, so the enemy depends on which side is your opponent:
  • Plants have the Imitater, which transforms into the next Plant that the Plant Hero plays. This also includes using any abilities that the next Plant has.
  • Zombies have the Gargantuar Mime, which performs a Bonus Attack every time a non-Mime Plant or Zombie perform a Bonus attack.
• Evil Counterpart/Good Counterpart:
  • Every Plant Class has a similar Zombie Class counterpart. Guardian and Hearty focus on defensive abilities such as high health and armor. Kabloom and Crazy use aggressive units that deal high direct damage. Mega-Grow and Beastly focus on Status Buffs and extra attacks/frenzy. Smarty and Sneaky use tactical powers such as bounce, freeze, amphibious, or hiding in gravestones. Finally, Solar and Brainy both provide better resource management in the form of extra sun/brains.
  • The musical scores for the plant and zombie heroes have some similar tunes, with the zombies' themes being a darker reprise to the plants'. Green Shadow's, Citron's and Captain Combustible's themes are the counterparts to Super Brainz', Immorticia's and Neptuna's theme. Solar Flare's and Nightcap's theme is the counterpart to The Smash's and Brain Freeze's theme. Wall-Knight and Grass Knuckles' theme is the counterpart to Impfinity's theme. Chompzilla's and Rose's theme is the counterpart to Rustbolt's, Professor Brainstorm's and Z-Mech's theme. Spudow's theme is the counterpart to Electric Boogaloo's. Finally, Beta-Carrotina's theme is the counterpart to Huge-Gigantacus' theme.
• Exploding Barrels: The Barrel of Deadbeards, based on Captain Deadbeard's Barrel Blast ability. It costs 2 brains and has no attack and 1 HP, but when it's defeated it explodes to deal 1 damage to all Plant and Zombie teammates before spawning a Captain Deadbeard with 4 Strength and 3 Health.
• Extra Turn:
  • Known here as a "Bonus Attack", this allows a Plant or Zombie to do an extra attack, sometimes even before the attack phase starts.
  • Plants with the Double Strike trait such as Repeater or Bananasaurus Rex will attack another time after the combat phase on their lane is over and if they're still alive.
  • Zombies with the Frenzy trait such as Smashing Gargantuar or All-Star will attack another time should they survive after killing a plant during the combat phase.
  • Both Wing-Nut and Bonus Track Buckethead will prevent the opposing side from using any form of Bonus Attacks as long as they're on the field.
• Facepalm: After unfairly losing to an Imp in a Science Fair, Professor Brainstorm facepalms out of frustration.
• Field Power Effect: The Galactic Gardens update introduces a new type of card, Environments. These are played on a ground lane to add a a beneficial effect to the player's side or a detrimental effect to the opposing side.
• Fire Means Chaos: One example of the chaos we see Impfinity and his clones cause in the former's introductory comic? Starting a fire.
• Fishbowl Helmet: In the mission "Code Orange! Citron Invades!", several characters (Rose, Grass Knuckles, and Brain Freeze) breathe in space via wearing fishbowls or a fishbowl-like helmets on their heads.
• Fist Pump:
  • An animation briefly plays involving Super Brainz raising a clenched fist above his shoulder when he wins.
  • When she and several other Plant Heroes win in "IMPossible Mission", Green Shadow triumphantly raises a clenched fist above her. Citron and Grass Knuckles also do something similar.
• Fitness Nut: There's a Plant Teammate named Health-Nut, which fits this in both the literal and trope sense by being a Nut holding a weight (also made of nuts), and his special ability causes him to use his health instead of strength to attack. The Flavor Text mentions that he skips leg day (mostly because he has no legs).
• Flawless Victory: One of Chompzilla's hero quest requires you to win a match with at least 20 health, which is the max health. Unless you have Astro Vera (which will allow you to get more than 20 health) or many healing plants, you will likely have to win without getting hit.
• Foil:
  • Sugary Treat and Healthy Treat. The former is in the Crazy class and grants 3 strength and 1 health, turning the zombie into a Glass Cannon, while the latter is in the Hearty Class and does the opposite by granting 1 strength and 3 health, turning them into a Stone Wall or Mighty Glacier. They contrast even more with Crazy's playstyle revolving around attacking and Hearty's playstyle revolving around defending. Additionally, they can both be conjured by Trick-Or-Treater.
  • Coffee Zombie and Energy Drink Zombie. They have similar animations and both carry a drink which they utilise for their abilities, but their gameplay is very different. While Coffee Zombie has an expensive brain cost and very predictable strategies, he can grant the Frenzy trait to all zombies including himself and has good stats. Energy Drink Zombie on the other hand starts off weak and easily destroyed, but he is an Increasingly Lethal Enemy who buffs his stats and wanders to random lanes during the Zombie Tricks phase, and only keeps the Frenzy trait for himself. They even have descriptions that contrast each other, with Coffee Zombie's being "He's been trying to cut back" while Energy Drink Zombie's is "He can quit any time he wants".
• Forced Transformation: Rose has the ability to turn a single zombie into a 1/1 Goat, much like in Garden Warfare. And The Great Zucchini can turn every zombie into 1/1 basic zombies. If you're playing as Nightcap, playing Sour Grapes directly afterwards is effectively a One-Hit Polykill. Last (and probably least) is Transmogrify, a superpower that Citron and the aforementioned Rose can use. While it can turn a single zombie into a 1-cost zombie, it has a chance to give a useful zombie like a Planetary Gladiator or Quickdraw Con Man.
• The Freelance Shame Squad: Not only did Grass Knuckles fail to defeat Impfinity in a race and was left exhausted, a Basic Zombie laughs at him for losing.
• Friendly Fireproof: Averted in some cases on both sides.
  • Doom-Shroom, a Guardian trick, will destroy both plants and zombies on the field that have 4 or more Strength.
  • Tactical Cuke destroys ALL Plants and Zombies on the ground lanes.
  • When destroyed, Galacta-Cactus will damage ALL plants and zombies, including both heroes, for 1 Bullseye damage.
  • Fireworks Zombie (when played) and Barrel of Deadbeards (when destroyed) will damage all plants and zombies on the field (including himself in Fireworks Zombie's case).
  • Gas Giant damages all plants and zombies on the field for one hit point when damaged. If there's more than one Gas Giant, you get a Cycle of Hurting. Not that this is a bad thing for the Zombie Hero, since Gas Giant hits the Plant Hero directly for 5 damage on death.
• Gelatinous Encasement: The final cutscene of the zombie mission "Battle at the BBQ" has the zombies subdue Green Shadow by throwing her into a jello mold, much to the dismay of Brain Freeze, the zombie who made it.
• Genius Bruiser:
  • Wizard Gargantuar. His strength and health are on-par by Gargantuar standards, yet his arcane knowledge grants himself and other Gargantuars the Bullseye trait.
  • Super Brainz. Although he is extremely muscular, he is also very intelligent for a zombie, as most comics end with him coming up with a creative solution to defeating the plant hero (such as using Neptuna's fishbowl to extinguish Captain Combustible, or using his cape to tie up Spudow's head so Spudow can't detach it).
• Geo Effects: There are three different types of lanes in the game that can affect some teammates and tricks.
  • Ground lanes are the "default" lanes where all plants and zombies can be placed. Tricks like Acid Rain or Lawnmower only affect teammates on these lanes. Environment cards can only be played on the ground.
  • Height lanes are similar to ground lanes in that all teammates can be placed on them. However, abilities on certain teammates will only activate on these lanes.
    • Some receive increased strength and health (Cabbage-Pult, Skyshooter, Chimney Sweep, and Mountain Climber).
    • Others do damage or debuffs to enemy teammates or enemy heroes upon play (Kernel-Pult and Foot Soldier).
  • Aquatic lanes (usually) only allow teammates with the Amphibious trait to be played on them.
• Glass Cannon:
  • Several solar cards are based around this. The most notable example is Magnifying Grass, which gains attack points for every sun you've collected... but has one HP, making her unlikely to make more than one attack unless you're playing as Wall-Knight.
  • In general, the Crazy class of zombies. The highest health their teammates can have is 6, but they tend to have very good damage and direct damage abilities.
  • Dancing and Pet tribe zombies tend to play like this. Both tribes can grow to do great damage with the help of teammates like Aerobics Instructor and Zookeeper. However, the base health of most Pet and Dancing tribe zombies are low, and is not increased by prior teammates.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: When the Plants and Zombies aren't fighting, they can sometimes be found competing in arcade games or obstacle courses.
• Harmless Freezing: Plants and zombies that get frozen suffer no ill effects beyond not being able to attack for a turn. Averted sharply for zombies if Winter Squash is on the field, who instantly destroys any zombies that get frozen.
• Heart Symbol: To further show his vanity, a few red hearts appear near Super Brainz as he's admiring his reflection during the cutscene in which the player starts zombie missions. A few pink hearts also are seen near him as he's admiring his reflection at a mirror inside a store in "Zombopolis Apocalypse".
• Hero Killer:
  • Teammates that have the Anti-Hero trait deal more damage to the opposing hero.
    • Plants have Poison Mushroom, Poison Ivy, and Poison Oak. Anti-Hero is exclusive to Kabloom heroes.
    • Zombies have Mini-Ninja, Stealthy Imp, Walrus Rider and Space Pirate. Anti-Hero is exclusive to Sneaky heroes.
  • Zombie Teammates with the Overshoot ability will deal damage directly to the Plant Hero before combat.
  • Flamenco Zombie deals damage to the plant hero upon play, with the damage increasing by 2 for every Dancing tribe zombie on the field.
  • Sonic Bloom deals damage to the zombie hero upon play, with the damage increasing by 1 for every plant on the field.
  • Grapes of Wrath deals a hefty six damage to the zombie hero upon defeat.
  • Dandy Lion King halves the zombie hero's health upon play.
  • Sportacus deals 2 direct damage to the zombie hero when the zombie hero plays a trick.
  • Admiral Navy Bean deals 2 damage to the zombie hero whenever a Bean is played.
  • Astro-Shroom deals 1 Bullseye damage to the zombie hero whenever another Plant is played.
  • Heartichoke deals damage directly to the zombie hero equal to the amount of health healed on plant Teammates or the Plant Hero.
  • Gas Giant deals a huge 5 damage to the Plant Hero upon defeat.
  • Quick Draw Conman deals 1 Bullseye damage to the Plant hero whenever the Plant Hero draws a card.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Story-wise: Rose's Goatify is fired as a ray of light magic, meaning if it hits a reflective surface such as Super Brainz's mirror, the ray can be reflected back to Rose, resulting in her becoming a goat instead.
  • Gameplay-wise:
    • As a Plant hero, Galacta-Cactus' ability to do one Bullseye damage to every plant, zombie, and both you and the opponent is normally a good ability^note Such as pairing Galacta-Cactus with a Mirror-Nut (Each time a Nut plant takes damage, Mirror-Nut deals 2 damage to the opponent) plus an army of Nut plants. Each Nut takes 1 damage, resulting in the opponent taking big damage. The ability becomes detrimental if you're at 1 health. If Galacta-Cactus is destroyed while you're at 1 health, then you lose the game^note If both you and and the opponent are at 1 health, then you take the damage first. Playing Galacta-Cactus while a Zombot Shaktronic Sub^note While on the field, any plant that takes damage is destroyed. Each destroyed plant gives the Sub a +1 to its strength is also a horrible idea for you as the Sub will destroy all damaged plants and gain a massive strength boost.
    • As a Plant hero, having Split Pea^note A 2 Sun, 4 strength and 1 health pea plant that deals 1 damage to you before combat actually starts in its lane is a nice way to charge up the block meter which could allow you to block a huge incoming attack from your opponent. However, much like Galacta-Cactus, playing this while you're at low health is never a good idea, as if you do, there's a chance the ability activates while you're at 1 health, resulting in you losing the game.
• Horse of a Different Color: Several Zombie teammates have zombified animals that they ride, such as a zombie kangaroo, walrus, or turkey. The Colossal Fossils set gives us zombies using the dinosaurs from Jurassic Marsh as mounts.
• Hostile Terraforming: This is Huge-Gigantacus' modus operandi. His Terror-Former 10,000 can rapidly make areas inhospitable to Plants, and his main gameplay strategy is Environments.
• Humiliation Conga: After he's defeated near the end of the mission "A Schooling at Zombie U", Professor Brainstorm's Evil Plan fails due to an explosion destroying his invention (courtesy of Spudow, who's one of his enemies). He also gets an Ash Face and the plant heroes force him to write lines.
• Hunter Trapper: The Trapper Zombie, who wears a coonskin cap and places down a Trapper Territory environment that hurts plants in it for 1 damage per turn when revealed. He hunts for plant skins such as banana peels, however.
• Idea Bulb:
  • When he comes up with the idea to tie Spudow's cape around him, a lightbulb appears near Super Brainz.
  • A light bulb appears near Grass Knuckles when he thinks of an idea to defeat a bunch of Z-mechs.
• Increasingly Lethal Enemy: Several Plant and Zombie Teammates can keep buffing themselves as long as they're on the field, slowly growing stronger.
  • Pea Pod gives itself +1/+1 every turn.
  • Bananasaurus Rex, Tricarrotops and Apotatosaurus gain +1/+1 whenever the Plant Hero draws or conjures a card, which means at least once a turn. Apotatosaurus even conjures a card when played, giving it +1/+1 automatically.
  • Veloci-Radish Hatchling and Veloci-Radish Hunter will get 1 Strength whenever the Plant Hero draws or conjures a card.
  • Doubled Mint's stats double each turn.
  • Jack O'Lantern gives itself +1/0 every time it hurts the Zombie Hero. Since it has Strikethrough, this also means it'll be doing that every time the Zombie Hero doesn't Super-Block it.
  • Blooming Heart's strength increases by 1 every time she deals damage.
  • Team Mascot gives itself and other Sports Zombies +1/+1 each turn.
  • Aerobics Instructor gives herself and other Dancing Zombies +2/+0 each turn.
  • Genetic Experiment gets +1/+1 in the Zombie Tricks phase, but only as long as there is at least one other zombie in a lane next to his own.
  • Ducky Tube Zombie gets +1/+1 every time he hits the Plant Hero.
  • Mondo Bronto will get +1/+1 and kill all Plant Teammates in front of it every time the Zombie Hero draws a card, which means at least once a turn.
  • While Stompadon doesn't directly buff itself, it does make all Zombies in the hand get +1/+1 whenever a card is drawn, which makes things far dicier if it's left to survive.
  • Raiding Raptor will get 2 Strength whenever the Zombie Hero draws a card. It also conjures a card that costs 2 or less every time it successfully hurts the Plant Hero, and since it's a Sneaky card it can be played on Laser Base Alpha for Strikethrough.
• Insistent Terminology: The Celestial Custodian:
  "Don't call him a Space Janitor. He's a Celestial Custodian and darn proud of it."
• Kill Streak: Zombies with the Frenzy ability attack again if they successfully kill a plant teammate and live.
  • Taken further with Vimpire who has Frenzy and gains +2/+2 for each plant he kills, and taken even further with Ancient Vimpire that gives any Zombie with Frenzy +2/+2 whenever they kill a plant.
  • The Zombot Shaktronic Sub kills any plant that gets hurt, gaining +1 strength in the process each time he does so. Now use him with The Chickening or Fireworks Zombie or Barrel of Deadbeards...
• King Mook: The plant heroes are more powered-up versions of regular plants. Most of them are identifiable:
  • Green Shadow is a powered-up Peashooter.
  • Solar Flare is a powered-up Sunflower.
  • Wall-Knight is a powered-up Wall-nut.
  • Spudow is a powered-up Potato Mine.
  • Chompzilla is a powered-up Chomper.
  • Grass Knuckles is a powered-up Bonk Choy
  • Captain Combustible is a powered-up Torchwood.
  • Nightcap is a powered-up mushroom
    • Same with the Zombie Heroes:
  • Super Brainz is a powered-up regular zombie.
  • The Smash is a powered-up gargantuar.
  • Impfinity is a powered-up imp.
  • Rustbolt is also a powered-up regular zombie, but he got his armor and powers from a nearby vending machine that got affected.
  • Electric Bugaloo is a powered-up disco zombie.
  • Brain Freeze is a powered-up yeti zombie.
  • Proffessor Brainstorm is a powered-up scientist zombie.
  • Neptuna is a reference to the octo-zombie.
• Kitchen Sink Included: The Kitchen Sink Zombie lives up to its name by having several traits, some of which are exclusive to other classes. To wit, it comes with Bullseye, Frenzy, Overshoot 2, Anti-Hero 3, and Armored 1. And yes, he holds a kitchen sink. The only traits it lacks are Strikethrough, Deadly, Gravestone, Hunt, Amphibious, and Untrickable, but the former two can be given to him by playing him on Laser Base Alpha while the third can be given by playing him on a Graveyard, the fourth by playing him on a Hunting Grounds, the fifth by playing him on a Killer Whale, and the last by playing a Parasol Zombie next to him.
• Life Drain: Venus Flytrap and Nurse Gargantuar are able to heal their hero by their Strength amount when attacking, similar to the MTG ability "Lifelink". The environment Venus Flytraplanet allows any plant to gain this ability.
• Logical Weakness: This is how many of the Plant and Zombie Heroes in the story modes are defeated.
  • Impfinity clones himself via a device on his body. If that's struck hard enough by something like Green Shadow's Precision Blast, it malfunctions and his clones disappear.
  • Rustbolt's armor is magnetic and he becomes helplessly stuck against a scrapyard magnet, courtesy of Spudow.
  • Brain Freeze's ability to freeze the Plants doesn't work too well on Solar Flare, who can cover herself in flames.
  • Despite being summonable and having the ability to summon Zombies themselves, Immorticia's bats are still small animals that become useless if tied down with mere toilet paper.
  • Being a Dance Battler whose power comes from his disco moves, Electric Boogaloo gets his tempo and fighting capability thrown off-track when Solar Flare changes the music to the plants' favor.
  • Super Brainz' narcissism makes him easily distracted by a mirror shop. The Plant Heroes thus beat him up while he's distracted.
  • Professor Brainstorm's ability to summon zombies to Zerg Rush the Plant Heroes is easily thwarted when Spudow destroys the Zombie Teleportation-er.
  • Spudow's ability to remove and toss his head as an explosive (and regrow it) is useless if his head is tied down to his body by something. Such as Super Brainz' cape.
  • Chompzilla's ability to eat zombies is neutralized if her mouth is stuck shut, and Brain Freeze does so by freezing it up.
  • Citron's ability to turn into a ball to do a Rolling Attack also means that he's vulnerable to being kicked away like a ball in that form, which Z-Mech quickly capitalizes on.
  • Rose's Forced Transformation spells are rays, and are therefore susceptible to being reflected back to her via a mirror.
  • Captain Combustible's flames allow him to give his peas fire powers. Super Brainz thus uses the water in Neptuna's fishbowl to extinguish him, nullifying his powers.
  • While Wall-Knight's armor makes him Nigh-Invulnerable, it doesn't make him immune to Knock Back or being forcefully moved around. Brain Freeze and the Smash thus grab him before the former putts him away like a golf ball.
  • Nightcap's ability to summon a swarm of low-health mushrooms makes them all very susceptible to Brainstorm's zapper which causes an area-based Chain Lightning effect.
  • Solar Flare's powers have no real weakness, but they're stuck in a kid, meaning that she can end up acting accordingly, such as putting a video game over an incursion.
• Losing Your Head: Spudow's signature Superpower Tater Toss has him remove his head and throw it, summoning it into the battlefield as Hothead, a much stronger version of the Potato Mine. He easily regenerates his head, of course.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Snapdragon (returning from Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time) as well as the Dark Matter Dragonfruit are dragon-based Planimals. What makes them fall under this trope is that there's an entire "Dragon" tribe reserved for them, separate from the "Animal" tribe normally reserved for most planimal teammates!
• Mama Bear: Kill the Pear Cub (which isn't hard, since it only has 1/1 for stats) and it will immediately spawn the Grizzly Pear, which has 5 strength and 4 health. Even the Grizzly Pear's Flavor Text states so:
  "It's true what they say, "Never get between a Grizzly Pear and her cub." Doubly true for Zombies."
• Mana Burn:
  • Plants:
    • Brainana's ability makes the zombie hero lose all of their Brains. Played under most circumstances (Gentleman Zombie notwithstanding), Brainana prevents the zombie hero from playing tricks for the turn. Gods help the zombie hero if Seedling turns into this at the beginning of a turn, locking the zombie hero out of playing any zombies or tricks for that turn.
    • Dark Matter Dragonfruit makes Zombie tricks cost 6 more Brains than usual while it is on the field.
    • To a lesser extent, Forget-Me-Nuts make Zombie tricks cost 1 more Brain than usual while on the field, and are much cheaper.
  • Zombies:
    • Ra Zombie's ability takes away 2 Sun from the plant heroes for the turn it is played.
    • Defensive End's ability makes plant tricks cost 2 more Sun than usual while it is on the field.
    • Turquoise Skull Zombie's ability allows him to take away 1 Sun at the start of the turn, while also giving himself +1/+0.
• Man-Eating Plant:
  • In typical Chomper fashion, Chompzilla. Her signature superpower allows her to eat a zombie with the lowest health.
  • Chomper returns in this game as a teammate who can destroy the zombie on its lane when played, as long as the zombie has relatively low strength (3 or less).
  • Three-Headed Chomper destroys zombies on its lane and the lanes next to it at the end of a turn.
  • Toadstool also returns. She destroys a zombie with 4 or less strength, similarly to Chomper.
• Manipulating the Opponent's Deck: Certain cards can have the opponent draw or conjure a card, which can work well with units that benefit from such, including the Dinosaur units and Quickdraw Con Man.
• Mass Super-Empowering Event: Zomboss accidentally blowing up the Hero-tron 5000 sent out a wave of energy across the globe which turned some plants and zombies into heroes.
• Mathematician's Answer: Shrinking Violet's Flavor Text:
  "Is she cute or terrifying? Yes."
• Maximum HP Reduction: Inverted with the Astro Vera, which not only heals the Plant Hero for 10 health, but also extends their maximum health by 10.
• Mirrors Reflect Everything: This is how the zombies beat Rose in the mission against her. Super Brainz uses the mirror (that he normally looks at himself in) to deflect her Goatify spell back, turning Rose into a goat instead.
• The Monolith: The Pecanolith teammate, based on the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. When this is on the field, all Plants and Zombies attack using their health stat instead of their strength stat, akin to Health-Nut.
• Mook Bouncer: A number of teammates have the ability to force opposing teammates to move (e.g. Sumo Wrestler and Whipvine) or bounce them back into their player's hand (e.g. Jumping Bean, Leaf Blower and Pogo Bouncer). Some of them even bounce their own teammates so that you can play them again.
• Mook Maker: Several of the Player Mooks are able to spawn other mooks immediately —
  • Plants:
    • Shroom For Two, Pair of Pears, and Veloci-Radish Hunter will spawn a similar unit to themselves with Team-Up in front of them when played.
    • Poppin' Poppies will spawn a Lil' Buddy with Team-Up on her lane and adjacent ones, and each Lil' Buddy also heals the Plant player by +2 when spawned.
    • The Witch Hazel will One-Hit Kill a random zombie and spawn a puff-shroom in its lane, just like in its source game.
    • The king of these for Plants is Cornucopia, which spawns random plants in all the other lanes.
  • Zombies:
    • Like his source game, Disco Zombie will spawn a backup dancer, although only one this time due to lane limitations. The Disco-Tron 3000 takes it even further by spawning a Disco Zombie which then spawns a backup dancer, making it a Mook Maker Maker.
    • When damaged, the Imp-throwing Gargantuar, Gargantuar-Throwing Imp, Imp-Throwing Imp and Gargantuar-Throwing Gargantuar will respectively spawn in a random lane a Swabbie, a Gargantuar that costs 5 Brains, an Imp that costs 2 Brains or less, and a random Gargantuar.
    • The Tomb Raiser Zombie will spawn a random gravestone in a random lane if it successfully damages the Plant Hero.
    • The Zombot Aerostatic Gondola will move to another lane and leave behind a random zombie, but only if it damages the Plant Hero.
• Move Along, Nothing to See Here: The Flavor Text for Area 22 has Zomboss saying this in regards to zombies from outer space.
  "Zombies from outer space? What an absurd conspiracy theory! Now move along. Nothing to see here." - Dr. Zomboss

N-Z

• Necessary Drawback: A number of teammates or tricks have high power for low cost, but have a downside to them:
  • Haunted Pumpking is a very powerful 4/2 for the cost of one sun. It also conjures a Monster card for the Zombie Hero when played, and most Monster cards tend to be very powerful and useful.
  • Split Pea has a high 4 strength for only 2 sun, but it attacks the Plant player for 1 damage before combat in its lane.
  • Wild Berry also has 4 strength for only 2 sun, but moves to a random lane when played.
  • Exploding Imp has a massive 6 strength, but only 1 health, and it deals 1 damage to itself after each turn.
  • Exploding Fruitcake deals a whopping 7 damage to a selected Plant Teammate for a mere 2 cost. It also conjures a Fruit card for the Plant Hero when played, and many Fruit cards tend to be very powerful and useful. Of course, this can be taken advantage of with Quickdraw Con Man.
  • Unexpected Gifts conjures three Event Cards for the Zombie Player, and one Event Card for the Plant player. Like the above, this can also be taken advantage of with Quickdraw Con Man.
• Nerf: A number of Plant and Zombie teammates that were very obviously overpowered received nerfs to tone down this. Notable examples are Clique Peas (now costs 1 more sun in addition to gaining +1/+1 per Clique Peas played).
• Never Tell Me the Odds!: Said word-for-word in Cool Bean's Tenuously Connected Flavor Text. A definite reference to the Trope Namer considering that he's directly based off Han Solo (more specifically, the moment where he's frozen in Carbonite).
  "Chance of meeting Gravestones? Never tell me the odds!"
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Wall-Knight's signature Superpower Uncrackable makes him don his invulnerable Powered Armor... and during this time, absolutely nothing can hurt him at all.
• No Campaign for the Wicked: Averted here, in the very first time the Zombies are a fully playable faction on a PvZ mobile game.
• No Self-Buffs: Umbrella Leaf gives all plants in her lane (except herself) and adjacent ones the Untrickable trait, making them all immune to tricks except herself. That doesn't stop another Umbrella Leaf being played next door to give both of them Untrickable, however.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: In the Zombie Mission "A Fight to the Finish Line!", the Zombies pretty much outright cheat to beat Grass Knuckles by having Impfinity clone himself to get past the final obstacle easily. Zomboss' remark is a subversion to the trope: "It's not cheating... If you win!"
• Oh, Crap!: Every hero has an animation like this for when the opponent plays a legendary card, and they start panicking when they're low on health.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Captain Flameface's Flavor Text shows that everybody talks about him getting his beard caught in a toaster.
  You get your beard caught in the toaster ONE time, and it's all anyone can talk about...
• One-Hit Kill:
  • Zombies with the Deadly trait will instantly destroy plant teammates regardless of health if they successfully deal at least a point of damage to them, exactly like "Deathtouch" from Magic: The Gathering.
  • If any Zombie teammate so much as damages a Flower Tribe plant when Briar Rose is around, she'll instantly destroy that Zombie Teammate, health, armor, or Shielding be damned.
  • Any Zombie that gets frozen when there's a Winter Squash around will be destroyed by the squash.
  • The Zombot Sharktronic Sub's ability is a similar case to Deadly, except that if any Plant Teammate gets damaged (by zombie teammates or tricks), they're instantly killed and the Sharktronic Sub gains +1 Strength.
  • Squash and Locust Swarm take out zombies and plants respectively in one shot. Whack-a-Zombie and Rolling Stone can do the same, but only against zombies with 3 attack or less and plants with 2 attack or less. Knockout kills all Plants with 3 or less strength in a lane. Rocket Science and Shamrocket can do the same on plants and zombies respectively with 4 attack or more. Lawnmower can take out any zombie on a ground lane.
  • When Cob Cannon is evolved from (played on to replace) a Team-Up plant, it will be able to instantly destroy a zombie of the Plant player's choosing.
  • Shrinking Violet will debuff zombies in its lane and adjacent ones by 2 Strength. If any of those zombies are left with no Strength, they're instantly killed.
  • Evolving a zombie into Primordial Cheese Shover allows him to instantly kill a selected Plant.
  • Playing a Plant on top of Eyespore will kill any zombie teammates in that lane.
• One-Hit Polykill: Any zombie with Strikethrough can perform this on a lane with more than one plant Teammate on it (via team-up).
• Parasol of Prettiness: Parasol Zombie returns from Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time. While her parasol no longer protects her from lobbed shots, it does give protection in the form of the Untrickable trait to herself as well as adjacent Zombie Teammates, making them all immune to tricks.
• Percent Damage Attack: When played, Dandy Lion King will damage the Zombie Hero for half their current health rounded down.
• Pie in the Face: A gag in the first mission on the zombie's side has Super Brainz try to throw a pie at Green Shadow, only for it hit Zomboss' face instead.
• Player Mooks: All Teammates on both sides are these, never appearing in the comic cutscenes, multiple of them can be used, and don't really contribute to the plot. Despite this, they are crucial in damaging the opposing hero.
• Planimal: Plant Teammates that fall under the "Animal" or the rarer "Dragon" tribe are these.
  • Bananasaurus Rex is, obviously, a banana version of the Tyrannosaurus rex.
    "She's a banana first and a dinosaur second. But it's a very close second."
  • Snapdragon, which is based off of the flower of the same name, albeit with a dragon's head.
  • Cattail, which is based off of the reed of the same name, but more represents an actual cat.
  • Toadstool, a toadstool mushroom who's also a toad.
  • Pear Cub and Grizzly Pear, which are pears that slightly resemble bears.
  • Dandy Lion King, a dandelion that is also a lion.
  • Dark Matter Dragonfruit is based on a dragonfruit plant that's shaped like the head of a dragon.
  • Corn Dog is a cross between a dog and an ear of corn.
  • Bird of Paradise is a cross between the Bird-of-Paradise plant and an actual bird-of-paradise.
  • The Colossal Fossils update brings us more dinosaur plants. Tricarrotops is a cross between a carrot and a Triceratops, while the Lima-Pleurodon is a lima bean Lioplerudon.
  • Triassic Triumph brings us even more dinosaur plant teammates. Veloci-Radish Hunter and Hatchling are both based off radishes and velociraptors, Apotatosaurus is based on a potato and Apatosaurus, and Aloesaurus is based on an Allosaurus and Aloe Vera plant.
• Powered Armor:
  • Wall-Knight's Superpower has him don an invincible one that prevents him from getting hurt at all. He gained this after the malfunctioning Hero-Tron 5000 zapped him.
  • Rustbolt's armor, which contains several gadgets including a Shrink Ray. Unlike Wall-Knight, it wasn't the zombie himself but a vending machine that was zapped, thus turning it into his armor.
• Promoted to Playable: Several Zombies in the series are now actual playable teammates. That even includes a number of the Zombots, including the Final Boss of the original game.
• Raising the Steaks: There are several Beastly Zombie teammates which utilize zombified animals. Examples are Pied Piper (rats), Squirrel Herder, Walrus Rider, Kangaroo Rider, Cat Lady, Dog Walker, Zookeeper (snake), and the power Locust Swarm. Both Octo Zombie and Zombie Chicken return too, although the latter is classified as a Sneaky card and not a Beastly card.
• Random Effect Spell: See Confusion Fu above
• Random Loot Exchanger: If you have four or more copies of a single card, you can trade four in to receive a random card of the rarity one tier higher. This serves as a helpful sink for cards you have too many of or otherwise don't want to use.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Grass Knuckles' signature superpower, Power Pummel, has him rapidly punch every ground lane, dealing 2 damage to everything in those lanes.
• Raptor Attack: Both the Plants and Zombies have raptor teammates, all of which have the Dino-Roar trait:
  • Plants have the Veloci-Radish Hatchling and the Veloci-Radish Hunter. Both of them gain +1 attack whenever the Plant Hero draws or conjures a card, and being pack hunters, the Veloci-Radish Hunter will also make a clone of itself in its lane when played.
  • Zombies have the Raiding Raptor (based on the Raptor from Jurassic Marsh), which conjures a card that costs 2 or less whenever it deals damage to the Plant Hero. It also gains attack whenever it manages to do so, making it very deadly with Laser Base Alpha.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Pear Cub appears to be a cross between a bear cub and a pear, and it's absolutely adorable.
• Running Gag: Zombie-throwing zombies. First, we had the Imp-throwing Gargantuar that spawned swabbies in random lanes when hurt, and its description was "More successful than the Gargantuar-throwing Imp". Then, the Gargantuar-Throwing Imp was made into an actual card, and it was an Imp that spawned Gargantuars when hurt. After that, there was the Imp-Throwing Imp which spawned more imps when hurt. Finally, Triassic Triumph introduced the Gargantuar-Throwing Gargantuar, who spawned Gargantuars when hurt, and its description even states "The ultimate, epic, last, absolutely final conclusion to the Zombie-throwing Zombie saga. ...or is it?".
• Science Fair: In his introductory comic strip, Professor Brainstorm is seen participating in a science fair. He loses to an Imp whose project was a volcano because his project (the Zombie Teleportation-ator) made Zomboss, the judge, jealous.
• Self-Duplication: Impfinity's signature Superpower Triple Threat, which creates two Impfinity Clones in random lanes.
• Shout-Out:
  • The "Deadly" trait is exactly the same thing as Deathtouch from Magic: The Gathering in terms of effect. Several other traits and abilities also reference Magic cards, like Double Strike being, well, Double Strike, Untrickable resembling Hexproof, and the Life Drain attacks of Venus Flytrap and Nurse Gargantuar resembling Lifelink.
  • In the "Code Orange! Citron Invades!" Dr. Zomboss refers to Citron as "that annoying orange!".
  • The Sonic Bloom has a funnel-like flower "hair", a green "singlet", lifts both arms in front of him with closed fists in its Idle Animation, and even shoots crescent sonic booms as an attack animation. In other words, he's Guile if he was a plant.
  • Huge-Gigantacus is a galactic conqueror Imp with Thanos' color scheme and Galactus' helmet horns. He even comes with a Superpower unit called the Iron Boarder (who appears to be an iron-colored Imp on an iron-colored ironing board).
  • Parasol Zombie's favorite author is said to be Brain Austen.
• Shrink Ray:
  • The exact name of Rustbolt's signature Super Hero power, which inflicts a strength reduction of 3 on a plant and even shrinks their sprite.
  • Shrinking Violet returns in the Triassic Triumph expansion, and it inflicts a 2-strength reduction on a zombie as well as zombies next door, while also shrinking their sprites. If it reduces their strength to 0, it also kills them just like how it killed Imps in its original game.
• Situational Damage Attack: The "Health-Strength" trait causes Plants and Zombies with it to attack with their Health instead of their Strength. Health-Nut has this innately, while Pecanolith gives this status to all Plants and Zombies on the field making Nuts a dangerous threat.
• Smart Bomb:
  • The Zombot 1000 destroys every plant on the field when played.
  • The Tactical Cuke destroys every Plant and Zombie on the ground lanes when played.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: When a hero's health drops to 5 or below, the music changes into a faster and more hectic one.
• Space Western: Galactic Gardens introduced the Space Cowboy zombie, who's an Imp wearing a cowboy hat and riding a jet-propelled Mechanical Horse. His Flavor Text also has a shout out to Serenity.
• Status Buff:
  • Several Plant and Zombie teammates and tricks can give either extra strength or extra health to Plants and Zombies.
  • The Legendary Zombie Binary Stars doesn't add to zombie health or strength, instead doubling all damage that the zombie side deals to the Plants'. This stacks, meaning that two of them on the board will multiply it by four.
• Stealth Pun:
  • Season 3 introduced two berry tricks: Grape Responsibility, which doubles a Plant's health, and Grape Power, which doubles a Plant's attack AND adds a Grape Responsibility to their hand. So you could say that "With Grape Power comes Grape Responsibility".
  • Primal Peashooter's description can count, if you focus on the name and description hard enough.^{Don't get it?} The numbers in the description are prime numbers. "Prime" is in the plant's name. The Primal Peashooter is found in groups of prime numbers.
  Found in groups of 3, 5, 7, 11, and 31.
  • Astro-Shroom's Flavor Text states that he met many asteroids that "really made an impression." Now, in this case impression could mean appealing to someone. OR, it could mean actually colliding with him, leaving craters, or actual impressions.
• Stock Animal Diet: The Squirrel Herder's ability allows her to One-Hit Kill a Nut or Berry tribe teammate or environment when revealed, and the animation for this is having her sic her squirrels on it which proceed to eat it.
• Stone Wall:
  • Many Nut plants are these, having little to no attack but having great health.
  • Exemplified by Primal Wall-Nut: For 3 sun, you get a 9 health unit with Untrickable, meaning that Rolling Stone, Weed Spray, Locust Swarm, and Knockout can't even affect it. Pretty much the only things that can kill one in one go are Celestial Custodian, Primordial Cheese Shover, Zombot 1000, Mondo Bronto, and anything with Deadly.
  • Of course, every Stone Wall can become a deadly Lightning Bruiser if Pecanolith is on the field, since both Plants and zombies will attack using their health.
• Summon Backup Dancers:
  • The Disco Zombie will summon a single Backup Dancer as opposed to the four in PVZ, due to a maximum of 5 zombies on the board.
  • Disco-Tron 3000 takes this one step further by summoning a Disco Zombie, which then summons a Backup Dancer.
  • The "Dance-Off" superpower spawns 2 Backup Dancers on two random empty lanes.
• Tactical Withdrawal: Certain cards will immediately bounce themselves when conditions are met:
  • Zombie Yeti will bounce itself at the end of a turn if not killed. This allows it to be played again to give another Yeti Lunchbox.
  • Cosmic Yeti will also bounce itself at the end of a turn if it survives. This allows it to be played again to conjure a Pet card and give it +1/+1 if it's not a trick.
  • Kangaroo Rider will bounce itself if damaged and not killed, allowing it to be played again.
  • Hover-Goat 3000 will bounce itself if damaged and not killed. This is useful since it gives a selected Zombie +2/+2 when played.
  • Some units can bounce one of their allies to be played again, like Rescue Radish and Firefighter.
• Taking the Bullet:
  • Plants have Soul Patch, a 7-sun cost 5/10 plant with Armored 1 who will take all incoming damage that the Plant Hero would receive.
  • Zombies have Planetary Gladiator, a 1-brain cost 1/3 Zombie with Armored 1 who will take all incoming damage that the Zombie Hero would receive.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome:
  • Brainy heroes have Rocket Science, a trick that will destroy a selected plant that has high strength.
  • Cut Down To Size, an aptly named superpower exclusive to Super Brainz and Rustbolt, is similar to Rocket Science, but is cheaper to cast and more strict on how high a plant's strength needs to be.
  • Guardian heroes have Doom-Shroom, a trick that will destroy all plants and zombies on the field that have high strength, as well as Shamrocket, the Plants' equivalent of Rocket Science.
• Teleporters and Transporters:
  • The Teleport Trick, which allows a zombie to play a zombie teammate during their tricks phase.
  • Teleportation Zombie allows the Zombie Hero to play Zombies during the Zombie Tricks phase as long as he's alive.
  • Professor Brainstorm's Eureka Superpower has him activate his Teleportation-ator, gaining him 3 random Zombie cards from the entire game.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Later A.I.s are like this especially mission 21-40 A.I.s. They seems to know what cards you have, and what's in gravestones. The main offender is the Citron on mission 40 boss, always knowing what zombies are in gravestones and getting the right cards.
  • Al's cheating is even worse in Daily Challenges and Random Battles, because it not only sees what's in your hand, but also knows what superpower it will draw and how much charges your block meter will get.
  • AI decks can even use more than 4 of a certain card or even cards from another class. The main offender is mission 15 Immorticia, who is using many cards she is not supposed to.
• Toilet Humor: One of Super Brainz's Superpowers is called Super Stench, which gives all Zombies on the field the Deadly trait. The strained noise and position he makes when using this card implies that the stench in question may not be coming out of his mouth as depicted in the card art.
• Two Girls to a Team: Played straight with the two female Zombie Heroes, Immorticia and Neptuna. Subverted by the Plants, who have five female Heroes (Green Shadow, Solar Flare, Rose, Chompzilla, and Beta-Carotina).
• Unblockable Attack: Teammates with the Bullseye trait can attack the opposing hero without charging their Super-Block Meter.
  • Plants have Sting Bean, Cactus, Jugger-Nut, Galacta-Cactus (deals 1 Bullseye damage to everything including both heroes when killed), Astro-Shroom (deals 1 Bullseye damage to the Zombie Hero whenever a plant is played), Blockbuster (destroys graves in its land and adjacent ones if evolved, allowing a possible clear shot), Tricarrotops (which grows in power and health every time a card is drawn), and Gloom-Shroom. Bullseye is mainly exclusive to Guardian and Kabloom heroes.
  • Zombies have Pool Shark, Mountain Climber (who gains strength and health on height lanes), Shieldcrusher Viking (who has the added bonus of emptying the plant hero's Super-Block Meter), Wizard Gargantuar (who can pass his Bullseye trait to other Gargantuars on the field), Teleportation Zombie, Wormhole Gatekeeper, Cosmic Scientist (who also conjures a Science Zombie and gives it Bullseye), Disco-Naut (who gives all zombies with 2 or less strength Bullseye, including herself), Zom-Blob, and Quick Draw Conman (who also deals 1 damage to the Plant Hero when the Plant Hero draws a card). Bullseye is mainly exclusive to Brainy and Crazy Heroes.
• Valkyries: One of the zombie teammates is the Valkyrie, a Brawn Hilda opera Valkyrie. In a nod to how the Valkyries of mythology are psychopomps, she starts out with 0 attack but gains +2 each time a zombie teammate is killed while she is in the player's hand.
• Vampires Hate Garlic: The Garlic normally redirects zombies into the left lane when attacked, unless the attacker is a Vimpire or Ancient Vimpire. In this case, the attacker dies immediately instead.
• Vanilla Unit: Each class has at least one unit with no special abilities. The Smarty class' Vanilla takes this in both the literal and trope sense, being a vanilla flower (and bean) with no special abilities.
• Variable Mix: Each character's music loop changes every round for the first few rounds. In addition, the music shifts to a higher pitch as your opponent's health decreases, or adds a more intense bassline as your health decreases.
• The Virus: Pineclone turns every other plant on the field into a Pineclone when played.
• V-Sign: In his victory pose, Z-mech happily makes a peace sign with his mech.
• Weapon of X-Slaying:
  • As mentioned under Anti-Structure above, there are certain tricks and teammates that are capable of countering gravestones, but only gravestones.
  • The Garlic will instantly kill any Vimpire or Ancient Vimpire that attacks it.
  • When revealed, the Squirrel Herder can instantly kill a Nut or Berry tribe teammate with her squirrels.
• White Flag: If The Smash is defeated, the Imp on his back waves a white flag as a sign of surrendering.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Lampshaded with the "Grape Power" and "Grape Responsibility" tricks. Playing the "Grape Power" trick even gives the player a "Grape Responsibility" trick, in direct and literal reference to the trope.
• A Wizard Did It: This trope is referenced in the Wizard Gargantuar's Flavor Text, presumably justifying why he gives all Gargantuars the Bullseye trait:
  "A wizard did it. An enormous, green, Zombie wizard."
• Wizards from Outer Space: The Quasar Wizard. He conjures a random Zombie Superpower if played next to a zombie. Even other Heroes' Signature Superpowers.
• Writing Lines: During his Humiliation Conga, Professor Brainstorm is forced to write multiple lines of "I will not teach Zombies to eat brains" after the Plants beat him at his university.
• Zerg Rush: Most Mushroom and Imp tribes are like this, being of a cheap cost and weak health making them easy to place down in larger numbers over the course of the game.

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