YMMV / Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes

• Accidental Innuendo: Mirror-Nut's ability description contains a part that can be read in a less clean sense.
  "When your Nuts get hurt, do 2 damage to the Zombie Hero."
• Ascended Meme: It would seem that Electronic Arts and Popcap Games took notice of the memehood of Weenie Beanie and Ra Zombie (their memetic statuses are explained under Memetic Mutation).
• Base-Breaking Character: Despite being likely the most popular hero in the game, Solar Flare's cute design and child-like voice and demeanor has the community up in arms over whether she's Moe or saccharine. And that's nothing to speak of her status in the metagame...
• Demonic Spiders: It's a Plants vs. Zombies game. What did you expect?
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Cancer Flare", due to Solar Flare being a High-Tier Scrappy in Season 1.
  • "Professor BS" (a.k.a. Professor Bullshit), due to Professor Brainstorm being a high-tier High-Tier Scrappy in Set 1 and Set 4.
  • Buttface/Facebutt, the act of using the Bungee Plumber trick on the Plant Hero to hit face with his ass for 2 damage.
  • "Doug Impadome" for the Imp who is the Smash’s partner.
  • "Instead" for Unthawed Viking, due to an update bug displaying his ability as "Pirate Evolution: Instead" instead of "Pirate Evolution: Instead, Freeze all Plants". The bug was fixed shortly in a later update, but the nickname stuck.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Before the game even came out, shipping Green Shadow with Solar Flare was and is extremely popular, mostly since they were the two most notable heroes at the time, and the plants they are based off of (Peashooter and Sunflower respectively) were also frequently shipped. Night Cap is also commonly thrown in, usually paired with Solar Flare, but other permutations aren't unheard of either.
• Fandom VIP:
  • Fry Em Up is a well known youtuber/streamer in the Plants vs. Zombies Heroes community. This is due to his dedication to the game, being a point of reference to unskilled players to create competitive decks, and even for skilled players his videos are useful to be aware of the meta. On top of this, he is prone to make and play memetic decks.
  • There's also EDZ, who is popular amongst the subreddit for his artworks, with Neptuna as the main focus.
  • Similarly, something_from_space is also this, due to his daily edits about the game, such as ridiculous cards.
• Funny Moments:
  • Ever since Set 1, there has come a set of Zombie-throwing Zombies as a Running Gag. Let us take a look at its history, shall we?
    • It all started with the Imp-throwing Gargantuar that made a Swabbie in a random lane when hurt. Its original Flavor Text was initially humor, until the Gargantuar-Throwing Imp became a real thing.
    More successful than the Gargantuar-Throwing Imp
    • In fact, its new Flavor Text is possibly more humorous.
      Seems like a better idea than a Gargantuar-Throwing Imp
    • Then came the aforementioned Gargantuar-Throwing Imp which made a random Gargantuar that costs 5 Brains in a random lane when hurt. ^note It used to make a Smashing Gargantuar in a random lane when hurt.
    When lifting a Gargantuar, always bend at the knees. He learned this the hard way.
    • After that came the Imp-Throwing Imp, which made a random Imp that costs 2 brains or less in a random lane when hurt.
    But where is the Imp-Throwing-Imp-Throwing-Imp?? We have to go deeper...
    • Finally, there was the Gargantuar-Throwing Gargantuar, introduced in Set 4, that made another random Gargantuar in a random lane when hurt.
    The ultimate, epic, last, absolutely final conclusion to the Zombie-throwing Zombie saga. ...or is it?
  • The Impostor Zombie, when killed, will conjure a 1-cost Imp card and give it a Mustache. Not only does it give the card the Mustache tribe, it literally gives the Imp a huge goofy mustache on their face when they're played.
  • The Exploding Imp has 6/1 stats and does 1 damage to itself at the end of each turn. The bomb it's holding does not explode when this happens. Instead, he just bonks himself in the head with it. This also puts a logical reason behind the Exploding Imp not dying the turn he is played if his health is buffed.
  • Smelly Zombie, being one of the basic Sneaky cards got a tribe change in Colossal Fossils. Originally a Garbage Zombie, he is now a Pet Zombie. This is his new Flavor Text:
  Casual acquaintances don't understand where his pets are. They don't realize that stinkflies can be such tender little friends.^note Because all Pet zombies are animals. Stinkflies are animals.
  • Gentleman Zombie's attack animation has him stretch his arm long enough to hit the opposition. Likewise, Bird of Paradise's attack animation has her stretch her head to attack.
  • Someone managed to find this little section of the end credits. Ascended Meme at its highest, ladies and gentlemen.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Rustbolt is heavily inspired by Tony Stark/Iron Man, being a (dead) guy in a Powered Armor suit. Fast forward a few years to Avengers: Endgame, and Iron Man bites it after using the Infinity Stones to stop Thanos in a Heroic Sacrifice. Gets even more eerily prophetic after Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Mysterio torments Peter by attacking him with an illusion of a zombie Tony Stark, still in his armor.
• High-Tier Scrappy: Has its own page.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Electric Boogaloo, being a dancing villain who attacks with electricity, seems to have inspired another pair of dancing villains, High Voltage, in San Fransokyo.
  • Professor Brainstorm is a grown (zombie) inventor who entered a science fair with a device that was sure to win. Then he lost to a baking soda volcano. Dr. Doofenshmirtz sends his condolences.
• Low-Tier Letdown: After all the nerfs it received, Hearty became perceived as one of the weaker classes in the game, as it was left with very few genuinely strong cards. It's not entirely useless, of course, as it still has some options that become genuinely powerful with a proper complimenting class, but the rest of the collection is questionable. Z-Mech and Rustbolt don't really have any issues, thanks to Gargologist and Zombology Teacher, respectively. But then there are Neptuna and Smash, whose classes just don't mesh that well together. Sneaky has no real synergy with Hearty other than providing more control tools, and Beastly leads to an oversaturation of tempo on Smash, while not enabling much oppressiveness (and the only deck that does is heavily reliant on Flag Zombie, making it inconsistent).
• Memetic Mutation: Shared with the main games.
• Narm Charm: Seedling's attack animation is so ridiculously over-the-top and flashy for a freaking seed that it loops back around to being epic.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Galactic Gardens update introduced Environments, cards that can be played on Ground lanes to alter the field. One particular environment, the Graveyard (makes all Zombies played in that lane Gravestones), makes extremely unsettling noises when played. Though there is some Nightmare Retardant: the sound played by the environment whenever a zombie is revealed there sounds like a hair dryer.
  • The Aerobics Instructor's death animation consists of her throwing her dumbbells up into the air and having them come down on her skull with two sickening thuds.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Z-Mech used to be considered the worst Hero in the game by a long shot thanks to being Overshadowed by Awesome, having a bad selection of supers (with his signature move being especially unreliable), and lacking any hard removal abilities for strong plants. When Season 2 came out, both his classes received some very good and effective units such as Disco-Naut, Binary Stars, Gas Giant, Zombot Battlecruiser and Intergalactic Warlord, the Crazy Class got the new Overshoot trait, and his signature Superpower was revamped as well. Even so, he was still a hero on the lower tiers. Then Set 3 came out, and gave him Quickdraw Con Man, Stompadon, and Jurassic Fossilhead, buffed the damage of Exploding Fruitcake from 6 to 7, allowing it to kill most Plants for cheap cost, and gave the Crazy class Unexpected Gifts which helped him get much-needed card draw. All this elevated him from being a bottom of the barrel Low-Tier Letdown to an upper mid-tier hero.
  • A cross-game example is the Blooming Heart. In Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time, she was reviled as one of the worst plants in the game due to being a money premium but extremely underwhelming for one (only targeted one zombie, and had a glitch that caused her projectiles to sometimes make zombies invulnerable). In Heroes, she's deemed one of the best 1-cost plants considering that she's a strong 2/2 and her ability increases her strength every time she deals damage, making her extremely useful as a first-turn play.
  • Citron was considered the worst Plant Hero before Season 2 came out, courtesy of him being Smarty/Guardian. Back then, the former was primarily a complimentary support class, and the latter – strictly a defensive class with no alternative options. He had no real way to buff the damage of his minions, and any strategy that relied on Nuts was easy to foil via Weed Spray. Other heroes could do Nut and Freeze decks better than he could for the most part. His only niche was having lots of Amphibious plants, but that didn't mean much. When Season 2 came out, both of his classes received better cards, such as Cool Bean, Dark Matter Dragonfruit, and Go-Nuts, as well as some nice environments such as Force Field, all of which improved Citron's performance in his only viable playstyle. And then Set 3 came out, finally granting Citron access to actual tempo and aggro options, most of which perfectly synergize with his superpowers, fully establishing him as a properly viable hero.
  • Brain Freeze is a case of rescue caused by community discoveries. During the days of Sets 3 and 4 he was considered the most unremarkable hero, having access to none of the busted options, and therefore falling behind everyone else. However, after all much-needed nerfs finally happened, people began experimenting with heroes yet again. As it turned out, Brain Freeze was perfectly fine all this time, and actually had a great Pirate tribe deck, which shined thanks to Area 22 and Interstellar Bounty Hunter, and later forked into a midrange deck that abuses the former environment with Mixed-Up Gravedigger combos.
• That One Attack: Several tricks can be very nasty if used properly.
  • Wall-Nut Bowling. It's a 9 Sun trick, but once it's played, it deals 6 damage to all ground lanes, then makes a Wall-Nut in each of them. Either your zombie teammates are going to take a huge beating, or you will take at least 6 damage if one of the lanes is empty. And if Go-Nuts and/or Three-Nut is on the field, it also means that each of those wall-nuts get a nice attack boost!
  • Espresso Fiesta gives a plant three bonus attacks during the 'Plants Play' phase. Heaven help you if this is played on a strong plant, since it will finish off your Zombie teammate then hit the zombie hero behind. And that's not including the inevitable attack it'll use on your zombie hero during the attack phase (if not removed via a Zombie Trick), thanks to the lane probably being cleared out.
  • Berry Blast is a pretty dangerous and very versatile card, since it deals 3 flat damage and can be used on both zombies and the Zombie Hero. The Zombie Hero needs to be especially careful when facing a Kabloom class Hero because they can easily weaken a zombie for a plant to finish off, or even finish off the Zombie Hero if they're at low health and low block meter.
  • Rolling Stone and Weed Spray are this for a Guardian Plant Hero who focuses on Nuts. The first is a One-Hit Kill on any plant with 2 or lower strength without triggering "when damaged" abilities, meaning that this one trick can easily get rid of more powerful Nuts like Mirror Nut and most defensive plants, which tend to have low attacking power. The second is basically the first except it affects all plants on the board with 2 or less strength. It's lessened as a threat ever since Three-Nut came out, which makes all plants played have 3 Strength as long as it's on the field.
  • Whack-A-Zombie functions similarly to Rolling Stone, except it removes zombies with 3 or lower strength which tend to have good support potential. It's especially aggravating in the hands of Wall-Knight, who also has Shamrocket to deal with zombies above 3 strength.
  • Set 4 brings us the Plant equivalent to Weed Spray — Shrinking Violet. It debuffs a zombie and those next door by 2 strength, and kills those whose strength dropped to 0 or less. This is extremely potent against Imps, as well as some powerful zombies like Tankylosaurus and Stompadon. Even if it doesn't kill, you'll still have up to three zombies severely gimped.
  • Set 4 also brings us the Zombie equivalent to Whack-A-Zombie — Knockout. This destroys all plants with 3 or less attack in a lane, making 3 Strength no longer the "safe number". This makes it far riskier for Plant players to use Briar Rose, Power Flower, Wing-Nut, and several other 3-Strength plants that are otherwise very effective and safe from many other instant kills.
  • Rocket Science is a rather cheap and effective card that costs 3 brains, and it instantly one hit kills any plant with 4 or more strength. Placing down a strong plant or boosting one with tricks, only for it to get Rocket Science'd gets very frustrating.
  • The Plant counterpart of Rocket Science, Shamrocket, costs 3 sun, kills any zombie with 4 or more strength, and is equally as frustrating for the zombies as Rocket Science is for the plants.
  • Lurch For Lunch. For the low cost of 2 brains, it allows a zombie to do a Bonus Attack in the Tricks Phase. Naturally, it will be used on a strong zombie in order to clear the lane and get a direct hit on the Plant Hero, a strong zombie with Strikethrough or Frenzy, or one that has effects that trigger when it hits something.
  • Teleport. This allows a Zombie Hero to play a zombie minion during their tricks phase, allowing things like Professor Brainstorm dropping a high-powered Valkyrie before proceeding to use Lurch for Lunch to remove the opposition, or Immorticia dropping a Zombot 1000 to destroy all the plant resistance. In all cases, the Plant Hero has little to no way to counter since Zombie Tricks come after the Plants' phase. Even its Flavour Text says it all:
  "Feels like cheating."
  • Zombot Stomp is this for any Plant player who uses Zerg Rush Pineclone decks. This bounces all plants on ground lanes back into the Plant Hero's hand, meaning that they'll have to replay all of them again. Since Pineclone costs 4 sun, that can be a pretty hefty amount. Furthermore, if a Hero has more than 10 cards in their hand (which could be pretty likely thanks to up to six cards being bounced), they become unable to block, and since Zombie Tricks come after plants play, this means guaranteed hits on the Plant Hero without any chance to block them.
  • While it takes a long time before it can even be played, most Plant players without Doom-Shroom or Tactical Cuke will dread to see Gargantuar's Feast. This summons three random Gargantuars on the Zombie side, and since Gargantuars are one of the most powerful class of zombie, often with powerful abilities and huge HP counts, this makes the Plant Hero's survival prospects become a lot bleaker. Even if the Plant Hero has Doom-Shroom, they won't be able to use it until the next turn since Gargantuar's Feast is played in the Tricks phase.
  • Similarly, there's Bad Moon Rising. Transforms all zombies on the field into random zombies that cost 5 brains or more, and can easily turn the tide like Gargantuar's Feast except it costs 4 Brains less, and can make anywhere from Ra Zombie to even Zombot 1000. It also counters the transformation from The Great Zucchini. As it's a trick card, the Plant Hero has no way to counter it for that turn. It says a lot when there is a persistent tactic to increase your brain value, pair this card with a bunch of cheap, weak fighters, and unleash them all in one turn to decimate your opponent.
  • Going Viral. This trick gives all zombies on the board +1/+1 and Frenzy to prevent chump blocking, shuffles 3 of itself into the deck, then draws a card to keep card advantage plus triggering any Dino-Roar effects — such as Stompadon's to buff cards in the Zombie Hero's hand too. It can backfire if it clogs the deck with more of itself, but more often than not the Zombie Hero would have a field of strong, frenzied zombies before it happens.
  • Sun Strike makes all Plant Teammates have Strikethrough for the turn it's played. Your Zombie Teammates won't be able to stop any of them from hitting you, allowing the plant side free guaranteed hits on you unless you're lucky enough to block. Especially bad when Chompzilla's buffed units get a hit on you, or when Rose uses it with Shooting Starfruit or an Evolved Tricorn to deal 10+ damage to face if not blocked.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Some teammates have very spectacular attack animations, in particular, Strawberrian's attack animation has him do a somersault towards the enemy while striking down with his sword. It also creates an awesome lightning effect when he strikes down.
• Unexpected Character: Did anyone ever expect to see some of the plants from Adventures here? Better yet, Chinese-exclusive plants?