Arena

Note: Due to server maintenance, Battlez will be unavailable on August 15, 2018 from 9:00am PDT-1:00pm PDT. During this time window, nobody will be able to participate in matches, earn rewards or leaderboard progress. However, you will not lose any crowns, mints, reward streak or progress on the leaderboards. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Battlez is a game mode in Plants vs. Zombies 2 that was introduced in the 6.6.1 update. This mode is unlocked after getting the Map of Space-Time-Ness from Ancient Egypt - Day 1 and obtaining at least six plants.

Gameplay
To start a match, the player has to use a Gauntlet. Gauntlets can be bought with gems. However, every four hours, the player receives a free play. The player can press the 'FREE GAUNTLETS' button, which is located to the left of the Play Button, to watch an advertisement and obtain a free gauntlet. Four free Gauntlets per day can be obtained by watching ads.

When an opponent is found, the player needs to choose five plants, with the first slot reserved for the plant of the week. Once the plants are chosen, the player is set in the Last Stand format, then after setting-up, the "battle" begins. The player gains points based on the distance the zombies are away from the house. On default, 500 is the most for a single zombie (yellow zone) and 100 being the least (brown zone). However, higher scores can be obtained as the game continues.

This mode is time-based, and as the time decreases the zombies get stronger and stronger, to a point where they could withstand multiple instant-kills. The faster the player kills the harder and more the zombies will be. Winning a match of Battlez is brought about by getting a higher score than your opponent, and grants the player five crowns, whereas losing a match only yields one crown.

As the player wins matches, they will collect rewards from a reward streak, found under the Play Button. The rewards get better as the player wins more consecutive matches. As of a new update, the reward tick will always stay at the 3rd reward, unless it is not possible (for example, if the player has collected the first reward), while the rest of the rewards move along to the left. If the player breaks a streak, they can pay 10 gems to retain it, with the cost increasing by ten gems per retain.

Currently possible rewards for the Reward Streak:
 * Coins
 * Premium Pinata
 * Mints
 * Featured Plant of the Week seed packets or Featured Pinata
 * Gauntlets

Each week, there will be a different type of tournament that the player will have to compete in. Each type of tournament has its own way of changing the gameplay (the change can be quite minor, however). For example, a tournament can shorten the time it takes for a match to finish. It could also be quite major (for example, from 17th July - 19th July 2018 Grapeshot's Double Shot Tournament lasted 2 days and the rewards were drastically decreased).

Also, this mode also has several different leagues; the player gets promoted if they place top 3 in their league by having a number of crowns higher than all but two or less other players in their league. If they are placed in one of the last three spots, they will be demoted to the league before that one (this is not the case in the lower leagues, where special methods are required to be demoted). Several gems, mints and coins are rewarded in promotions.

It has been noted that this mode does appear to be lacking a "real" matchmaking feature that pairs you with another player fairly. There have been reports of people that had low-leveled plants to still be paired with a person with max-leveled plants or still high-leveled plants.

Tournament list
* Plants that are normally restricted, such as Gold Leaf and Lily Pad, are excluded. + and - : They swap everyday.

Trivia

 * According to a PopCap community manager (referred to Haemophilus EA on Reddit), the player is not actually fighting against other players in real-time, rather, just "ghosts". The score progression seen in gameplay is just a replay of the "ghost" player's previous Battlez round.
 * Other affirmations that support this are:
 * You can spend infinite time on the pause menu, Choose Your Seeds screen, and the Last Stand defense preparation stage.
 * The Turbo Button can be used.
 * There is no feature in which time must be synchronized with the other player due to lag, pausing the game, or the Turbo Button.
 * A list of over 9900 names for these "ghost" opponents may also be found here.
 * Some bot names also include Solar Flare, Spudow and Rose from Plants vs. Zombies Heroes.
 * It is unknown what happens, and how many crowns will be received if the players tie at the end of the match.
 * However, it has been noted that if the players tie during a match, the player who caught up will have an enlarged score number. The player with a higher score would also have an enlarged score number. This suggests that if the players tie at the end of a match, the player who caught up will win.Enlargedscore.jpg
 * When tapping on the Battlez icon, the Dark Ages Zomboss Battle intro plays, along with the boss music.
 * When being awarded for winning a match, no extra Crowns are given for obtaining higher scores or beating your opponent by a small amount.
 * This is the only mode in the game, other than Cannons Away where zombies cannot eat your brains. This is because when a lawn mower is activated, it is automatically regenerated. If a zombie somehow manages to reach your house, it will get instantly killed.
 * All upgrades, except for Wall-nut First Aid, Instant Recharge and Mower Launch, are disabled on Battlez.
 * Also, plants that are boosted in the Zen Garden will not have their boost in this mode.
 * Power ups are disabled in this mode.
 * Only three Plant Food are given for any match, and the player can not buy any additional plant food. However, Power Lily can be used to get more plant food.
 * There are no zombies carrying Plant Food in this mode.
 * The player does not get points for the zombies destroyed by lawn mowers.
 * However, it scores points when it destroys a surfboard.
 * World exclusive plants cannot be used in this mode, even if there are special mechanics that can be affected by them.
 * Wasabi Whip’s Blitz Tournament had dinosaurs in it, but Perfume-shroom still can’t be used in the battle.
 * Explode-O-Nut's All-Out Tournament had ice blocks in the battle, but Hot Potato still cannot be used in the battle.
 * Unlike in Modern Day, Neon Mixtape Tour zombies in this mode do not have their jam abilities.
 * In the textures for the trophies that identify for each league, there appears to be an unused crystal-like trophy.
 * The setting in this mode is the same as Player's House and Modern Day worlds, but in the style of Dark Ages.
 * This can be seen that if a zombie in this mode eats a boosted Hypno-Shroom, it transforms into a hypnotized Dark Ages Gargantuar.
 * All the Flag Zombies that appear in this mode are Peasant Flag Zombies from Dark Ages.
 * Removing armor and destroying gravestones score points.
 * If the player manages to defeat all the zombies before the time runs out, the results screen will pop up, despite the amount of time remaining.
 * If plants are thrown into the air toward another tile (for example by a portal or Potato Mine's Plant Food effect) as time reaches 0:00, the player will see the plants 'jumping' off the screen as they receive their Crowns.
 * Lightning Reed’s Brainstorm Tournament is the first tournament where the special plant is a free plant.
 * The player could obtain extra starting sun in Lightning Reed’s Brainstorm Tournament by shoveling up the three pre-placed Electric Peashooters.
 * Sometimes, in Electric Currant's Garden Party tournament, if a zombie is killed over a rail (see Minecart and rail), very few points will be given, that is, the points that would be obtained in the lowest scoring zone, even if the rail was in the highest scoring zone.
 * In Electric Blueberry's Brainstorm Tournament, if a kicked Super-Fan Imp lands on one of Dave's mold colonies, it will blow up, scoring points according to where it landed. The points will only be scored after it has disintegrated.
 * During Strawburst's All Out Tournament, the only sun producing plant avalible is Solar Tomato.
 * A player will not gain a Crown upon surrendering, but will still gain a Crown if defeated when the match time is up.
 * Like Modern Day and Piñata Party, Battlez has some environment modifiers from other worlds present in some of its tournaments, such as tombstones, evil potions, dinosaurs, minecart and rail, power tiles, sun bombs, slider tiles, portals and more.
 * Surprise attacks from other worlds are also present, such as sandstorms, bot swarms, parachute rains and more.
 * Bombegranate's Garden Party Tournament and Explode-O-Nut's All-Out Tournament were the first tournaments to happen twice.
 * The first Grapeshot's Double Shot Tournament is identical to Caulipower's Escalating Tournament, except that Caulipower was replaced by Grapeshot as the plant of the week.