Shadow-shroom

Shadow-shroom is the third plant obtained in Modern Day in Plants vs. Zombies 2. It explodes into poison once a zombie eats it; the poison effect deals 45 normal damage shots worth of damage over 30 seconds and ignores all armor, such as bucket and ice block. When Shadow-shroom is powered by a Moonflower, the enemy who eats it can also spread the poison effect to nearby zombies.

Almanac entry
Sun cost: 50

DAMAGE: Huge

RANGE:  Touch

RECHARGE:  Mediocre

Shadow-shrooms poison zombies who eat them, inflicting damage over time.

SPECIAL:  powered Shadow-shrooms make poisoned zombies poison other zombies.

Despite being such a poisonous profoundly inedible fungus, Shadow-shroom is nonetheless a total cutie-pie.

Plant Food effect
When fed with Plant Food, Shadow-shroom will poison every zombie (except Imp Cannons) on screen. Zombies already poisoned will have the poison effect cured, but receive 45 damage immediately instead.

Strategies
Shadow-shroom's main role in the player's arsenal is to counter armored enemies by bypassing their armor altogether and damage them directly. While Shadow-shroom's main advantage is its relatively fast recharge rate, it is ultimately not a stellar plant for its job as most other instant use plants of similar recharge rate such as Ghost Pepper and Lava Guava can deal enough damage to render zombie armor not a significant issue. Shadow-shroom also receives a great weakness in its very poor effect radius, which is not addressed at all when powered due to the poison requiring zombies to be close together to spread. In addition, Shadow-shroom's low damage potential and lengthy time required to deal full damage makes it a poor choice against high health enemies without armor, in particular mechanical enemies and Gargantuars.

The player may find great value in Shadow-shroom's Plant Food ability: As it can poison every enemy on the screen, the Plant Food effect will make short work of all armored zombies. The Dark Ages and Jurassic Marsh provide prime example of this, as Knight Zombies are frequent sights in the Dark Ages due to Zombie Kings, while the enemy composition in Jurassic Marsh is primarily consisted of armored zombies, meaning only Jurassic Bullies and Jurassic Gargantuars can survive the attack.

A powered Shadow-shroom can benefit from being paired with slowing plants, defensive plants, or speedy zombies: For example, Hurrikale or Chard Guard can knock the poisoned target back into the zombie crowd and spread the effect, while Garlic or Sweet Potato can be used to create choke points for Shadow-shroom to affect more enemies. Shadow-shroom is also a helpful plant for fighting Pharaoh Zombies and, Newspaper Zombies, since it can neutralize them without breaking their armor and causing them to accelerate.

Trivia

 * It is one of the four new mushrooms in Plants vs. Zombies 2, the others being Toadstool, Spore-shroom, and Perfume-shroom.
 * Recently planted Shadow-shrooms near Moonflowers when eaten by zombies after planting, will not have the boost effect.
 * If Shadow-shroom is planted during Last Stand setup, it appears to be powered, even if there are no Moonflowers nearby.
 * This and Endurian (Level 2, Chinese Version) are the only plants that ignore zombie armor when attacking.