Magnifying Grass

Magnifying Grass is the sixth plant obtained in Far Future in Plants vs. Zombies 2. It uses sun earned by the player and turns it into a bolt of energy when tapped. Each shot deals 27.5 normal damage shots to a single zombie and costs 50 sun to fire.

Almanac entry
Sun cost: 50

DAMAGE:  Huge

RANGE: Straight

RECHARGE: Fast

Magnifying Grass turns sun into a bolt of colorful damage.

Special: tap to spend sun for an attack

Magnifying Grass understands the inherent power of a rainbow. Beneath her stoic features she takes great joy in delivering radiant multicolored destruction to the zombie horde.

Plant Food
When fed with Plant Food, Magnifying Grass shoots a sun beam that burns zombies ahead of it one by one. This effect will last longer the more sun-producing plants (excluding Sun Bean, Toadstool, and Sun-shroom in the Chinese version) there are present on the lawn; if there are none, the effect will only last for 3.5 seconds.

Costumed
Its sun beam deals a greater amount of damage.

Strategies
Magnifying Grass allows the player to weaponize their sun production to deal damage to the zombies. Its high damage and quick firing capability allow the player to allocate firepower to swiftly eliminate high-threat targets, provided that he has enough economy to do so - Surfer Zombie, Jester Zombie, Wizard Zombie can only survive one shot, Mecha-Football Zombie can survive four, and Gargantuar can take up to seven shots. Its greatest weakness however is its inefficiency: 50 sun is a very steep price for an attack that cannot kill a Conehead Zombie, and Magnifying Grass will drain sun very quickly if used to attack large amounts of weak "swarmers" such as Zombie Chickens and Ice Weasels.

Because of this, it is not recommended to use Magnifying Grass as the main offensive plants, but rather to use it as a supporting offensive option for others. Several plants can be used to help remedy Magnifying Grass' weaknesses however, should the player intend to use it as the main offensive plant:


 * A Squash costs only 50 sun and can help Magnifying Grass in these cases:
 * It can instantly kill a Buckethead Zombie and its variants, a Poncho Zombie and a Knight Zombie.
 * It deals 90 damage, meaning it will save you about 125 sun (27.5 x 3 = 82.5 so its cost for three shots is 150 sun, then do the subtraction 150 - 25 = 125 sun) for machined zombies.
 * It kills many zombies at once.
 * Area of effect plants such as Laser Bean, Snapdragon and Fume-shroom can quickly deal with swarmers and effectively reduces the shots required to kill other zombies by one. Puff-shroom can also be helpful with this task, as it saves valuable sun for Magnifying Grass.
 * Use a Cherry Bomb when there are at least four or more zombies in a 3x3 square or Jalapeno when there are three or more zombies in a lane. The more zombies there are, the higher amount of sun you can save.
 * Sun Bean can be used to aid in sun production when used on high health enemies.
 * Tile Turnip allows the player to acquire sun more quickly when used with sun producing plants.

In the Endless Zone, Magnifying Grass can be used to neutralize Imps thrown by Gargantuars if placed near the house, as sun production is generally less of a problem in Endless Zone due to the stockpiled Plant Food between levels. In Tiki Torch-er, Magnifying Grass can also be used to clean up surfboards or octopuses thrown by Octo Zombies.

Do not use Magnifying Grass against Excavator Zombies, as despite not seeming like it, this zombie can block its powerful projectiles with his shovel. If you spam shots at him, this zombie will drain your sun counter quickly, wasting countless sun against him; this is the Magnifying Grass' major weakness.

Trivia

 * Magnifying Grass was first shown off in Plants vs. Zombies: Official Guide to Protecting Your Brains, and files were discovered in the game's coding. However, it was confirmed once by an image revealed by Electronic Arts showing the Far Future seed packet.
 * Its name is a pun on "magnifying glass" and "grass".
 * The concept of Magnifying Grass is the same as when sunlight passes through a prism. Sunlight seems colorless but when passed into a prism, it breaks, forming six colors which is the visible spectrum. The sun passes into the Magnifying Grass, forming a rainbow.
 * Firing 500 sun through Magnifying Grass in a level will give the player the Grass Effect achievement.
 * When Magnifying Grass uses its Plant Food ability, it burns the zombies it kills. This is a reference to when sun rays are focused using a magnifying glass, the ray can burn objects.
 * Unlike other interactive plants, at the end of any level, Magnifying Grass can still be tapped on and will use its ray attack. This also happened with the Banana Launcher before the 3.1 update. It is currently still the case with Jack O'Lantern.
 * A glitch can occur when the player uses Plant Food on Magnifying Grass, the zombie will not get burnt, but will fall down and the Magnifying Grass will keep firing at the same spot until the effect ends, instead of firing at another zombie.
 * In Plants vs. Zombies: Official Guide to Protecting Your Brains, Magnifying Grass is referred to as male, although in the game, it is referred to as female.
 * Prior to the 2.4.1 update, Camel Zombies can take up to two shots from Magnifying Grass, although each Camel Zombie has a health of only 21 normal damage shots.
 * Magnifying Grass' attack used to only deal about seven damage in the Chinese version of Plants vs. Zombies 2, while it still spent 50 sun to attack. The bug was fixed in 1.2.1 update.
 * Aside from projectiles fired upon by its Plant Food upgrade, Magnifying Grass' sun beam, bombs released from the Dandelion, and pinecones lobbed by Sap-fling when not fed with Plant Food are the only projectiles that cannot be deflected by Jester Zombie.
 * Magnifying Grass can still shoot projectiles and kill zombies while under the effect of Boombox Zombie's ballad jam.