Gold Magnet

The Gold Magnet is the upgraded form of the Magnet-shroom. It costs $3000 to buy the seed packet from Crazy Dave, and 50 Sun to plant. Every 20 Seconds it collects up to five of the Money on the Screen, saving the player time and can allow the player to focus on the attack.

Suburban Almanac Entry
Gold Magnets collect coins and diamonds for you.

Must be planted on magnet-shrooms

"How did I end up here?" asks Gold Magnet. "I was on the fast track --corner office, full benefits, stock options. I was gonna be Vice President of Midwestern Operations. Now I'm here, on this lawn, in serious danger of being eaten to death. Ooh! A coin!"

Cost: 50

Recharge: very slow

Usage
The Gold Magnet takes up a plant slot when beginning a round. It costs 50 sun to plant, and must be planted on an existing Magnet-shroom. The Magnet-shroom does not have to be awake, as the Gold Magnet is not a mushroom. Every 20 or so seconds, when there are coins or diamonds on the field, it charges, collecting all money in a fairly large radius.

On the iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad versions, the Gold Magnet should rarely be used, as it isn't as time consuming and difficult to touch all the coins in sight as it is to click them with a mouse.

Note: Gold Magnets lose their ferro-magnetism, meaning that they can't collect any other metal objects other than money. They don't behave like Magnet-shrooms at all, not taking away Buckethead Zombie, Pogo Zombie, etc. from Zombies. These are only necessary if large volumes of money are being dropped, as they are otherwise useless.

Strategy
Due to their automatic money collection tendencies, Gold Magnets are very popular to use with Marigold, since the latter reliably generate money every 25 seconds. There exists Farming strategies that exploit many Marigolds producing Money while the enemy fruitlessly hammers away at the impenetrable outer walls.

Trivia

 * Along with the Blover, the Gold Magnet is one of the two plants with a three-beat cycle, making three bounces while going from one side to the other.
 * Although the Magnet-shroom is a mushroom and needs a Coffee Bean to function during the day, the Gold Magnet is diurnal and, even without being woken before upgrading, can function anytime. Don't use a Coffee Bean when trying to upgrade as this wastes your sun. Because of this, we know that the Gold Magnet is not a mushroom.
 * Oddly enough, Gold Magnets use magnetism to pick up gold coins, silver coins, and diamonds despite silver, gold and diamond being non-magnetic.
 * Because Gold Magnets cannot pick up coins or diamonds until they touch the ground, but still try to pick them up, a Gold Magnet may try to pick up coins but the coins will not move and will remain there.
 * This is the only upgraded plant that serves no battle purpose since it only gather coins and diamonds and no longer collects metal objects that are being used for protection.
 * This is one of the two Upgrade Plants that cost less sun than their original plant, the other Plant being the Winter Melon.
 * This plant, along with the Sunflower, Twin Sunflower, Flower Pot, Lily Pad, Plantern, Marigold and Coffee Bean has neither offensive or defensive capabilities.
 * This is one of the plants that has a name that doesn't involve any plants, the others being Chomper, Spikerock and Grave Buster.
 * If a Gold Magnet is pulling more than 5 coins,it will only take the earliest coins to get to the gold magnet, the leftover coins will be closer to the Gold Magnet but has to be taken when the gold magnet pulls coins again.
 * The Gold Magnet is the cheapest upgrade plant in the game costing only 50 sun.
 * The awkward thing about the Gold Magnet is that it pulls the coins to itself while adding to your coin balance, meaning it is connected to you.
 * The name "Gold Magnet" may have two meanings; it may mean a magnet which is gold in color, while it may also mean a magnet which magnets gold, and these two meanings are both true for this plant.
 * The Gold Magnet is one of the two Upgrade Plants that don't damage or kill zombies, the other one being the Twin Sunflower.