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 15 seconds, it collects up to five pieces of the Money on-screen, saving the player time and can allow the player to focus on the attack. It can attract coins and diamonds, helpful to make money quickly.



Suburban Almanac Entry
Gold Magnet

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 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 15 seconds, when there are coins or diamonds on the field, it charges, collecting up to 5 coins/diamonds on all the field.

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 Buckets, Pogos, Ladders, 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 are existing gold-farming strategies that exploit many Marigolds producing Money while the enemy fruitlessly hammers away at the impenetrable outer walls, especially in Last Stand.

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. Because of this, it is assumed that the Gold Magnet is not a mushroom.
 * The Gold Magnet has a stem and leaves, unlike the Magnet-shroom and other mushrooms.
 * Oddly enough, Gold Magnets use magnetism to pick up gold coins, silver coins, and diamonds despite the fact that silver, gold and diamond are non-magnetic.
 * Because Gold Magnets cannot pick up coins or diamonds until they touch the ground, they'll still try to pick them up; but the coins will not move, and will remain there.
 * This is one of the two Upgrade Plants that cost less sun than their original plant, the other plant being the Winter Melon, upgrade of the Melon-pult.
 * When a Magnet-shroom glows it becomes the opposite of it's original color, but if a Gold Magnet glows it's bright yellow.
 * The Gold Magnet is the cheapest upgrade plant in the game, costing only 50 sun, the same cost as a Sunflower.
 * Possibly it is because it is of little use in battle.
 * This plant, along with the Sun-shroom, the Sunflower, Twin Sunflower, Flower Pot, Lily Pad, Plantern, Marigold and Coffee Bean has neither offensive nor 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.
 * 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 may attempt to collect coins after all the coins on-screen has been cleared by clicking. It will glow, but not attract any coins.
 * On the iPad version's seed packet, it is missing it's eyebrows.
 * The Gold Magnet can only pick 5 coins/diamonds at once.
 * It is the only plant that can pick up money.
 * The Gold Magnet is one of two plants whose Almanac entry states he held a job (he had a corner office and was on the fast track to becoming a high-level executive for a company) before the game. The other being the Fume-shroom.
 * When there are lots of diamonds and coins, Gold Magnets will always attract diamonds/gold coins first.
 * Gold Magnets never attract chocolate and presents.
 * Gold Magnets take a second to magnetize coins and diamonds while the Magnet-shroom instantly magnetizes metallic objects. The reason for this is because it has to rear back before magnetising.
 * When the Gold Magnet attracts coins, it scrunches up its eyebrows as if it is concentrating.
 * The Gold Magnet appears as if it has no eyebrows on its seed packet.
 * On the DS/DSi versions, all money the Gold Magnet attracts moves at a slower rate than any other version of the game.
 * If you have more than one Gold Magnet on the field at one time, they will only work one at a time, and never two at once.
 * It can be concluded if the Gold Magnet was avalible in Zen Garden, it wouldn't have to be in the Mushroom Garden for mushrooms.
 * The Magnet-shroom is a Mushroom,and the Gold Magnet is a plant,what is pretty curious since he's an upgrade to it.
 * Unlike the magnet-shroom, the Gold Magnet does not have to dispose of the attracted object.