Primal Potato Mine


 * For the present day variant, see Potato Mine.

Primal Potato Mine is the fifth and last plant obtained in Jurassic Marsh. It is the primal version of Potato Mine; it explodes in a 3x3 radius and takes only 5 seconds to arm itself, but costs 50 sun instead of 25.

Origins
Like its modern counterpart, Primal Potato Mine is based on the real life potato, the starchy, tuberous root portion of the plant Solanum tuberosum. Its name is a combination of "potato" and "land mine", an explosive device concealed under or on the ground designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks.

Unlike Potato Mine's word on the speech bubble when it explodes, Primal Potato Mine's is "SPUD OOP!!", a portmanteau of "spud" and "oop!".

Almanac entry
Sun cost: 50

Primal Potato Mines cost more than regular Potato Mines, but they arm more quickly and do damage over a larger area.

DAMAGE: Massive AREA: Moderate RECHARGE: Sluggish

Usage: single use, delayed activation Range: affects area around it

Primal Potato Mine doesn't consider himself to be primal. As far as he's concerned he's state-of-the-art. And who knows? Maybe he is.

Plant Food
When given Plant Food, Primal Potato Mine will instantly arm itself if not done already and will create two new and fully armed Primal Potato Mines on two random squares.

Strategies
Primal Potato Mine is a significantly improved version of its modern counterpart, as its positive attributes can easily outweigh the slightly increased sun cost. Compared to Potato Mine's blast radius, Primal Potato Mine's is nine times as large and can cover up to three lanes at once, allowing Primal Potato Mine to control the crowd much more easily as well as destroy obstacles such as tombstones and frozen blocks. In addition, Primal Potato Mine suffers very little from the its counterpart's arming time problem, and can be planted one space ahead of the zombies with the help of slowing plants. These factors combined makes Primal Potato Mine a highly useful plant both for offense and defense. Stunion and this plant make a great combo as the Stunion stops the zombies whilst the Primal Potato Mine arms.

In Neon Mixtape Tour the player can pair it with Thyme Warp to defeat a large horde of zombies if used properly. Plant two Primal Potato Mines on the second and fourth column, then pile up the zombies by using a Thyme Warp. Using this strategy can hugely decrease the amount of zombies present on the lawn, it can even defeat Hair Metals Gargantuars. Using this strategy has no problem in terms of sun cost, as both plants have a cheap cost. The thing to worry about is the recharge time of both plants, as both plants do not have fast recharge. Also take note not to place the Primal Potato Mines to near or too far from the zombies, as putting them too near may end to them being eaten and putting them too far may decrease the amount of defeated zombies as some zombies are significantly faster than others.

Trivia

 * Vanquishing 7 enemies with a single Primal Potato Mine will give the player the Bash Potato achievement.
 * Its flashing scales on top resemble a Stegosaurus'. The light they flash runs from the head spike to the fourth back spike, then the cycle repeats.
 * Its abilities may have been based on a past glitch of Potato Mine, where it blows up graves in a 3x3 area around it.
 * It is currently glitched and cannot be crushed by Frozen Blocks and Arcade Machine s