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 coins nearby, saving the player time (and from carpal tunnel syndrome).

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 (or even never) 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 cannot collect any other metal objects other than money. They do not behave like Magnet-shrooms at all, not taking away buckets, pogo sticks, etc. from zombies. These are only necessary if large volumes of money ($30+ a second) are being dropped, as they are otherwise useless.

Strategy
Due to their automatic money collection tendencies, Gold Magnets are very popular to use with Marigolds, since the latter reliably generate money every 25 seconds. There exists Farming strategies that exploit many marigolds producing cash 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. Do not use a coffee bean when trying to upgrade as this wastes your sun.17.jpg
 * Oddly enough, Gold Magnets use magnetism to pick up gold and silver coins, despite silver and gold not being magnetic. (Of course, the coins may be made of silver and gold-colored alloys that are 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.
 * 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.