Board Thread:Plants vs. Zombies Heroes/@comment-30319281-20161030151913

Having introduced a few basic tactical concepts in the previous article, I will now turn to the strategic elements of deck building.



The Cost Curve

Let's say there was a plant or zombie that read “When played: You win the game”. The only problem is that it would cost 20 sun or brains to play. Would you run it in your deck? Probably not. Your winning or losing the game will be decided anyway, before you could play such a teammate, so that it is irrelevant to your actual performance (such cards are often termed “win more”). Of course, you could try to build a deck to support it – use cards that lower the cost or increase your available brains/sun. But that only means you're making your deck even worse, by selecting teammates that are worse than they'd otherwise be, just in the hope of making it to your grand play.

The truth is that for ranked matches, most costly teammates are bad simply by virtue of their cost. This is good news for the new player however, as most super-rare and legendary cards have a high cost, and hence don't come into play until the game is already decided. It will probably affect your win ratios far more to get good uncommons and rares that cost 4 or less, than to get a single legendary teammate that costs 8 or more. This in turn affects card acquisition and deck building strategies.

For most builds, the following cost distribution, or curve, would be a good starting point:

1-2 cost: 30-55% (12-22 cards)

3-4 cost: 20-30% (8-12 cards)

5-6 cost: 15-25% (6-10 cards)

7+ cost: 0-5% (0-2 cards)

Fast and aggressive decks will prioritize cost-effective weenies and cheap tricks. Builds made to stall the opponent will include fewer low cost cards, and maybe a couple of bombs to turn the tide late game. The ability to modify your starting hand means that even decks running few 1- and 2-drops will have a chance of making significant early plays, especially with 1-cost hero tricks to back that up if necessary. That said, keeping your curve lean and efficient allows you to make explosive plays late game too, to turn the tide more effectively than when just dropping a single high-cost teammate.



A Word on Tricks

Tricks are essentially a way to compensate zombie players for plants getting to go second and respond to the zombie fighters. Tricks allow zombies to respond in turn. Hence, tricks are generally more important for zombie decks, than they are for plants. This is doubly so thanks to team-up, a plant-specific mechanic. Team-up lets you use two slots per lane, which permits committing more resources to the battlefield at one time, leaving fewer cards in your hand that aren't contributing to your present board state.

For a zombie deck that makes use of the water lane, I'd recommend running about 20-25% tricks. Zombie decks without amphibious teammates, or zombie decks with many trick synergies (such as many Brainy builds) will want to run more. Plants can get by with far less, especially if they make heavy use of team-up. It is mostly a question of functionality – for example, Sweet Potato can be thought of as a typical “trick” that leaves a small defensive body behind. Conversely, there are many zombie tricks that create fighters in the trick phase.



<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Acquiring and Using Good Cards

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">It is painful to see people use vanilla 1/1 fighters for 1 in multiplayer, even at high ranks, when you know there are so many better options that can be had for a very reasonable amount of sparks. You can make competitive builds that will work well even in the diamond league, using mostly commons and uncommons, and hardly any super-rares or legendaries.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">If you are new to this game, here's how I would go about acquiring cards and heroes for multiplayer:

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Commons: You will eventually acquire all the commons in the game if you just play a few missions and multiplayer games, without the need to spend a single spark, so just pick these up as you go along. Weed them out of your decks as you pick up uncommons and rares that are better.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Uncommons: As you gain spark, you can start investing in good uncommons that are key to your preferred strategies. For example, Iceberg Lettuce if you like Smarty class plant heroes and you're going for a frost build, or Arm Wrestlers if you like Hearty zombie heroes. You will soon get many of these from premium packs, but having good uncommons is key to success in higher leagues and they are cheap, so it makes sense to get them early. Some are even keyed to hero craft quests, which makes crafting an even better deal.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Rares: Most rares are very good and recycle for only a fifth of their cost, so I'd hang on to them unless you're certain that you won't be needing using them even if you unlock other heroes later. A few of them are essential to certain builds/concepts as detailed below, so after you have all the uncommons you want for a build, I'd invest in any necessary rares.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Super-rares and legendary: These are a luxury and nothing you “need” to play a build successfully. Some aren't even that good – they cost too much to be relevant, have an effect without any synergy with your game plan, or are only marginally better than a basic or uncommon card option in your hero's other class. Once you've acquired all the key rares and uncommons for the builds that interest you, consider getting a couple of these if you have sparks to spend. The investment sure is heavy though. I would strongly consider scrapping the worst of these to get more sparks for rares and uncommons if there are other builds you'd like to explore. Scrapping a single legendary gives you enough spark to acquire four rares or 20 uncommons – probably enough to complete at least two good builds for multiplayer.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Heroes: If you want a specific hero, there are time-limited bundles on offer for 750 diamonds that automatically unlock the hero and give you a few relevant cards to boot. You just need to be patient and wait until your hero is on offer. I otherwise like saving up to buy 11 premium packs at once for 1000 gems to get an extra pack, but I recommend having at least 6-700 diamonds left so you can grab the hero you want as the offer is only valid for a few days and quickly amassing diamonds gets more and more difficult.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Build Concepts by Class

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Here are a few of the more common build concepts you'll see in multiplayer for the various classes of plants and zombies:

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Guardian: Spineapple builds. Commons include Wall-Nut, Spineapple and Smackadamia. Uncommons are Water Chestnut for the water lane and a few Steel Magnolia to keep toughness up. This concept is best with cards in other classes that lack power (such as Solar class) to take advantage of Spineapple more, or cards that boost power to complement Spineapple (Berry Angry from Kabloom class is perhaps the best option). If you have sparks or if you're lucky, 2-3 Mirror Nut (Super-rare) do not go amiss. This build is weak to Weed Spray, but you can plan for this by including higher power plants, power buffs and not overextending your weenie board position against zombie heroes with access to Hearty class. Hibernating Berry (rare) is a good support 3-drop, but only worsens the Weed Spray situation, so I'd only use it in nutless builds.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Kabloom: Shroom builds. Commons are Shroom for Two, Buff-Shroom, Berry Angry, Berry Blast and possibly a few Sour Grapes to finish off zombies and kill many low toughness threats in the water lane. 3-4 Punish Shroom (rare) round out this build. Consider adding shrooms from complementary classes too, to make more use of Buff-Shroom and Punish Shroom. This build is also vulnerable to Weed Spray (and The Chickening), but far less so than Spineapple builds. Shroom builds are best with heroes that have the More Spore ability to make more shrooms. Kabloom heroes without this ability can still use the class for support (Berry Angry and Berry Blast are pretty much always good). Very cheap to acquire and effective.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Mega-Grow: This class is often better as a complement to another class (especially Smarty, which also uses peas). If you're basing a build on Mega-Grow, you'll be wanting 3-4 Pod Fathers (rare). I typically don't recommend this however, as Pod Father builds tend to sacrifice important early game in favor of explosive late game plays that don't always pan out. Pea Pod is a very good common 1-drop, especially if you're using Torchwood for other peas already. You typically need to run at least 10 peas to support Torchwood, and more than that to support Pod Father (since you'll likely be dropping peas before playing him too).

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Smarty: Green Shadow and Rose should probably focus on Smarty class frost builds (Citron works too, but lacks the Big Chill ability, and Nightcap is better off focusing on Kabloom). Commons are Snowdrop and Frost Pea, uncommons are Chilly Bean and Iceberg Lettuce and rares 2-3 Winter Squash. I also like 2x Rescue Radish (uncommon) to bounce and reuse Chilly Bean or any damaged fatty. It's also very cost effective if your board is wiped after a heavy fight. 4x Cattail (common) also does not go amiss for almost any build. If you have any Winter Melons, be sure to include them! Green Shadow adds Threepeater, Pea Pod and Torchwood to the mix. Rose wants Shellery or Morning Glory, and the larger plants with strikethrough from Solar.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Solar: This is the ultimate support class, as it can support almost any build. Strikethrough plants are always very good and most are common rarity – just add to round out the curve of your build. 2-3 Squash are indispensable for most builds (could be fancy rare Lawnmowers instead if you have the water lane covered, but it's not necessary). The Taco is an excellent trick (heal 4 and draw a card for 3) which I'd try to fit as a 2x in any build with Solar (worth the investment as a rare). Kabloom class (Solar Flare) wants Fume-Shroom and Guardian (Wall Knight) wants a few Mixed Nuts. Apart from that, 2-3 Metal Petal Sunflower isn't a bad card if you have a heavy curve.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Beastly: Pet builds. Beastly heroes get a good selection even at basic rarity, and sparks only make it even better. Good commons include Dog Walker, Nibble, Pied Piper, Zookeeper, Loudmouth, Dolphin Rider, Locust Swarm and Smashing Gargantuar. Snorkel Zombie is a good support uncommon if dolphins crowd your 3-drops and Haunting Zombie is a decent support option too. If you want to invest in tribal pet builds, 3-4 Cat Lady (rare) and 2 Zombie Yeti (super-rare) is very strong in such builds.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Brainy: These cards are all over the place (trick focus, science focus, sports etc) so you will have to pick and choose a lot depending on build. In general, Beam Me Up is a very powerful uncommon in many builds and Cell Phone Zombie and Fun-Dead Raiser are good basics for many late bloomers (Kite Flyers are even better if you want to invest in rares). Brain Vendor and Electrician are typically strong uncommons as well. Rocket Science is good removal if you have nothing else, but don't rely on it exclusively as many troublesome plants have low strength. Chimney Sweep is a good support choice for aggressive builds. One of the best super-rares in the game is Teleport – awesome for any build with access to Brainy class.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Crazy: This class also has strong basic zombies overall, such as Tennis Champ, Cuckoo Zombie, Newspaper Zombie, Disco Zombie, The Chickening and Imp-Throwing Gargantuar. Unlife of the Party (uncommon), Conga Zombie (uncommon), Aerobics Instructor (rare) and a few Flamenco Zombies are good if you're going for a dancer build.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Hearty: Sport zombie tribal builds, or support. Arm Wrestler (uncommon) is perhaps the best 1-drop zombie in the game whether you play sports tribal or not. It's very hard to counter effectively. Rolling Stone and Camel Crossing are both aggressively costed tricks and Flag Zombie is very powerful for a common. 4x Sumo Wrestler and 4x Team Mascot are mandatory for sports tribal, especially combined with 2x Zombie Coach (rare). 3-4 All-Star Zombies do not go amiss in sport builds either, but are far from necessary. I also like 2x Coffee Zombie (super-rare) for any aggressive build as an excellent finisher that is hard to answer with just a removal trick, since most of the damage is already done as he enters play – yet he is also a threat on an empty board and not just a dead trick in hand.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Sneaky: Normally I'd avoid Mini-Ninja + Smoke Bomb builds as these cards suck without each other and the opportunity for use is only there in the early turns. Fishy Imp and Hot Dog Imp are extremely good basics regardless of build. You can continue to build with imps using Imp Commander and Toxic Waste Imp (rare), and that makes Mini-Ninja + Smoke Bomb sort of decent late game too. Zombie Chicken (uncommon) is a very good support 1-drop for aggressive builds.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Hope you've enjoyed this part! If you did, consider giving kudos and don't hesitate to share or request specific build advice for a hero in the comments below. <ac_metadata title="Multiplayer Mini Manuals: Part 2 – Deck Construction"> </ac_metadata>