Piñata


 * This page is about the Piñatas that are used to upgrade plants. For the ones that appear after completing a Piñata Party event, see Party Piñata.

Piñatas are new items added in the 5.7.1 update of Plants vs. Zombies 2. Each of them contain an amount of coins and seed packets that are used to level up plants. There are total of 21 types of Piñatas, 11 of which are based on the each world in the game and 10 others as Special Piñatas.

Overview
Piñatas contain a random medium amount of coins and seed packets with some of them containing bonus seed packets of either Epic Quest or premium plants. Players may also receive seed packets of plants they haven't obtained, usually as bonus seed packets.

A random type selection of Piñatas can be obtained with either the quests on the Travel Log (that changes every 4 hours) or the store under quantities of 1, 6 (5+1 free), or 13 (10+3 free) Piñatas with world-based Piñatas costing gems and Special Piñatas as IAPs (which changes daily). Some limited-time Special Piñatas also contain an amount of bonus seed packets of a specific premium plant.

Since the 5.9.1 update, world-based Piñatas can also be obtained from the Piñata Tracker by replaying completed levels of that world. Note that playing a new level does not count and up to 3 Piñatas can obtained from it at a given time although the Piñata limit can be expanded for up to 5 Piñatas via IAPs. The given timer resets every 12 hours since the last time the player has played which only counts when there's an Internet connection.

Seed Packets
Seed packets obtained from Piñatas are based on the given selection of its type. Each Piñata obtained via quests contain 7 or 8 seed packets of 2 plants and each store purchased Piñata contain 20 seed packets of 2 plants. Each Piñata may also have a chance to contain 5 bonus seed packets of a premium plant, which they are the rarest to find.

Seed packets of plants can be obtained from the world they were unlocked in, exceptions being plants unlocked from Player's House (found on the Ancient Egypt Piñata instead) and plants not unlocked from worlds (Premium and Epic Quest plants, which are found either as Bonus Seed Packets or from Special Piñatas).

Types of Piñatas
Here is the table of Piñatas that can be bought from the store, how many Piñatas that can be bought at once, and what and how many seed packets can obtained from the Piñatas.

Tips
In most cases (where players usually wanted to level-up plants obtained from worlds), only obtain Piñatas that contain plants that you need, as it is time and/or money consuming to get Piñatas that you don't need. Since most types of Piñatas can be obtained for free, it is extremely not recommended to purchase them with money. Instead; either obtain them from quests on the Travel Log (which are easier to accomplish when done on the right regular or Endless Zone level), the Piñata Tracker, or the store with a world-based Piñata set of 13 Piñatas that has the best gem value, saving 60 gems of free 3 Piñatas compared to buying them separately.

Trivia

 * All Piñatas but one Piñata are based on Señor Piñata.
 * Getting seed packets for limited edition plants and premium plants that are not available is much harder to get than those of other types of plants. The luck needed is extremely high.
 * When Piñatas were first introduced, Jurassic Marsh plant seed packets were not obtainable as Jurassic Marsh Piñatas simply reward 5 gems. Therefore, Jurassic Marsh plants could not be leveled up initially.
 * This also happened to Aloe and Parsnip.
 * This was fixed in the official release, but Aloe's seed packets were still incredibly rare, but that was fixed in the 5.8.1 update.
 * Gold Leaf, Imitater, Marigold, and Thyme Warp are the only plants that cannot be obtained in Piñatas as they lack plant upgrades.
 * Seed packets of Sunflower and Twin Sunflower are rarer to find on Ancient Egypt Piñatas, not counting bonus seed packets.
 * Animations used for the moment the player collected enough seed packets for a plant to level-up are simply re-used animations of plants being watered from the Zen Garden. As a result;
 * Most unused Zen Garden animations of instant-use plants up until the Far Future update are now used. Imitater's animation still remains unused, however. This is because Imitater can't level up.
 * Instant-use plants later released (starting with Hot Potato) simply have their idle animation reset as they don't have their Zen Garden animations.
 * Some oddities occur on certain plants such as Rotobaga, Primal Peashooter, and Nightshade (droplets of water appear), Pepper-pult, Fire Peashooter, and Torchwood (their flames being extinguished). This, again, is because the game just uses the Zen Garden watering animation for that plant.