Sweet Potato


 * For the Plants vs. Zombies Heroes version, see Sweet Potato (PvZH).

Sweet Potato is a special-edition premium plant that first appeared in the 3.0.1 update of Plants vs. Zombies 2. It can attract zombies from adjacent tiles covering the 1x3 (vertical) area in front of the tile where it was planted in lane. Furthermore, it is also a defensive plant, possessing a toughness scale equivalent that of a Wall-nut. Like Ghost Pepper, Homing Thistle, Fire Peashooter, and Dandelion, it costs 109 gems to purchase this plant. It was removed from the store on December 3, 2014.

Sweet Potato and other special-edition plants came back in the Luck O' The Zombie event. The plants were available for purchase from March 11, 2015 until March 24, 2015. It once again reappeared in the stores as of July 7, 2015 along with the new Piñata Parties advertising the availability of all the special-edition plants for a limited time. Its cost was reduced to 75 gems during the Summer Nights special event.

It returned on November 19, 2015 in a Fall Food Fight Piñata Party, and returned to the shop for 109 gems. It also returned in the March 28, 2016 and February 25, 2017 Piñata Party, but it was not listed in the Almanac nor was available to unlock at that time.

Plant Food effect
When given Plant Food, Sweet Potato fully heals itself and attracts all zombies in a 4x3 area. Love hearts will radiate off its body as it hops up and down with an expression of joy and excitement. In the Chinese version, when not costumed, it will just enter an invulnerable state for a period of time, devoid of healing capabilities.

Costumed
Sweet Potato now fully heals itself along with the Sweet Potato's regular effect.

Strategies
Sweet Potato allows the player to attract zombies into well-guarded lanes while setting safe zones for sun production and other supporting plants. It is especially useful for setting choke points and allow area of effect plants such as Banana Launcher, Spikerock, and Lava Guava to maximize their damage potential. However, this plant's weaknesses are its high cost and recharge rate, and that it is usually not tough enough from taking the pressure from multiple lanes. Because of this, Sweet Potato needs to be used with great care.

There are two main ways of setting up Sweet Potatoes: first, third and fifth lane, or second and fourth lane. The second method is more cost efficient, but the Sweet Potatoes will also take more pressure and require replacement faster. The player can also take advantage of the terrain modifiers in Pirate Seas and Frostbite Caves to set up Sweet Potato more efficiently - a smart setup in certain Frostbite Caves level can funnel virtually all threats to a single lane.

Another way to use Sweet Potato is to treat it as a supporting plant, while using other defensive plants such as Wall-nut and Tall-nut to defend it. Chard Guard works particularly well with Sweet Potato, since it relies on his pushing ability rather than bulk to defend, it can deal with large groups of enemies from multiple lanes much more easily compared to other defensive plants. However, these defensive plants may recharge too slowly, in which time the zombies may have already eaten through the Sweet Potato. Therefore, Primal Wall-nut may be most helpful with it.

Sweet Potato, together with Primal Peashooter, can be a very powerful combination in Pirate Seas if planned well. The trick is to place Sweet Potato on plankless lanes to attract zombies, Primal Peashooter's role here is to be placed behind Sweet Potato to immediately knock off zombies that get attracted. But beware for not all zombies can be attracted by Sweet Potato, and Primal Peashooter's knockback does not always happen. Also, certain zombies cannot be drowned as they can walk on water due to a glitch. Though this strategy can be extremely useful, she is not recommended to be used standalone. Bringing instants, such as Blover or Hurrikale for Seagull Zombies, can improve the capability of this strategy. However, both of these plants are both very later worlds than Pirate Seas, so other plants may be better.

Sweet Potato is handy to use in Save Our Seeds levels when the endangered plants are not in all the lanes, like Neon Mixtape Tour - Day 5 and Ancient Egypt - Day 15. In these levels, use Sweet Potato to attract the zombies to lanes without endangered plants, and you will have a better chance to win. However, Sweet Potato should not be used in Save Our Seeds levels when the endangered plants are in all of the lanes, as it will be a waste of a seed slot, unless you are using a strategy involving moving the zombies to different lanes.

Sweet Potato can also be used with Escape Root for devastating results. Plant Escape Root behind Sweet Potato; the latter will attract zombies. When all of them are clustered, swap Escape Root with Sweet Potato to take out the group of zombies, or to severely harm Gargantuars. A good strategy is to use Sweet Potato in conjunction with Phat Beet, due to its lack of range and affinity to attack large zombie density in adjacent lanes, making a Gloom-shroom-esque format.

When using Sweet Potato, look out for zombies such as Mecha-Football Zombies, Gargantuars, Explorer Zombies, and other zombies with the ability to move or instantly destroy plants.

Sweet Potato can also be used effectively with insta-kill plants such as Cherry Bomb or Jalapeno by simply moving all the zombies to the same lane and planting said insta-kill.

Trivia

 * Jetpack Zombie, Disco Jetpack Zombie, Zombie Bull, Balloon Zombie, Zombie King, Imp Cannon, Fisherman Zombie, and Barrel Roller Zombie with his barrel cannot be attracted by it.
 * The brown area on its body appears to be the brown peel of the real life sweet potato.
 * It is actually only distantly related to the potato family. In New Zealand it is called Kūmara which is the sister plant to the Potato. Furthermore, it has a heart shaped leaf on their primary plant, and hearts come off it when using Plant Food.
 * It can make a Shield Zombie switch lanes with its shield activated, but it will detach from its shield and the shield will not be able to switch lanes.
 * In any situation where a zombie would repeatedly go back and forth between lanes due to more than one of it trying to attract a zombie, the zombie will ignore Sweet Potatoes altogether. It will only be attracted to it once when the other(s) is or are gone.
 * Sweet Potatoes that use their Plant Food ability have higher priority and therefore, the zombies will ignore the previously said statement and reach to the one which was fed with Plant Food only if the zombie is in its range.
 * If a zombie is at the back or at the bottom of it while fed with Plant Food, it will attract the zombie behind and the eating animation will also be backwards, the zombie facing the right side of the lawn.
 * If the zombie is a Gargantuar that has not yet thrown its Imp and then its health goes below half and it is not currently attacking the Sweet Potato, it will throw the Imp backwards to the third column (much like a hypnotized Gargantuar). The Imp will then walk to the right and eat plants like a Prospector Zombie as it was spawned backwards and was never actually affected by the plant.
 * There is a glitch after feeding it with Plant Food while planted on a Lily Pad on water: any zombies that move backwards to eat it will actually consume the Lily Pad, losing the Sweet Potato in the process.
 * If the player places it behind an Infi-nut's barrier, and then feeds it with Plant Food, zombies will pass through the barrier.
 * Zombies pushed back by Fume-shroom and Hurrikale, or a pull from Chomper's Plant Food ability can get attracted by it.
 * If a zombie is attracted by a it onto a slider tile, the slider tile will take no effect while the zombie is on that tile.
 * According to the credits, it is voiced by Becky Allen.
 * Its costume may be a reference to Sailor Moon.
 * It is the only plant in the Chinese version not to have a different Plant Food effect when costumed.
 * According to the texture file of the plant, there was planned, but never used, a third degrade of the Sweet Potato, making its lose the Sweet Potato's left side "clothing".
 * It, Perfume-shroom, Hot Date and Blooming Heart are only the plants that make hearts in gameplay.
 * It, Pomegranate Machine Gun and Strawburst are the only plants to laugh or chuckle when performing their Plant Food abilities.
 * Prior to the 5.5 update, it costed 300 sun.
 * Sweet Potato and Sap-fling are so far the only two plants to have their sun cost changed throughout the update history of Plants vs. Zombies 2.
 * Coincidentally, both are special-edition plants.