Brainana

Brainana is a in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes, and a member of the  class. It costs 6 to play, and has 4/3. It has the Amphibious trait, and its ability resets the zombie hero's brain counter to 0 the turn it is played.

Origins
It is based on the banana, an edible fruit, botanically a berry, produced by several kinds of large herbaceous, flowering plants in the genus Musa.

Its name is a portmanteau of "brain," referring to its ability and head, and "banana," the real-life plant this is based on.

Statistics

 * Class: Smarty
 * Tribe: Banana Plant
 * Trait: Amphibious
 * Ability: When played: The Zombie Hero loses their Brains.
 * Set - Rarity: Premium - Super-Rare

Card description
In this case, "brain drain" is a good thing.

Update 1.4.14

 * Tribe change: Fruit Plant → Banana Plant
 * Tribe change: Fruit Plant → Banana Plant

Update 1.16.10

 * Rarity change: Super-Rare → Legendary
 * Rarity change: Super-Rare → Legendary

With
Brainana has low stats for a high-cost plant. This means that this plant is used not because of its stats, but because of its ability. While its ability seems very powerful, remember that since zombies play their fighters before plants do, Brainana's ability only prevents your opponent from playing tricks and environments. Therefore, it is better to play it in the late-game, as your opponent gets more brains for tricks and environments.

Brainana does not synergize well with both Black-Eyed Pea and Sportacus, as they cannot activate their abilities due to Brainana making your opponent unable to play tricks. However, it is very effective against trick-based decks (especially heroes like Professor Brainstorm and Immorticia), as you are shutting down the main power source. Brainana also guarantees the safety of your plants leading into the Fight! phase, as your opponent cannot play tricks to destroy them or decrease their stats after they are played with exception of 0 cost cards. It can also be played to simply guard an aquatic lane, as it has the Amphibious trait.

Rarely or so, there is a chance that Seedling may transform into Brainana. In that case, Brainana resets your opponent's brain counter to 0 before the Zombies Play phase, meaning that your opponent can't play anything for that turn. But ignore this strategy if you are not a Kaboom hero.

You could also play this when Teleportation Zombie is on the field if your opponent passes in the Zombies Play phase, as playing Brainana will then prevent your opponent from playing both tricks and the zombies that they were planning to play.

If you want to continuously steal brains from your opponent, play Rescue Radish to Bounce Brainana so you can replay it on the next turn.

Against
There are not many ways to counter its ability apart from having Gentleman Zombie on the field, which gives you brains at the start of the Zombie Tricks phase. However, do remember that Brainana only prevents you from playing tricks for the turn it is played, so you can still play your cards normally on the next turn. If you are playing as a hero, you can play  to prevent Brainana from being played. However, he can only do so on turns 6 and 7, unless is on the field to reduce his cost.

If Brainana comes from Seedling, you cannot do anything since you can neither play zombies nor tricks, unless you have other zombies that can lower the cost of cards or give brains such as Gargologist, Gentleman Zombie, or Flag Zombie.

Stat-wise, Brainana has low stats for its cost, so it is not that threatening, but it can cause you trouble due to its Amphibious trait. The best option is to play cards like, Sumo Wrestler, Electrobolt, or Rocket Science, though you can only destroy it next turn if it was played on an empty lane.

Trivia

 * Its head bears a resemblance to Megamind's, and also some of those in Murderous Maths.
 * Despite a banana being botanically a berry, it is not classified as a berry plant.
 * Other banana plants like Bananasaurus Rex share this same trait.
 * In older versions, it subtracted only 50 from the brain counter.
 * It is the only banana plant in the Smarty class.
 * It is also the only banana plant with the Amphibious trait.