Briar Rose

Briar Rose is a in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes, and a member of the  class. It costs 6 to play, and has 3/4. It does not have any traits, and its ability destroys any zombie that does damage to a plant, including itself, instantly after. This ability persists until all Briar Roses are removed from the field.

Origins
It is based on a rose, a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus Rosa, in the family Roseceae, or the flower it bears.

Its name could be a reference to Sleeping Beauty, also known as Little Briar Rose, a classic fairy tale written by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. A "briar" is a prickly scrambling shrub or plant, such as a wild rose.

Statistics

 * Class: Solar
 * Tribe: Flower Plant
 * Traits: None
 * Ability: When a Zombie hurts a Flower, destroy that Zombie.
 * Set - Rarity: Premium - Super-Rare

Card description
"You mess with the rose, you get the thorns!"

Update 1.2.11

 * Name change: Rose Thorn → Briar Rose

Update 1.12.6

 * Ability change: No longer activates if a zombie that damaged a flower has already been destroyed in combat.

With
By itself, Briar Rose lacks stats for a super-rare 6-sun cost plant. However, its ability is what makes it shine on a flower-based deck. Its strength stat of 3 also means it cannot be destroyed by most instant-kill tricks like Rolling Stone, Weed Spray, Rocket Science, or Cut Down to Size.

Briar Rose's ability can still destroy zombies that can't be hurt such as  during the turn he is revealed, or sports zombies affected by Zombie Coach's ability.

The hero who can use this plant to its maximum potential is Wall-Knight, since he has access to Steel Magnolia, which increases other plants' health so they can withstand more hits, Poppin' Poppies, which creates 3 Lil' Buddies, spelling doom for any attacking zombies in the same lane as Poppin' Poppies and next door, and, which can protect Briar Rose with its high health. It also combos well with Soul Patch due to their combined ability being capable of destroying any zombie that attempts to attack the hero.

While not as potent, can also do good with this, since she has access to more flower cards than any other plant hero; these cards include Snowdrop, Vanilla, Mayflower, Spyris and.

The more flowers you use with this, the better it gets. As long as Briar Rose is in play, even weak flowers like Bellflower and can be used as cannon fodder for dangerous threats like Shieldcrusher Viking, Wannabe Hero,, Zombot Battlecruiser 5000 and even Gargantuars' Feast.

Against
Briar Rose is a very devastating plant if the field is full of flowers. However, do note that it must be a zombie that damages the flower, not a trick. The best method of dealing with Briar Rose is to use any damaging or instant-kill trick such as Cakesplosion or Locust Swarm to dispose of Briar Rose quickly. If the option is available, Weed Spray or The Chickening can wipe the screen of flowers, though likely there will be a lot of high-health 3 plants on screen, so this might not come up very often.

Rustbolt can use Shrink Ray on this to remove its ability to fight back. However, its ability can still cause a nuisance, so playing Rolling Stone soon afterwards should do the job. Alternatively, you can also Bounce this plant. If you really have no alternative other than to directly attack Briar Rose and most likely the other flowers as well, it is best to focus on Briar Rose and destroy it in one hit.

Sneaky Zombie Heroes can use deadly to quickly dispose of this. Alternatively, Super Stench and Laser Base Alpha combined with either Barrel of Deadbeards or Fireworks Zombie (Although Space Ninja is safer) can be used to clear the board of all plants, including flowers like this.

Gallery

Trivia

 * Its description is a reference to the quote, "Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns." from the movie The Breakfast Club.
 * This is the third plant that is based on roses, the others being Rose and Rose Swordsman.
 * When a zombie is destroyed by Briar Rose, a red flash appears like that of Arcane Enigma's.
 * It is one of the six flowers to use its arms to fight zombies. The others are Sunflower Queen, Match Flower Boxer, Morning Glory, Royal Hypno-Flower and Poppin' Poppies.