His ability may have originated from his ability to shovel plants and move them to the front in said game.
Statistics[]
Class: Sneaky
Tribes: Professional Mustache Zombie
Trait: Gravestone
Ability: When revealed: Bounce an Environment and all Plants there.
Set - Rarity: Triassic - Super-Rare
Card description[]
He loved finding dinosaur fossils, until the dinosaurs started finding him.
Update history[]
Update 1.24.6[]
Added to the game.
Strategies[]
With[]
Excavator Zombie is an excellent zombie that can counter decks with environments in it, especially if your opponent relies on that environment, such as Planet of the Grapes, Venus Flytraplanet or The Red Plant-It. Even though your opponent can simply replay them, it will still heavily mess up their strategies and sun management. The only exception is Pair Pearadise, as while it still causes trouble for your opponent, it also doubles the plant played in it, which can be bad for you if it is a legendary like Astro Vera. Since his ability activates on any environment, Excavator Zombie doesn't have to be played on a specific lane to Bounce it, making it versatile as well.
However, the above paragraph also implies Excavator Zombie's drawback, which is that Excavator Zombie is much less useful if your opponent plays no environments. While you can play environments yourself to activate Excavator Zombie's ability, your environment must be replayed, essentially making Excavator Zombie more expensive (unless you use a 1-brain environment, which in most cases is useless) and less cost-effective than Pogo Bouncer, unless there are two plants in the environment. There is no merit of Bouncing your own environment either unless you want Neutron Imp to do more bonus attacks (and even then, Bouncing your opponent's environment also activates his ability too), as they don't need to be "saved" or have any "When played" abilities, the only exception being Ice Moon. Therefore, it is recommended to take some Pogo Bouncers too, just in case Excavator Zombie doesn't do well against your opponent.
Excavator Zombie isn't very good in terms of synergization either. He can be used for Duckstache or Jurassic Fossilhead's Evolution or to activate Zombie Middle Manager's ability, but his low health of 1 makes him unsuitable for those. The only meaningful synergization he can create is with Mustache Waxer, essentially making him cost 1 brain less.
Out of all the Sneaky heroes, Huge-Gigantacus synergizes the best with Excavator Zombie, simply because of Ice Moon, along with his access to Neutron Imp to allow more bonus attacks to occur. Neptuna can use Excavator Zombie in tandem with Black Hole, which, thanks to its moving ability, will be able to draw plants in for a guaranteed Bounce. The rest of the Sneaky heroes, however, don't really have any outstanding synergization with him.
It isn't recommended to play him if Jelly Bean is on the field, unless you are trying to Bounce the environment Jelly Bean is on.
Against[]
Excavator Zombie is dangerous if your deck has environments in it, as he can make all your setup there go to waste. Worst case scenario, he can mill your hand, making you unable to block anything. However, he is much less threatening if your deck has few to no environments, and he will just be a glass cannon in that case.
Just like any Gravestone zombie, Grave Mistake or Grave Buster works against him. If he does get revealed, Freezing or striking behind a wall can deal with Excavator Zombie himself.
Jelly Bean is also a perfect option. Just don't let him Bounce the environment it is on.
Sneaky class. He costs 3
to play and has 4
/1
. He has the Gravestone trait, and his ability gives the Bounce effect to a selected environment on the field and every plant in it when he is revealed.
Freezing or striking behind a wall can deal with Excavator Zombie himself.
Brainy
Crazy
Hearty
Sneaky