Exploding Fruitcake is an eventzombietrickcard in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes and a member of the Crazy class. It costs 2 to play, and its ability does 7 damage to a selected plant and Conjures a fruit card for the plant hero, unless the plant hero already has 10 cards in their hand.
It is based on a fruitcake, a cake made with candied or dried fruit, nuts, and spices, and optionally soaked in alcohol.
Its name is a combination of "exploding," referring to its appearance and animation, and "fruitcake," the real-life object it is based on.
Its description is a reference to how fruitcakes can also not contain real fruit.
Statistics
Class: Crazy
Tribes: Gourmet Party Trick
Abilities: Do 7 damage to a Plant. The Plant player Conjures a Fruit.
Set: Event
Card description
Once you get past all the dynamite and bombs, fruitcakes actually contain at least 5% Fruit.
Update history
Update 1.18.13
Added to the game.
Update 1.22.16
▲ Ability change: Do 6 damage to a Plant → Do 7 damage to a Plant.
Update 1.24.6
Became craftable.
Strategies
With
This card can be seen as a much more cost-effective Cakesplosion, doing 7 damage for 2 as opposed to 4 damage for 4. This makes it perfect for removing tough plants such as Wing-Nut and Transfiguration for a cheap cost. In fact, Exploding Fruitcake does enough damage to qualify as a hard removal card; very few plants can survive one without boosts or support (Untrickable plants are an exception).
And while this trick Conjures your opponent a Fruit card, this is rarely useful to the opponent meaning it does not hurt the card's usage nor it's viability in decks, so it should not be disregarded for this minimal downside, especially considering the huge upside it has.
As this is a Gourmet Card, the Cheese Cutter can conjure it. Its low cost also makes it viable in Trick-based decks.
With all this said, Exploding Fruitcake is an extremely effective and valuable card to put in practically any Crazy deck, most decks in the competitive meta use it, so it is definitely worth crafting it.
Against
There isn't much you can do against this card other than to keep your plants' health above 7, which can be hard to do in the beginning turns of the match when this trick can be played. You can also fill the field with many dangerous plants as this trick can only target one plant, one recommended strategy is with Three-Nut, as it is a very viable card and it can be used to fill the board with plants with good strength, and leaves the Zombie Hero struggling due to the single targeting of the trick.
Dark Matter Dragonfruit and Forget-Me-Nuts can also increase Exploding Fruitcake's cost to make it harder to be played. If you have multiple Dino-Roar plants on the field, some can get a boost triggered through the Conjure.
One card that Exploding Fruitcake cannot reliably remove is Veloci-Radish Hunter, as it makes two plants for 3 Sun, so the Zombie Hero would have to use two copies to fully destroy the card, which would leave them in Brain and Card disadvantage. If only one of the Veloci-Radish Hunters is removed, then the other one can get the Dino-Roar boost and do more damage.
For easy reference, here is a list of plants Exploding Fruitcake can Conjure: