Design change: Shrink Ray now makes the selected plant visually smaller as well, compared to only dropping its strength before.
Display change: No longer shows negative strength, even in circumstances where it should.
Strategies[]
With[]
Shrink Ray is ideal against a hard-hitting plant to let a zombie facing it survive even longer, or on an early-game threat like Bonk Choy or Poison Mushroom to make them completely harmless. Shrink Ray also gives you a card, which lets you maintain your card count after playing it. But since Shrink Ray only affects one plant, you should choose the plant that deserves a strength drop the most, should there be multiple threats on the field.
This trick can be played on a plant that was boosted by Blazing Bark to almost completely get rid of the boost. You can also play this on Repeater and Bananasaurus Rex to prevent them from doing bonus attacks, or Doubled Mint to prevent him from multiplying his strength early on. It can also take care of many threatening 3 plants such as Metal Petal Sunflower, Bloomerang, Power Flower, etc. While Knockout is a safer option as it destroys them (which prevents them from being boosted), Shrink Ray is much cheaper.
It can also be useful in the early game on weak plants, to lock down a lane and prevent the plant hero from playing most of their cards in that lane, as long as you don't destroy the weakened plant.
Since it is a science card, it is a cheap way to activate Interdimensional Zombie's ability.
Against[]
Just like all other zombie tricks, there isn't a way to counter this on the turn it is played. Smarty heroes can play Brainana or Dark Matter Dragonfruit to prevent or hinder this trick from being played, while Guardian heroes can play Forget-Me-Nuts to hinder it as well. However, these strategies may not last long, and as such, you should be prepared for when this trick is played.
Any Mega-Grow hero can easily boost the weakened plant again. They can also use Umbrella Leaf to protect most of their plants from being targeted. If you are playing as Captain Combustible and haven't played Blazing Bark yet, you can do that too.
If you are playing as a hero that doesn't have access to such boosting tricks like Wall-Knight, it may be better to let the zombies finish off the weakened plant so you can replace it with a new one later. You could also use the plant as Evolution fodder.
As it is a one-use card that can only affect one plant, you can play multiple strong plants to wreak havoc or boost many of your plants' strength at once with cards such as Berry Angry or Storm Front (as Spudow or Nightcap). However, be careful of Rocket Science.
Pecanolith is the best counter to this trick's ability, as the trick only reduces strength and not health. However, this only applies if the plant has both high strength and health, as glass cannons affected by Shrink Ray will be useless even with Pecanolith, while low-strength walls like most nuts are very unlikely to be targeted in the first place. However, beware of tricks like Rolling Stone or Weed Spray that can destroy Pecanolith.
Poison Mushroom with negative strength due to it being shrunken while its Anti-Hero trait was inactive
Rustbolt using Shrink Ray
In other languages[]
Please note that only official translations are used.
Language
Name
Description
English
Shrink Ray
Simplified Chinese
็ผฉๅฐๅฐ็บฟ
Traditional Chinese
็ธฎๅฐๅฐ็ท
French
Rayon rรฉducteur
German
Schrumpfstrahl
Italian
Raggio strizzacervelli
Japanese
ๅผฑไฝๅ ็ท
Korean
์ถ์ ๊ด์
Brazilian Portuguese
Raio Redutor
Russian
ะฃะผะตะฝััะฐััะธะน ะปัั
Spanish
Rayo reductor
Trivia[]
Before update 1.2.11, if a plant with a temporary strength boost (via Torchwood, Anti-Hero, etc.) was affected by Shrink Ray, that plant ended up with negative strength when the boost was removed. (This also applied to other strength-decreasing abilities.) When this happened, that plant, normally, would do no damage.
If a plant is moved after it was shrunken, it manually reverts to its original size. This is also true when a zombie shrunken by Shrinking Violet gets moved.
Shrunken plants' projectiles are the same size of their normal-sized counterparts' projectiles.