"WHAT THE [Insert suitable word] !!!"

That is difficult to believe indeed.  Since most of the high scoring big gargs are coming out towards the end, the only plausible reason I can think of is your opponent might have been very luck to have them all turned to do the other zombies clearings. 

Question: were you leading most of the time and then lost towards the end or has your opponent been strong from start to finish?

With all Level 1 free plants I am struggling to get over the 500K mark and I have seen players with high level premium plants getting over 3 millions.  This week's Battlez is not for the weak players without gold bloom!

@eieio_31310

For the first minute or so we were swapping the lead, with just a few hundred points either way. After that my opponent kept pulling away from me at an ever increasing rate. This was even though by that time I had at least 7 or 8 Caulipowers converting virtually anything in sight, and 10+ Lightning Reeds were dealing with the Zombies that came through the rifts. I would say that I lost maybe 6 Explodo-Nuts in the entire match and maybe 3 or 4 other plants (None of which were Caulipowers) to the rift Zombies. 

By the end of the match I was hard pressed to find places to put any Caulipowers or Lightning Reeds, so it wasn't like my plants had been wiped out or anything.

Towards the end, the only hostile Zombies getting into the actual arena were the few coming through the rifts. The rest were fighting on my side so hard that they had forced back the hostile Zombies to the point were I was unable to see any.

Logic says I had the match all tied up at the end, at least as far as the Zombies were concerned, but despite that I lost heavily.  GRRR!!!!!

@eieio_31310

I did retain my streak. I'm currently on 506, so even at 120 gems it's still worthwhile keeping it. 

At that level the displayed rewards are subject to a multiplier of times 6. The last time I reached the point where I won gauntlets I received 12. As long as I retain the streak and make use of the daily free gauntlets and several free plays it costs me between very little and nothing to play.

The Pinata and Power Mint rewards do drop back temporarily when you reach each 100 game boundary point (Only EA knows why) but the general trend is upwards. My last pre-reduction Power Mint win was 50, and the last Pinata win was 55 (550 seed packets). That was with a multiplier of 5 and I am now on 6.

When you balance that against the value of the Gold League packets (240 in return for 100 gems) it's way better and makes it worth hangjng in there.

Having said all that, I'm not liking this week's tournament one bit. I feel that the Solar Tomato is like a bad joke when it comes to its suitability for Battlez as a source of sun. I'm saying that because it's rare to recoup the 100 sun cost. At best I find it like a VERY expensive stun grenade. Because of that I've decided to not play any more matches for the remainder of the week. I currently have 140 crowns and that may or may not be enough to keep me in the Gold League. If it is that's okay, but I won't worry if I find I've dropped back to Silver.

@Humplemann

I think the idea of the Solar Tomato is that you drop it down onto a square where there the surrounding has 3 or more zombies thus you spend 100 sun and get more than 100 sun back.  I have a method to gather the zombies together to use the tomato on them ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlE0xbsBegE ) but if you already have Sun Bloom, them this is not relevant.

You are right about the 120 gems, I thought it was 250 to keep high winning streaks.   (this shows how far I am behind the streaks...  😳)

I too going to give my level 1 plants a break this week and have some fun with the mid level ones especially with Sun Bloom.   👿

@eieio_31310

When using Caulipower it's often difficult to find sufficient enemy Zombies close enough to each other make the Solar Tomato a good source of sun. If you add to that a wall of Explodo-Nuts that often restricts them to column 9 in the arena it reduces the opportunities still further. (Hence my expensive stun grenade reference.)

With using gems for retaining your win streak, it rises by 10 at a time until it reaches a peak level of 250. It goes 10, then 20, then 30, then 40 and so on.

Using 120 gems to retain my streak this time means a total outlay of 780 gems. Even so, comparing 780 gems to winning tens of thousands in coins, thousands of seed packets, around 3000 Power Mints, and, at a guess, 180 Gauntlets (which would have cost me 750 gems) it still makes it more than worthwhile.

I was lucky in having several thousand unused gems saved up before the Battlez started, so I have yet to purchase any. (It's surprising how quickly they built up over the past couple of years.)

As I was under the impression in the pre-Battlez days that I had all the time in the world to slowly upgrade my plants, I was usually content to get most of my seed packets from daily challenges and the Pinatta trackers rather than using gems. The main occasions when I used any gems was when we were offered Premium plants in exchange for them  (I did, however, purchase several Premium plants with cash as and when I felt I would benefit while working my way through the various world maps.)

This had the benefit for me of a handy buffer against EA's exorbitant charges for purchasing gems.

While my principle aim with Battlez is to ramp up my plant levels, I do still want to enjoy the matches. The Solar Tomato Tournament, at least for me, is NOT fun, so I won't be playing again until it ends.

Thanks for the insight, I did not realized the payout is that good, I had have a long streak of just over 400 at the beginning week and thought it would reset with new battlez the following week, also because of after so many wins, I got bored thus I ended it by experimenting with entry level plants on the last day of the tournament.

In hindsight I should have kept it going.... 

As regarding gems, I can still remember they used to be falling from the sky....🤔

Damned, if I had knew, I would not have stop playing the game for months ☹️
How many gems did you get before Battlez ? Would it be interesting to stop using gems and saving them for few weeks (but then missing some new power mint plants) and use them to get a big streak so lot of rewards ? @Humplemann

Else, likely you will go back to Silver, 13rd player in my Gold league is already at 90 points.

And also, looks like nobody is really enjoying this week tournament x)

@BBnot8

As I recall it was around 8,000 gems. I spent a fair few during the first weeks of Battlez while moving up from Soil League to Silver in consecutive weeks, but not retaining my reward streak each time I lost a match. (BIG mistake in hindsight)

Unfortunately I didn't claim all the gems made available over the couple of years. If I'd known about Battlez coming on the scene I'd have done it every day and could have had twice as many. I could also have had still more if I hadn't spent some on Premium plants for gems offers and a few purchases when they were cycling the double value seed packet offers between the various worlds.

Regarding dropping a league. I'm not bothered if I do drop back to Silver. I wouldn't even worry over dropping to Bronze. I don't purchase seed packets for gems, so the league I'm in is of little importance to me. (Other than not wanting to end up in Jade because of the 'suspect' opponents/bots I've heard are, or were infesting it.

What IS important to me now is maintaining my reward streak because of the escalating value of the rewards, and it enabling me to upgrade my plants far quicker. 

The reason nobody seems to like this week's tournament is down to the stupid plant of the week. EA have made a few poor choices over the weeks, but this has to be the worst yet.

If I didn't know better I might almost think that EA are trying to discourage people from playing by making it as unenjoyable as possible for the vast majority of players. As I see it, it's only the players with maxed out plants, or those using questionable methods who ARE doing well.

@eieio_31310

I remember those falling gems days too. That was back before the executive team at EA graduated with honors on a course run by the Ebeneezer Scrooge College and did away with such benefits. I believe the course may have been named, "Advanced techniques for robbing your client base blind without resorting to using a gun." I also believe it's possible that the principal course lecturer was a direct bloodline descendent of Frank and Jesse James. 👿

Ok so it would be like a year doing quests and ads and not using a single gem 😞
I guess I'll try to get to Jade league just to purchase seed packets for my favourite plants (anyone know how many seeds there are in Jade Pinata btw?) then I will try to find a way to get mints while not using gems for gauntlets on lower leagues.

Edit: Well actually I checked and it's 260 seeds in Jade, 240 in Gold so I guess I will probably use gems on Gold, it would not be wise to waste 150 gauntlets to get to Jade league just for 20 more seeds/Pinata.

It is kinda ridiculous that the 1st of Soil League win more than someone in the last spot in Jade or Gold, that is kinda stupid. Same, top Wood League gets 30 mints, 5st of Jade League gets 24,, that's rificulous.
I guess the best strategy is to go first on a "medium league" where you don't have to use lot of gauntlets to get 1st and win a nice amount of mints, then drop back, saving some gauntlets, then get 1st again etc.