Forum Discussion

EA Staff (Retired)

8 years ago

The balance between Plants & Zombies

We’ve had some feedback from our champions on this matter which is why I want to jump in. @daalnnii, @GrinningRuiner & @jaydabbler have pointed out that there has been a lot of conversations...

puntwothree

8 years ago

@markall42 I really wasn’t trying to make any sort of comparison with my post, nor was I complaining about starfruit, nor was I planning to have yet another conversation about M. Monument on yet another thread. I was making a general point about numbers.

You can pretty impressively overkill people with plants or zombies in this game; my point was that overkill shouldn’t enter the balance discussion. If you lose a game because of a card, it doesn’t matter if you lost by 1 or 1000, and a card with 1000 attack likewise isn’t worth its weight in sawdust if it doesn’t win you the game.

So this is all I’ll saw about Starfruit V. Valk (because Blob, as previously stated, doesn’t work as intended with Monument.) Valk is a three drop, Monument is a two drop... when played on the same turn (typical), they come down at 5. Starfruit is a 5 drop, which can easily be played on a Pumpkin Shell or a Pea Patch. Either way, you’re probably winning turn five.

Most aggressive plant and zombie decks can present lethal damage by turn five or six. This is not extraordinary or even unusual. Only one hero that I know of has a mission to win by turn 6. It’s... Grass Knuckles.

If you’re looking for a way to combat Valkyrie decks, I would suggest browsing the forum some more... as there are players that frequent this forum who have found success V. Valk builds and have discussed this at length.

Anonymous

8 years ago

Approved

Plant decks with Wingnut are the main anti-valk decks, plus trying to make sure you don't charge the valk up if possible.

Anonymous
8 years ago
Approved
Yeah, bounce or insta-kill works pretty well, too. I don't necessarily want the games to go on forever. Though I did just have a 23 or 24 round game with my Smash insta-kill deck against a plant insta-kill deck, and that was pretty fun. But I do generally like the games more that last at least a 'little' longer, and require a bit more tactics. Rush decks have their place certainly, but unlike a lot of other CCGs that mostly need overwhelming force and numbers to pull it off, PvZ is starting to get a lot of ultra-powerful cards that will basically win themselves.

I'm especially frustrated with the Combustible decks, as they're way too easy to put together, and really don't have much of a counter because of the turn order. Even if you manage to have an insta-kill card in your hand, along with a Bonus Track Buckethead on the field, Combustible can still break through and finish the game by turn 7 before you have a chance to counter. And since repeat moss works off of tricks, it's easy enough for the plant player to just put a deck together with 4 repeat mosses, every damage or buff trick they have, and they'll win 90% of the games. You're lucky to have anything on the field, and can almost never fill all lanes, though it wouldn't matter anyway.
Fortunately not many people play the truly cheap decks. And I think giving both plants and zombies a couple more options for reliable stalling cards would fix a lot of the problem. It's not really a good setup when only about half the heroes on each side can use the only reliable cards to stop the crazy one-hit-wonder decks.
- jj48car
  7 years ago
  I always find the most frustrating decks to be Solar Flare decks. Most of the ones I encounter tend to be mostly direct damage and insta-kill cards, with only a couple plants thrown in. The result is that I keep playing zombies, and they keep dying, with no one actually losing health until after turn 10 or so. It's not that it's impossible to beat, but it's just frustrating to not have ANY of your cards have ANY effects. At least with powerful cards on the field, even if they end up wiping each other out, you still had some actual interaction!