Good overview on this week's podcast of Gatling Pea. Looking at it by itself, the stats & design look like it should be good and better than it is. The Repeater is a 3-cost, 2/2 with double strike while Gatling Pea is a 5-cost, 4/5 with double strike. For 2 more cost it got a +2/+3 and that's good value. On top of that it has the Pea Evolution of doing a bonus attack at 4 damage, effectively 3 attacks in a single turn.

That all sounds great, but there's so many other ways to do this within the Mega-Grow class itself that it doesn't seem to live up to the Legendary rarity. If this were a Super-Rare, I think it would have a more favorable rating among players. Legendaries should do things that are impossible or very difficult to do in the game, or at least within their class.

Take a look at the other two big-cost, Plant Legendaries from that set, Cob Canon and Gloom Shroom. Cob Cannon gives -1/-1 to the zombies in its lane and the ones next door. This can clear 3 lanes of zombies & help your guys survive combat. This can only be done with Scorched Earth (only on ground lanes and its a super power) or multiple Kernal-pults on heights (limit 2 at a time). It has Team-Up Evolution letting you destroy any zombie, any lane, even untrickable ones. That's better than Squash, Doom Shroom, Tactical Cuke, any of those since it gets untrickables and gives you a fighter on the field. Also, team-up plants are typically smaller, weaker plants in a lane with a big combat plant. Using the evolution, now you can have two big plants in the same lane.

Gloom Shroom is similar. Its Mushroom Evolution deals 3 damage to zombies in its lane and the ones next door. Again, helping clear lanes for combat. This can be matched, but for 6 cost using 3 Berry Blasts as long as the zombies don't have untrickable. It gives you a 5/5 with bullseye, the highest starting value for that stat on the plant side and far above your typical mushroom stats.

Meanwhile, Gatling Pea can be duplicated with lots of cards, Peashooter + Coffee Grounds + Fertilize + Plant Food is one combo. The Podfather + Repeater + Plant Food is another. Heck a Re-Peat Moss on turn 4, Coffee Grounds and Fertilize on turn 5 does the exact same at 1 card cost more than Gatling Pea. And as you guys mentioned Banasaurus Rex a turn earlier will be effectively the same and will keep growing with every card draw.

The saddest part for me is that it looks like the dev team was trying to make Gatling Pea as close to its PvZ version as possible and they did a great job in my mind. That makes me want to like it and find a good use for it, to reward their efforts. It just didn't translate to a card that lives up to the Legendary rarity.

Ideas to improve Gatling Pea. As-is, Gatling Pea sort of blends in to a pea deck, it doesn't stand out like Cob Canon does in a team-up/solar deck or Gloom Shroom does in a mushroom deck. Other than being the first Pea Legendary, there's not much reason to play it. What if its evolution instead gave the peas in its lane and next door a bonus attack? Or if it conjured a Plant Food a -1 cost? Maybe it could give all your future Peas +1/+1 or +2/0 kind of like Warlord does for Zombies. I realize these are drifting from the original PvZ version of Gatling Pea, but I'm just trying to think of how to make it more worthy or its rarity and being the first Pea legendary.

-Elliotte