Braincicle

Braincicle is a Zombie in Plants vs. Zombies 2, encountered in Penny's Pursuit, Arena, and Piñata Parties, wearing his fluffy coat and trusty icicle. He behaves as normal on the lawn, walking and such. This zombie has two abilities, but one is situational. The situational ability only activates if your defense is using lobbed plants, such as Melon-pult. In that case, big lobbed projectiles will get stuck on the icicle on his head (melons, winter melons, cabbages, peppers, etc). The icicle still receives damage from these. He'll then stop for a moment, pull these projectiles off, and throw them at your plants. He's got a really good arm. He always throws at the first plant in his lane, or the lanes above and below him. The damage the projectile does depends on what he's throwing. For example, melons will deal a lot of damage and will destroy a normal plant in two shots, but a cabbage will take more, and peppers even more. A few will even do special things, like butter stunning the plant it hits for five seconds. For projectiles too small to get stuck on the icicle (kernels, seed bullets, buds, etc), they just instantly get destroyed and do half their damage. Essentially, this ability turns him into a conditional Parasol Zombie. How fun!
His second ability is, when the icicle reaches its second degrade, the main pointy part will fall off into his hands. This arms him (uh oh) with his fallen icicle and he gets upset, making him get faster, and making him deal more damage. He also gets a bit more range with this icicle attack, now only needing to be a tile away to hurt plants in his lane. While in this state, thanks to his icicle being off, he's now fully vulnerable to all lobbed attacks and his first ability is completely locked off. Small lobbed projectiles will deal normal damage again. 
==Origins==
Braincicle's projectile throwing abilities come from Jester Zombie. His lobbing immunities stem from Parasol Zombie, though the icicle break and speed up are original thinking. I'm so creative! (Newspaper Zombie did this first.)
==Overview==
Braincicle absorbs 790 damage per shot. His icicle absorbs 600 of that damage, while he himself absorbs 190.
At 200 damage per shot, his icicle degrades and a crack forms, as well as some snow disappearing. At 400 damage per shot, the icicle's sharp top breaks off and Braincicle becomes armed and speedy. At 600 damage per shot, the last piece of the icicle falls off his head.
Braincicle's arm falls off at 95 damage per shot. At 190 damage per shot, he drops his icicle, his head falls off, and he dies.
==Almanac==
==Strategies==
Braincicle is a bit of a tough threat because he counters multiple types of plants at once. He completely nullifies lobbed plants like Kernel-pult because their projectiles are small, and, as a result, they are basically ineffective against him. Plants with larger projectiles are arguably worse because they will provide him heavy firepower to retaliate with. Yikes!
One of this zombie's easy counters is straight shooting plants. Braincicle's ability only affects lobbed-shot plants, and as such, straight-shooting plants would be able to hit Braincicle without any consequences. However, be wary of Braincicle using large projectiles to try and murder them from afar, like a prick. Unlike the straight shooters, ground plants are completely immune to his projectile-throwing nonsense, and can damage him safely from below. Celery Stalker would be the best of these because of their high damage output being able to quickly finish off Braincicle before he can start charging with his icicle weapon. Feeding him a Shadow-shroom would be good too, as it would damage him directly and kill him before he can even pull out his icicle as a weapon. Shadow-shroom's recharge, and tendency to get eaten by other zombies, however, may not make him as effective as you'd like. Other zombies just find him too appetizing. It's not their fault.
If you use lobbed plants regardless because you're silly, Stunion would be a good counter for this zombie as well. Normally, Braincicle would be able to use the shots as picky high-damage projectiles then charge your defense with his icicle. If he's stunned, however, he can't throw any projectiles, and if you can rack up enough damage to the point where his icicle falls off and he's still stunned, then you basically have him down. You can also stun him if he's charging at you and slow him down enough to take him out. Don't rely on this strategy too much, though, because if there are multiple Braincicles on the lawn, Stunion's long recharge won't do you any favors in getting rid of him. 
When Braincicle pulls out the icicle weapon, he's much weaker than in his previous form, as he's lost his lobbed shot immunities. He should be able to go down easily from here, though it may help to keep him away from your defense some more. Stunion, as listed above, would work, but usually effective stallers like Chard Guard would struggle to keep him away thanks to his one-tile range boost from the icicle. Ultimately, fast-planting walls like Primal Wall-nut are the way to go, as their strength is just to wall and hold in the pain, making the range ultimately not matter. Primal Wall-nut in particular also helps you keep up with his high damage with the icicle, as his recharge is very quick and can stall him further.
==Trivia==
*If Turkey-pult lobs a turkey at him, it will land on his icicle and splat into tofu. This tofu can be thrown by Braincicle. Cheeky bloke.
*Braincicle received a full page makeover in 2022. This included new art, new abilities, and general fancying up of his page.
**He's the second zombie by the creator to have been makeover'd, the first being Deep Ocean Zombie.
*His appearance uses sprites from Cave Zombie, Jurassic Zombie, and Sloth Gargantuar.
**His beard is, surprisingly, original artwork. I was on the brink of giving up and making him go clean shaven. Thanks Sani for the reference.
==Gallery==
BraincicleHD.png|Braincicle in HD
Braincicledegrade1.png|Braincicle's first icicle degrade
BraincicleArmed (1).png|Braincicle armed and his second icicle degrade. There's a (1) in the file's name that I left there on accident when uploading. I am but a fool.
BraincicleTile.png|Braincicle as he appears in the almanac
Category:Zombies
Category:Creepes's Stuff
Category:Attacking Zombies
Category:Uncleared page