Grass Knuckles

For other uses, see Bonk Choy (disambiguation).

“	My spies tell me Grass Knuckles has been putting his fighters through a rigorous training regimens. Expect to face off against tough Plants ready to get buff!	”
—Dr. Zomboss

Grass Knuckles is a plant hero in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes and the leader of the Mega-Grow and Guardian classes. His signature superpower is Power Pummel, which does 2 damage in all ground lanes. If there is no zombie on a ground lane, the zombie hero takes damage there instead.

He is the hero version of Bonk Choy.

Origins

He is based on the plant in Plants vs. Zombies 2 with a similar appearance.

His name is a portmanteau of "grass," a name that refers to many species of plants in the family Poaceae, and "brass knuckles," weapons that fit around the knuckles and are used in hand-to-hand combat, referring to how the plant he is based on attacks.

As confirmed by art director Kevin Hannah, Grass Knuckles is based on Marvel Comics' Wolverine.^[1] This is reflected in Grass Knuckles' scrappy nature and spiked fist. His description "He's the best at what he does... and what he does is punching!", is itself a play on the popular Wolverine quote "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn't very nice."

Statistics

Classes: Mega-Grow, Guardian
Superpowers:
- Signature: Power Pummel - Attack for 2 damage in each Ground lane.
- Other:
  - Holo-Flora - Draw two cards.
  - Time to Shine - A Plant does a Bonus Attack.
  - Root Wall - A Plant gets +2 and can't be hurt this turn.
Boss Fights:
- Zombie Mission 06: A Fight to the Finish Line
- Zombie Mission 14: The Foe with the Furious Fists
- Zombie Mission 27: Grass Knuckles Strikes Back
- Zombie Mission 38: Kick Grass!
Battle Area: Obstacle Course

Hero description

He's the best at what he does... and what he does is punching!

Strategies

PvZHeroes.com strategy

Grass Knuckles starts with "Bullseye" Plants that ignore enemy Super-Blocks. Then he grows them larger with powerful Mega-Grow effects - a nasty one-two punch!

With

Despite the rather odd seeming combination, Grass Knuckles' unorthodox combo of classes is very potent. With the Mega-Grow class providing boosting methods and the Guardian class giving access to tough plants, Grass Knuckles can prove to be a very tough foe.

Since many Mega-Grow plants need time to be strong, Grass Knuckles can protect them with high-health Team-Up plants from the Guardian class such as Wall-Nuts, even when they are boosted. Likewise, he can use Mega-Grow tricks such as Fertilize to boost up what are usually defensive plants to make them able to attack the zombies, or even boost low-strength Guardian plants.

You can use Potted Powerhouse on this hero as well. With Mega-Grow boost options like Grow-Shroom, Fertilize, Plant Food, The Podfather, Torchwood, Cabbage-Pult, and Bonk Choy; plus Guardian boosters like Steel Magnolia, Spineapple, Three-Nut, Loco Coco, and Smackadamia; it is very easy to boost Potted Powerhouse to an unbelievably mighty fighter for you to use, potentially finishing the game off in your favor.

Due to his peculiar class combo, Grass Knuckles can perform many beneficial synergies, with some at their strongest when under his use. A root deck with Starch-Lord and other root plants is useful, as Grass Knuckles has the most root cards out of all heroes (with the exclusion of superpowers). A pea deck is also lethal, as Grass Knuckles also has the most pea cards out of any hero (again, superpowers are excluded), thanks to the addition of Three-Nut, although it is not recommended to use it in a pea deck.

He can also protect a boosted plant with Root Wall so that it cannot take any damage for one turn. This is especially useful for Soul Patch. His signature superpower, Power Pummel, is useful for taking down weak zombies on the ground lanes or doing up to 6 damage to the zombie hero (though in some missions, the amount of damage changes depending on how many ground lanes there are). This is also useful for protecting plants.

Another good strategy to use with Grass Knuckles is boosting plants with Bullseye such as Sting Bean, Cactus, and Jugger-Nut, and then having them do bonus attacks by using Time to Shine or Plant Food to be able to do large amounts of damage to the zombie hero without charging their Super-Block Meter.

Grass Knuckles' weakness, however, is that he lacks reliable methods to stop early to mid-game rushes from the zombie hero, meaning that he will have a hard time dealing with Impfinity, Electric Boogaloo, or Professor Brainstorm's rush decks. Grass Knuckles does not have access to damaging tricks (aside from his signature superpower, Power Pummel) such as Banana Bomb and Berry Blast.

Additionally, he does not have many instant-kill tricks, like Tactical Cuke or Whack-a-Zombie. While he does have Shamrocket and Doom-Shroom, these tricks will not help him fight rushes, unless your opponent strengths them en masse. To stop a rush deck, Grass Knuckles must fight fire with fire, boosting his plants in an effort to save himself. In addition, clever usage of bonus attacks will enable Grass Knuckles to weaken or even shut down rush decks. Using Power Pummel can prove very helpful, being the only damaging trick he possesses, despite being single-use.

Against

Always be one step ahead of Grass Knuckles, as he is able to easily boost his plants. As with other Guardian heroes, it is often best to defeat him quickly as he will become aggressive in the late-game. If he uses Power Pummel, make sure that you have a zombie in each ground lane, especially in The Foe with the Furious Fists, or your hero will take a lot of damage. If Grass Knuckles puts down plants like Black-Eyed Pea or Doubled Mint, use tricks like Locust Swarm or Super Stench in order to destroy them before they become too much of a problem.

Bullseye Beatdown

This deck focuses on boosting Bullseye plants with various ways and ensuring that they hit you by either moving your zombies with Banana Peel and destroying zombies blocking their way with Grave Buster and bonus attacks via Plant Food.

Destroy his plants as quickly as you can with Rolling Stone or Weed Spray, or else they will grow out of the aforementioned tricks' reach. Rustbolt would be the best counter for this deck, as he has access to Rocket Science in case something goes wrong.

Mossive Damage

This is Grass Knuckles' combo deck of Party Thyme, Re-Peat Moss, and Bananasaurus Rex. Bonk Choy provides early firepower, while Jugger-Nut and Pear Cub are able to stall zombies a few turns. Bonus Track Buckethead is a perfect counter for this deck as it shuts down the combo and leave you less to deal with. Also, Deadly zombies and instant-kills in the Brainy and Beastly classes will take care of boosted plants, while Quickdraw Con Man penalizes Grass Knuckles for every card drawn.

Flex Your Muscles

Grass Knuckles will attempt to play or make many plants on the field to boost Muscle Sprout, and can even play Onion Rings to give his weak plants a head start. If you don't take care of them quickly, he will then punish you by playing Super-Phat Beets and Tough Beets. Any Brainy hero would be a good counter due to Rocket Science.

Also, due to his lack of card draw excluding Starch-Lord, he will have to either conserve his cards for a few turns, or leave his defenses to a few plants. You can also take the opportunity and rush him if he chooses to do that.

Cosmic Conjuring

Instead of drawing cards to boost Bananasaurus Rex, Grass Knuckles has a plethora of Conjuring cards like Banana Peel, Photosynthesizer, and Starch-Lord, with all the Conjured cards being cheaper thanks to Captain Cucumber, who will also Conjure more legendary cards. Since the main Conjurers, Starch-Lord and Captain Cucumber have low stats, destroy them with damaging tricks or Rolling Stone, but watch out for Black-Eyed Pea. Quickdraw Con Man can also punish him for Conjuring cards if you have enough of them on the field.

Leaf My Dinos Alone!

This deck focuses on drawing cards with Typical Beanstalk and Bamboozle, but also leafy synergy with Savage Spinach and Typical Beanstalk. Your opponent will try to play Savage Spinach on Pea Patch, boosting Savage Spinach and all plants in their hand. Since there are also many leafy plants in the deck, Typical Beanstalk can activate its ability more easily, which boosts any Dino-Roar plants and Potted Powerhouse too. This means that you will have many powerful plants to deal with.

Playing tricks is not very recommended, as Umbrella Leaf and Apotatosaurus are in the deck. Instead, Deadly zombies are the way to go, as their attacks can instantly destroy the boosted plants, but you should watch out for Plant Food. Super Brainz and Huge-Gigantacus are recommended, as they can make the zombies do bonus attacks. Or, if you can hold on until turn 9, Zombot 1000 can wipe them all out.

Strategy decks

Main article: Community-built decks/Grass Knuckles

**Grow your Bullseye Plants - Jugger-Nut, Cactus, and Sting Bean - extra big so they can hit extra hard and quickly dispatch the Zombie Hero.**

x2	x4	x4	x4	x1
x4	x3	x4	x4	x4
x3	x3

Play your Tricks right and Re-Peat Moss will repeatedly attack the Zombie for massive damage. Get in on the Bonus Attack action with Bananasaurus Rex and Party Thyme and refill you hand at the same time.

x1	x1	x3	x3	x4
x2	x4	x4	x4	x3
x3	x4	x4

**Play Poppin' Poppies and Banana Splits to really pump up your Muscle Sprouts. Things get wild when you buff your Doubled Mint, Pear Cub, and even Potato Mines with Onion Rings.**

x4	x2	x4	x4	x4
x4	x3	x4	x4	x2
x2	x1	x2

**Flood the field with lots of low-cost cards and keep your hand topped off by constantly conjuring cards. With all of this extra draw, Bananasaurus Rex becomes downright deadly!**

x3	x3	x4	x3	x4
x4	x1	x4	x1	x4
x1	x4	x4

**Leafy Plants like Typical Beanstalk and Savage Spinach work together well. Their growth in size fuels Potted Powerhouse, while their card draw pumps up three kinds of Dinosaur Plants!**

x4	x1	x1	x1	x4
x4	x4	x1	x1	x1
x4	x4	x1	x4	x4
x1

Gallery

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In other languages

Please note that only official translations are used.

Language	Name	Description
English	Grass Knuckles
Simplified Chinese	拳王菜	lit. "Boxing King Choy"
Traditional Chinese	草指虎	Portmanteau of “草” (grass) and “手指虎” (brass knuckles)
French	Herburopoing
German	Grasfaust
Italian	Noccoliere Giardiniere
Japanese	グラスナックル	English name transliterated into Japanese
Korean	잔디 주먹	Grass Fist
Brazilian Portuguese	Grama-inglesa
Russian	Травяной кулак
Spanish	Puños de Hierba	Grass Fists

Trivia

He could be based on the concept of Grass Knuckles from Plants vs. Zombies Adventures.
The punching bag that appears on the comic strip after the player receives Grass Knuckles has the face of the balloon that the Balloon Zombie uses.
- This face also appears on various objects in the game such as Rolling Stone, Toxic Waste Imp's barrel or in Nightcap’s dojo.
He shares his battle music with Wall-Knight.
In the first comic strip the player receives, it shows that a Peashooter and three other plants get turned into heroes at the same time, as one of them is Grass Knuckles.
- However, Grass Knuckles has his own "Introducing" comic strip, in a different manner from how he was transformed.
Some of his idling and worrying animation is based on the drawings of him in Chinese Plants vs. Zombies comics.
In the comic strip where the player receives Grass Knuckles, he is shown to be in the same Bonk Choy Boxing place in one of the extra comics.
His signature superpower, Power Pummel, resembles his counterpart's Plant Food animation in Plants vs. Zombies 2.
Grass Knuckles is the only hero to have their Colossal Strategy Deck completely changed, from "Dino-Crush" to "Leaf My Dinos Alone!".
He has the most moving cards, having a total of 8 (this of course excludes Ensign Uproot, who is exclusive to Beta-Carrotina)
He and Green Shadow are tied to having the most pea cards, both clocking at 17 cards apiece.