Pepper M.D.

Statistics
Cost	Strength	Health
2	2	2

Set

Premium

Rarity

Uncommon

Class

Tribes

Fruit Plant

Traits

None

Abilities

This gets +2

/+2

when a Plant or your Hero is healed.

"A toast to your health... and mine!"

Craft	Recycle
-50	+15

Technical Info

Origins

It is based on a bell pepper, a group of the species Capsicum annuum that produces fruits in different colors, and a doctor, a professional who practices medicine.

Its name is a combination of "pepper," the real-life plant it is based on, and "M.D." (doctor of medicine), referring to its appearance and ability. It could also be a pun on the soda beverage Dr. Pepper.

Its description is an allusion to its ability, as benefiting a plant's health (healing) benefits Pepper M.D.'s health too (getting more health)

Statistics

Class: Solar
Tribe: Fruit Plant
Traits: None
Ability: This gets +2/+2 when a Plant or your Hero is healed.
Set - Rarity: Premium - Uncommon

Card description

"A toast to your health... and mine!"

Update history

Update ????

Rarity change: Uncommon → Common

Update 1.14.13

Set - Rarity change: Basic - Common → Premium - Uncommon

Update ????

Description change: Quotation marks were added on the start and end of its description.

Update 1.22.13

▲ Tribe change: Pepper → Fruit

Strategies

With

Pepper M.D. is an incredibly powerful card due to its ability to snowball rapidly when paired with commonly-used Solar cards for a measly 2. While it may seem like a card relegated to decks that feature a wide variety of healing cards, in reality it finds its way into nearly every serious Solar deck alongside its major partners, and the decks it creates are widely considered to be among the strongest in the current metagame. The reason for this is simple; most Solar decks rely heavily on cheap healing cards to survive the early game against aggressive decks, and Pepper M.D. means that Zombie progress will not only be negated, but turned directly into Plant tempo.

One of the best cards to use with Pepper M.D. is Lil' Buddy, mainly due to its sun cost of 0. For only 2, playing these 2 cards together will: create a 4/4 plant, heal your Hero for 2, and create a 0/1 Team-Up chump blocker that can absorb a hit for Pepper M.D. or anything else, also potentially removing Deadly as a counterplay option, and which can also be used as fodder for Evolution cards such as Cob Cannon.

Since Lil' Buddy is very easy to obtain and should be used in the vast majority of serious Solar decks, Pepper M.D. will usually have a place in your deck alongside it. Even if Lil' Buddy is the only source of healing in your deck, it's still worth running 2 or 3 copies of Pepper M.D. just to benefit from it, especially on a budget.

Ketchup Mechanic is another great partner for Pepper M.D.. Despite it only buffing Pepper M.D. once for 3, it more than makes up for it by its powerful ability, wrestling tempo away from the Zombies with its excellent stats and healing for its cost, in particular ruining overly aggressive Zombie players. It might not seem that strong, but when Ketchup Mechanic was a good turn 3 anyways, it buffing Pepper M.D. even once means that Pepper was effectively a 2 cost 4/4, which is incredible value.

Other Solar healing cards tend to be much less effective in conjunction with Pepper M.D.. 2nd-Best Taco of All Time is an okay card in decks that don't have much to do in early turns, such as Wall-Knight control and Chompzilla Onion Rings. However, the nature of the card means that decks that use it tend to want to play it before Pepper M.D., though control may end up playing both on the same turn. Astro Vera could theoretically be used in control, especially with Wall-Knight because it curves into Wall-Nut Bowling, but it is a very flawed card which is hard to fit in decks, redundant with Poppin' Poppies, and far too slow for the buff to Pepper M.D. to be relevant. Venus Flytraplanet theoretically has a good synergy with Pepper M.D., but is too slow to considered in a serious deck. If you are running a deck based on it and Heartichoke, however, use Pepper M.D..

There are also some hero-specific interactions to consider:

Wall-Knight can use Poppin' Poppies to buff Pepper M.D. by +6/+6 while also healing your Hero for 6 and blocking most of the field, singlehandedly turning Wall-Knight control into one of the most powerful decks in the game, as suddenly Poppin' Poppies is not only a powerful defensive tool, but also forces your opponent to waste resources dealing with an 8/8 or higher Pepper M.D., making it even easier to end the game with Wall-Nut Bowling. Pepper M.D. also helps whittle the enemy Hero into Wall-Nut Bowling range, ensuring that they will be defeated once it is played.
Rose can use Rescue Radish to replay Lil' Buddy, granting a large boon to your healing capability and therefore to Pepper M.D.'s stats.
Chompzilla and Wall-Knight can use Geyser, an already insanely strong superpower which Pepper M.D. can abuse to boost its stats to very high levels.

However, there is another type of card that synergizes with Pepper M.D.: other big attackers. Since Pepper M.D. is very vulnerable to tricks such as Exploding Fruitcake and Rocket Science, the simple solution (besides Umbrella Leaf) is to keep placing Plants which are vulnerable to these cards until the Zombies run out of removal, and then overwhelm them with your massive attackers. Every Solar hero has Cob Cannon, Elderberry, and Astrocado, with Cob Cannon being especially notable due to its ability to unblock for Pepper M.D., but Chompzilla in particular has access to powerful snowball cards like Muscle Sprout, Bananasaurus Rex, and even Black-Eyed Pea, as well as threatening attackers such as Gatling Pea, and general buffing cards like Onion Rings and Vegetation Mutation, all of which can serve to overwhelm the opponent's heavy removal. Onion Rings is especially notable as a buffing card since it can buff Pepper M.D. heavily, and synergizes greatly with Umbrella Leaf, helping Pepper M.D. with its removal weakness. However, Onion Rings decks are not particularly consistent.

One thing to keep in mind when actually playing Pepper M.D. in-game is that you should try not to let your opponent deal with it as a 2/2, because if it dies to a cheap Trick or weak Zombie before it can buff itself, it loses a lot of value. If you're not playing it on the same turn as a healing card, you should make sure that you'll be able to heal it next turn and that it won't die during the Zombie Tricks phase. Considering that it is vulnerable to Rolling Stone, Bungee Plumber, Extinction Event, Beam Me Up, and even Teleport, you should generally avoid playing it unsupported if the opponent has any brains left over. Playing Pepper M.D. alone can be a good idea on turn 2 if the Zombies spent all their Brains and you have a Ketchup Mechanic, as you can play Ketchup on turn 3 to exploit whatever they played by buffing your Pepper and Ketchup while healing off some of the damage it dealt.

Overall, Pepper M.D. is extremely threatening for its cost because of how quickly it can grow big, and smart players can exploit the fact that it forces their opponent to spend a lot of resources getting rid of a 2 plant.

Against

Pepper M.D. is a great threat which should be dealt with as soon as possible. If you can get rid of it with Rolling Stone, Bungee Plumber, or the like, do so. However, good players will ensure that it will be out of range of these cards by the time you can play them. If you see an unboosted Pepper M.D., it can be a good idea to front it with a cheap zombie; if they buff it, you prevented it from hitting face and potentially chipped it into range of something else, and if they didn't, you killed one of their best cards and traded very positively.

Every Hero can get rid of a buffed Pepper M.D. with tricks, and should probably do so despite the high cost. Rocket Science is the best option because it comes with no drawback, other than its cost and the fact that you might not have another for their other big attackers. Bounce can reset Pepper M.D.'s stats, and replaying it is less valuable since they already used some of their healing cards to buff it in the first place. Exploding Fruitcake can be thought of as a cheaper, better version of Backyard Bounce, as unless they get another Pepper M.D., whatever they got was almost certainly worse. Cards that give Deadly such as Toxic Waste Imp and Super Stench can help trade very well with Pepper M.D. not supported by a Team-Up card such as Lil' Buddy.

Another way to deal with Pepper M.D. is to prevent it from increasing its stats; since its ability only activates when the Plant hero heals, you can prevent them from healing by simply not damaging them. While this doesn't work for the entire game, since you need to do damage to the enemy Hero to win, waiting a turn or two to begin doing damage is a legitimate strategy, since the more brains you have, the harder it is for heal decks to deal with all your resources. Brainy control decks are especially good at this, as they rarely want to damage the opponent early and have access to powerful burst options such as Trickster and Zombot Dinotronic Mechasaur. Placing a zombie on turn 1 is often a bad idea, as it will not only charge the opponent's Super-Block Meter, but feed Pepper M.D. as well. Even Bullseye cards such as Quickdraw Con Man can be punished by the combination of Lil' Buddy and Pepper M.D.. Crazy heroes can easily afford to wait a turn or two to play any zombies thanks to the early game control offered by Bungee Plumber and Exploding Fruitcake. Waiting too long can allow the Plant Hero to play other cards, however.

Gallery

Pepper M.D.'s statistics
Pepper M.D.'s card
Pepper M.D.'s grayed out card
Pepper M.D.'s card image
HD Pepper M.D.
Pepper M.D. attacking
Pepper M.D. destroyed
Pepper M.D. frozen
Pepper M.D. shielded
Pepper M.D. with the Untrickable trait
Two Pepper M.D.s on a lane due to Pair Pearadise's ability
Four Pepper M.D.s next to each other
2nd-Best Taco of All Time being played on Pepper M.D.
Extinction Event being played on Pepper M.D.

Old

Pepper M.D.'s statistics before update 1.14.13
Pepper M.D.'s card before update 1.14.13
Pepper M.D.'s statistics
Pepper M.D.'s card
Pepper M.D.'s silhouette
The player receiving Pepper M.D. from a Basic Pack
Pepper M.D. unlocked
The player having the choice between Pepper M.D. and Repeater as the prize for completing a level

In other languages

Please note that only official translations are used.

Language	Name	Description
English	Pepper M.D.
Simplified Chinese	辣椒博士	lit. "Spicy Pepper PhD"
Traditional Chinese	甜椒医生	lit. "Doc Sweet Pepper"
French	Professeur Pepper	Professor Pepper
German	Dr. Pepperoni
Italian	Dottor peperone	Doctor Bell Pepper
Japanese	パプリカ医学士
Korean	피망 의학박사
Brazilian Portuguese	Doutor Pimentão	Doctor Bell Pepper
Russian	Доктор Перец	lit. Doctor Pepper
Spanish	Chile médico	Doctor Chili