Plants vs. Zombies HeroesHow to Get the Most Free Gems in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes
Plants vs. Zombies Heroes is a card game, not a tower defense: here gems buy packs. Its free routes are few but very regular, and coins no longer exist.
What is the fastest and most efficient way to get Gems in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes?
Gems are the central currency of Heroes and almost the whole store catalogue is paid for with them: a premium or galactic pack costs 100, a hero pack 200, a single hero 750 and one specific legendary card can reach 1,000. They also speed up the tickets for event cards. Coins were a parallel currency for buying basic packs, but they were removed in update 1.14.13 and no longer appear in the game.
Every day
- Up to 100 gems a day, the equivalent of one premium pack
Watching the twenty daily ads
This is the most productive free route in the game: each ad pays five gems and the daily cap is twenty ads, that is, a hundred gems per day. In older versions the payout was ten gems but only ten ads were allowed, so the daily maximum ends up being the same. A hundred gems is a full premium pack, with at least one rare card guaranteed. If you are only going to do one thing a day in Heroes, make it this.
- Between 10 and 100 gems per quest, with three active at most
Claiming the quests that appear every three hours
The quest system generates a new one every three hours and its reward ranges from ten to a hundred gems. The important detail is that only three can be active at a time: if you do not go in and complete them, the counter jams and you stop generating new quests. That is why it pays to drop in two or three times a day, close what you can and leave a slot free. You need an internet connection both to receive new quests and to collect the ones you have already done.
Every week
- Gems for every rank-up, with a much bigger jump when you change league
Climbing ranks in ranked matches
Every time you climb a rank in ranked play you collect gems, and the amount depends on the league you are in. In the Wood league, the lowest one, a rank-up pays ten gems; once you reach the Bronze league the payout goes up to fifty. League promotions are by far the biggest payouts in the system. Playing ranked instead of casual costs nothing extra and does change what you collect, so there is no reason to stay in casual.
One time only
- There is nothing left to farm: basic cards unlock on their own
Understanding what happened to coins
Coins existed between updates 1.2.11 and 1.14.13 and served only to buy basic packs without spending gems. They were earned at the end of each match: five for a loss, ten for winning a casual game, twenty for a ranked one, fifteen for a quest battle and a hundred for a boss battle. Once a player had gathered all four copies of every basic card, the currency disappeared from the interface. Today basic cards are obtained by unlocking classes, so the currency no longer exists.
Events only
- A cumulative payout proportional to the league you finish in
Making the most of the end of a ranked season
The ranked ladder resets by season and the league you finish in determines the payout. Since the rank-up payment scales with league, work done in the last weeks of a season is worth considerably more than work done in the first ones. It is worth concentrating your effort once you have a tuned deck, instead of spreading it out from day one. Bear in mind that the whole mode requires a connection and that disconnecting mid-match counts as a defeat.
- One free copy of the event card per season
Building up tickets for event cards
Event cards are obtained by gathering a set number of tickets while playing, without spending anything. The game offers to let you pay up to five hundred gems to skip the process, and that price drops by fifty gems for every tenth of the requirement you have already completed. There is also a ticket boost with a four-hour wait that can be sped up for twenty gems. The free version just asks for patience: if you play daily while the event runs, the card drops on its own.
What does not work
No generator can add Gems to your Plants vs. Zombies Heroes account: the balance is handled on the game’s servers and there is no way to touch it from outside. If you arrived looking for one, we explain in detail how they work on the inside and why they always end the same way.
See why Gems generators are a scam →Frequently asked questions
How do you reach the maximum hundred daily gems from ads?
Each ad pays five gems and the limit is twenty a day, so you have to come back several times: the game does not chain all twenty in one go. The practical approach is to spread them across three or four short visits, using those same visits to claim quests. You need a stable connection, because an interrupted ad sometimes does not count and uses up the attempt anyway.
Why do new quests stop appearing in the game?
Because the system only keeps three quests active at a time. A new one appears every three hours, but if all three slots are full the clock stops and nothing more is generated until you complete or claim one. It is the most common mistake made by people who drop in once a day: they lose half a dozen quests for not having freed up a slot beforehand.
What can you actually buy with the gems you earn for free?
A hundred gems covers a premium, galactic or tribe pack, with six cards and at least one rare guaranteed. A hundred and fifty buys a pack with a guaranteed super rare and five hundred one with a legendary. Two hundred covers a specific hero pack. With the hundred daily gems from ads, one basic pack a day is perfectly sustainable without spending money.
What happened to the coins that appeared in older versions?
They were removed in update 1.14.13. They existed only to buy basic packs and disappeared from the counter on their own as soon as a player had gathered four copies of every basic card. Since then, basic cards are unlocked by unlocking classes, so there is no second currency to accumulate: the whole game revolves around gems.
