Soul Stone

"A rare stone that contains an actual living soul that grants you 1 free upgrade!"

- BATTD description

The Soul Stone is an Epic Trinket in Bloons Adventure Time TD. It has no character restrictions, letting any character equip it.

Description
TBA

Properties

 * Speed: N/A
 * Range: N/A
 * Damage: N/A
 * Pierce: N/A

Special Properties
Shard for: 1000
 * Gives a 10% discount to upgrades
 * Equipped character starts with their cheapest upgrade already purchased.

Strategy
The Soul Stone is a highly valuable trinket for any player, as it provides a valuable asset in almost every setting it can appear in: automatic purchase of the cheapest upgrade a character can own for free. While on the surface this is relatively simple, use of it can become very technical if used in certain situations, such as in Martian Games events with the Deflation rule.

With the addition of a free upgrade based on the lowest price of all starting upgrades, characters like Supermonkey will effectively become $600 cheaper, making the Soul Stone an effective price chopper if applied properly or, if multiple are obtained, liberally to the most cost-heavy characters. When applied to a character that has two upgrades that are both the cheapest upgrades, such as Finn (with Swordplayer and Limber Limbs, both costing $150), there is a chance for either upgrade to be automatically bought but not both.and effective goal.

Besides being a huge cash saver, the Soul Stone can also help to re-establish a character with a free starting upgrade if they were sold for any reason or if the player is in dire need of extra fire power. Though the degree of extra popping power based on this upgrade depends heavily on the character it is equipped to, it can still be a help to have the character and a free upgrade rather than just the character themselves.

For reference, the following table will outline the upgrade(s) that will be purchased for free by the Soul Stone upon placing the equipped character:

Trivia

 * The Soul Stone is based on the item in the Adventure Time series of the same name.
 * The Soul Stone has made appearance in Halloween 2018's Hall-O-Ween event as the 25 Zeezy Things prize.
 * Out of all the characters, only two, Finn and Marceline, have the random selection component of the Soul Stone's ability.
 * If Marceline has the Soul Stone equipped but does not have a weapon equipped, the Soul Stone will always purchase the Improved Flight upgrade.
 * If Jake is at Level 10 and equips the Soul Stone, he will have the Big Jake Slap ($325) upgrade automatically purchased for free by Soul Stone. This is because the Axe Foot upgrade is already purchased for free at Level 10, making Mace Hand ($350) the next cheapest available upgrade. However, Level 10 also pre-purchases that, leaving Big Jake Slap as the cheapest of the remaining available upgrades.