Every plant carries two always-on trait slots that fill in as it levels, plus a free "ability" move it can fire once per battle.
The ability is a special move slot that unlocks at level 25 and costs 0 Sun — but you get exactly one use per battle. It sits alongside the level-1 starter attack (2 Sun) and the level-40 advanced attack (6 Sun). Spend it when it swings a fight, because there is no second cast.
Always-on traits are not handed out all at once. Every plant has exactly two trait slots, and they unlock at fixed levels:
Each riser holds exactly one trait, drawn from the plant's category pool. What you end up with depends on how many traits that plant is eligible for:
Sapromyophily is the one exception to the halving, because it has no magnitude to halve: a young one holds the foe's focus only while the plant is above half HP, and a matured one always holds.
Two traits skip the draw and claim a riser outright. A non-photosynthetic feeder's Sun Siphon always takes the first (its capacity is what matures, so it weak-fills across both risers). And a genuinely toxic or deadly species has Toxin floored onto a riser as a safety guarantee — which is why a toxic plant often carries one fewer category trait than its pool would suggest.
Every category has live traits. All 16 pools carry them, so there is no such thing as a plant with no always-on ability, and nothing in the roster is decorative. A card's own two traits are named on its trait wedge and on its wiki page.
These are the long-standing, board-shaping passives. Most fire at each checkup (the end-of-turn tick).
| Passive | What it does | Pools |
|---|---|---|
| Photosynthesis | Heal ~1.5% max HP and cleanse 1 status each checkup (60%) — only in a sunny arena. | succulent, conifer |
| Allelopathy | Wilt aura: Withers the enemy active by 4 ATK each checkup, stacking toward the −12 Wither cap. | grass, vine, aquatic |
| Spore-burst | On being KO'd, Poisons the killer (2 stacks). | fern |
| Ptaquiloside | When struck, Poisons the attacker — the chemical mirror of Thorns. | fern |
| Haustorial Drain | On being KO'd, the enemy active loses ~5% max HP straight to base HP (bypasses the overshield). | vascular-parasite |
| Resprout | Survive the first lethal hit once (60%), at 25% HP, shedding statuses. | perennial-herb, bulb |
| Reseed | On KO, leave a weak Seedling token (30% HP/ATK, no moves, can't be captured). | annual-forb |
| Network | Projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto the active and amplifies the network cluster ×1.25. | broadleaf-tree, conifer |
| Mycorrhiza | Heal one injured benched ally ~4% max HP each checkup (60%, ×1.25 with Mulch). | broadleaf-tree |
| Spore-drift | Chip one random benched foe for ~0.25×ATK each checkup. | fern, plus curated dispersers |
| Sapromyophily | Taunt. Wherever the engine picks one victim out of a group — Seed Rain, a shove's forced swap, an incoming spore-drift — a Sapromyophily card in that group takes it instead of an ally. | shrub, carnivorous, epiphyte, carrion-aroid |
| Sun Siphon | A non-photosynthetic feeder draws Sun off its own bench (mycotroph) or its host (parasite). | mycotroph, vascular-parasite |
| Decay-feed | +4 ATK whenever any card is KO'd, match-permanent. | carnivorous |
| Duff Stuff | While active, effective DEF rises by half the summed DEF of your alive benched ruderals — recomputed live, so it fades as they faint. | auto-added to every ruderal pool: annual-forb, grass, aquatic, bulb |
Sapromyophily still has nothing to decide against a lone wild plant — there is only one target — so it earns its keep on a full bench, in the arena.
On top of the classics, each pool carries a handful of species-flavoured traits. There are far too many to list here, but every one is an instance of a small set of shapes:
| Shape | When it fires | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Regen / cleanse | Each checkup, on the carrier | Velamen Radicum, Rhizome Mat, CAM Idling, Mycelial Tap |
| Chip / drain / burn | Each checkup, on the enemy active | Needle Duff, Peat Acidification, Thermogenesis, Haustorial Bridge |
| Bench reach | Each checkup, on your own bench | Network Parasitism (drains an ally) |
| Regen aura | Passive, on the enemy active | Nutrient Stripping (the foe heals for half) |
| Retaliation | When the carrier is struck | Raphide Crystals, Tannin Load, Thiaminase, Pitfall Slick, Silica Phytoliths |
| On-KO | When something faints | Ballistic Dispersal, Serotinous Cones, Drupe Mast, Structural Load |
| Stat shift | Read at the damage site, often conditional | Heartwood Core, Waxy Cuticle, Marcescence, Apical Dominance, Holoparasitic Lock |
| Revive | A seeded chance to cling on at low HP | Soil Seed Bank, Epicormic Buds, Turion Dormancy, Corm Reserve, Subterranean Dormancy |
| Immunity | Always on — refuses one status outright | Buttress Roots / Deep Taproot / Canopy Anchorage (Bound), Anoxic Tolerance (Poison), Lignotuber (Burn), Waterlogged (Burn), Canopy Gap (spread + splash), Achlorophylly (weather) |
| Reserve | Always on — the plant supplies its own overshield bar | Caudex Reserve, Tank Reservoir, Tussock Crown (HP), Perennating Reserve (Sun) |
A few carry a cost or a second clause. Lignotuber does not merely refuse Burn — a chaparral shrub is released by fire, so it heals when a Burn is applied. Waterlogged refuses Burn and all HP-stealing, but the same saturated tissue cannot be healed at all. Holoparasitic Lock buys +6 ATK by refusing every item heal. Bulliform Collapse trades 2 SPD for 4 DEF below half HP.
Not every tick lands. Five sustaining effects — Photosynthesis, Succulence, and Mycorrhiza heals, Carnivory lifesteal, and Resprout — fire on a 60% chance each time they would otherwise trigger, so a heal or a saved life is never a sure thing.
The roster's own revive traits post their own odds instead, traded against how much HP they bring you back at: Soil Seed Bank saves half the time but only to 15% HP, while Epicormic Buds saves 35% of the time to 35% HP.
Everything else — every checkup regen, retaliation, on-KO, stat shift, immunity and reserve in the roster — is guaranteed. And every chance in the game is fixed and seeded (a given battle always resolves it the same way, so replays match), not a live coin flip.
Passives fire regardless of nativity, but nativity decides which perks stack on top. Only the green HP overshield segments are native-projected; the rest are open to any card.
| Effect | Native-gated? |
|---|---|
| Green HP overshield segments | Yes — only benched natives project them |
| Network's gold Sun overshield | No — any nativity grants it |
| Reserve traits' own bar (Caudex, Tank, Tussock, Perennating) | No — the plant supplies its own |
| Mycorrhiza bench heal | No — heals any injured ally |
| Reseed Seedling token | Neutral — no native perks |
See field gear for the Mulch and NPK amendments that amplify these effects (or grant Sulfur's spore immunity), and statuses for the Wither, Poison, Burn, and Blight your passives apply.