Acer saccharinum
A fast-cruising native tree that heals its bench and shields the front line, and doubles as a hard-hitting invader across four continents.
Silver maple is a Broadleaf tree that opens slowly but keeps grinding: cheap early attacks, a bench-support habit, and enough late armor to hold a line. It is native to Eastern North America and invasive across East Asia, Europe, Western North America, and South America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer that props up your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is a genuinely useful card in both roles, valued more for what it does for the rest of your party than for raw damage.
Its starter attack, Branch Bash, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage as a native and 32 as an invasive; it also splashes a little onto the opposing bench. The free once-per-battle ability, Shade Tolerance, arrives at level 25: Waits out the dark: heal 40%, and the foe can't heal. The advanced attack, Crown Shade, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (35 native / 38 invasive) and saps the target as it lands. Most of your maples sit well below level 40, where only the starter is open. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn — it wins by outlasting. See Moves.
Silver maple keeps two always-on traits. Mycorrhiza arrives on the level 10 riser and heals a benched ally, but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat the mend as a bonus rather than a plan. Network arrives on the level 68 riser: while benched, the maple projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto whichever plant is active, a canopy-tree effect that makes it a strong back-row support. See Abilities.
Silver maple carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. Non-toxic: no contact recoil, no poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear (a Cloche, a Ca/Mg amendment for a little more DEF) suits its patient game; as an invasive, offensive gear makes its heavier hits count.
At level 40 it reads 140 HP native / 122 invasive, with ATK of 26 native versus 33 invasive — the invasive edge (native ATK 26 rising to invasive ATK 33) is real and worth building around. DEF is 23, mid-band for a broadleaf tree, so it is far from soft. Its tempo runs slow then relentless: turn 1 uses its initiative (12) and every turn after its SPD (42), so it is out-paced off the mark but the faster cruiser in a long fight. Retreat costs 18 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield for your active; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, silver maple climbs to 276 HP native / 240 invasive and 47 / 65 ATK, and as a tree its DEF reaches 52 — it becomes an armored wall, not just a bigger body. Retreat rises to 39 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature maple acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys durability and the network overshield at the cost of speed.
As a broadleaf tree, silver maple is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants, which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play silver maple as a bench anchor: park it in the back to feed the overshield and the occasional heal, then bring it forward once it has the armor to trade. As a native it is one of the better buffers a fragile hitter can hide behind; as an invasive its damage is above average, so it can also close games. Its value is economic too — it is inedible, so any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP, making it a steady growth-earner. It fights as a slow-building cruiser early and leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 9 — always stronger higher up, so there is no reason to hold it back.
Leveling trades speed for power. A plant’s tempo (SPD + INI, the turn-order edge) fades as it grows, while its power (HP + ATK + DEF, net of the rising Sun cost to retreat) climbs. The crossover is the level where power overtakes tempo: below it the plant is a fast skirmisher, above it a heavyweight. Shown for each stance this plant can actually hold — native adds a HP cushion, invasive an attack edge, neutral neither — with the card at its crossover and fully grown at Lv 100.