Achillea tomentosa
A low, mat-forming yarrow that poisons on its opening strike and heals through long fights — it plays either arena role, a European native or an Oceanian invader.
Woolly yarrow is a low, mat-forming Perennial herb that fights as a patient irritant: it poisons the enemy with its opening strike and mends itself through the fight. It is native to Europe and invasive across Oceania, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer that shores up your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is an unflashy support card whose armor is thin and damage modest; it wants a heavier hitter beside it.
Its starter attack, Bitter Sap, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 27 damage as a native and 30 as an invasive and leaving the target poisoned from its bitter compounds. The free once-per-battle ability, Perennating Bud, arrives at level 25: Breaks a stored bud: heal 40%. — a strong mid-fight mend that suits its stalling game. The advanced attack, Herbaceous Assault, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (30 native / 32 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your woolly yarrow sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Woolly yarrow keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures to full only on the level 68 riser. When it works, it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health — but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Woolly yarrow carries no trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin, no spore chemistry — so nothing punishes an attacker for striking it. Its starter poisons the foe as an attack, but the plant itself is non-toxic, so striking it carries no chemical recoil. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole; as a native, general defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little extra DEF — suits its wear-them-down game, while as an invasive, offensive gear makes its aggression count.
At level 40 woolly yarrow reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 19 native versus 25 invasive — compare the two to see how much of an edge the invasive form actually buys here. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on its poison and healing instead. Its tempo splits across the fight: the opening turn runs on its initiative (37) and every turn after on its SPD (36) — read the two together, since if initiative is the higher number it opens fast and fades, and if SPD is higher it starts slow and grows relentless. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto 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, woolly yarrow swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 33 / 48 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 1 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 22 Sun as it roots in, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature woolly yarrow acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys health and the full Resprout reprieve; it never buys armor.
As a perennial herb, woolly yarrow sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), 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 woolly yarrow as a cheap, self-healing filler that poisons and grinds. As a native it is a fair buffer — the HP cushion and bench overshield help a fragile hitter survive — while its invasive form leans on its ATK to threaten a little more damage, at the cost of Faustian bench self-damage and conceded prizes. Its damage is modest either way, so it supports rather than finishes. It is inedible with no resolved edible part, so fertilizer does not pay coins — any nutrient instead banks ×1.25 XP, a plain growth boost. It plays as a slow-building skirmisher whose bulk takes over as it levels, crossing over around level 26 as a native and 29 as an invasive — and it is always stronger at higher levels in raw stats, 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.