Tree of Heaven

Overview

Tree of Heaven is a broadleaf tree, and it plays as a Broadleaf tree card. It is native to East Asia, where it fights as a buffer, and invasive in Europe and Eastern North America, where it takes the attacker role.

Moves

• Limb Lash (unlocks at level 1, costs 2 Sun) deals 38 damage native and 48 invasive. Two lashes from a heavy limb.
• Gap Capture (unlocks at level 25) is the free once-per-battle ability: Takes the fallen giant's light: +5 ATK, kept for the match. It costs no Sun.
• Transpiration Drain (unlocks at level 40, costs 6 Sun) deals 28 damage native and 33 invasive. Pulls water up through the foe and keeps it.

None of its moves carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes first strike or an extra turn — its turn order is set by its tempo (see Stats). As a mild plant it also carries a Poison rider: every damaging attack it lands Poisons the target (1 stack). Poison is damage-over-time that ignores DEF and slips past the overshield, so it wears down even armored walls.

Abilities

Read off the card's actual trait schedule, it keeps these always-on traits, arriving at the levels shown:

• Tannin Load arrives at level 10: its tannins wither any attacker that strikes it, cutting that attacker's ATK by 2.
• Epicormic Buds arrives at level 68: dormant buds under the bark give it a 35% chance to revive at 35% HP after being knocked out.

Features

It carries no certain trait keywords beyond the schedule above. It is not Moss Pole-eligible (it is not a climber). A Calcium/Magnesium amendment stacks even more DEF onto its wall; a Cloche protects an attacker from contact poison.

Stats

Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked: DEF 23, retreat 16 Sun. Its tempo splits the usual way — initiative 55 orders turn 1 and SPD 55 orders turn 2 onward — and it holds a fairly steady tempo across the fight.

Its two nativity roles read differently. Native, it is a buffer: HP 103 (a +15% cushion baked in) and a benched HP overshield for your active, with ATK 20. Invasive, it is an attacker: HP 89 and ATK 35 — the higher figure is the introduced-range term the engine adds for a spreading invader, showing as the card matures. The invasive form pays "Faustian" self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack (10 + level - 1, growing as it levels) and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out.

At Level 100

Maturity hardens it into a wall: DEF climbs to 52 while HP grows to 190. Retreat rises to 32 Sun as it roots in, and its inverted tempo sinks to near its floor — the quick opening it had as a seedling fades to a crawl. A grown one is slow but immense.

Weaknesses & Resistances

Tree of Heaven is in the Competitor group on the succession wheel. It deals x1.5 to the Ruderal group (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) and takes x1.5 from Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), against which its own damage is resisted to x0.667.

Gameplay uses

One of the stronger cards in this batch: a hardwood wall at home and a hard-hitting invader abroad, with tannins that wither strikers and a chance to revive after a knockout. It plays a genuine front line. It is not edible, so any fertilizer you feed it banks x1.25 XP rather than coins. The Total power gallery below marks its crossover — the level where its rising bulk overtakes its falling speed — at level 36 at home and 36 abroad; either way it only grows stronger with level, so there is never a reason to under-level it.