Allium tuberosum
A soft ruderal bulb that plays either arena role — an Asian native or an invader across Africa, Europe, the Americas and Oceania.
Garlic chives is a soft Bulb that fights as a back-loaded skirmisher with a bench-borrowed defence and little armor of its own. It is native across East and South Asia and invasive across Africa, Europe, Eastern North America, Oceania and South America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its native attack is low and its shell thin; it is a collection and coin piece more than a hitter.
Its starter attack, Surprise, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 32 damage as a native and 36 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Colchicine Charge, arrives at level 25: Releases its alkaloid load — Poison the foe. It is a mid-fight mend that can also pin the target. The advanced attack, Forcing Function, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (32 native / 36 invasive) and spills damage onto the enemy bench. Most of your garlic chives sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
It keeps two always-on traits. The first, Duff Stuff, arrives on the level 10 riser: while it is the active plant its effective DEF rises by half the combined DEF of your still-alive benched ruderals — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — recomputed live, so the cushion shrinks as those allies faint, though the donors keep their own DEF. It is a genuine, always-on defence, not a one-off. The second, Resprout, arrives 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 lucky reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Garlic chives is non-toxic, so it has no contact recoil and no poison rider — striking it costs an attacker nothing. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little DEF — shores up its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 18 native versus 29 invasive — the invasive gap is wide and matters, because its native attack is low (native ATK 18 up to invasive ATK 27). DEF is just 2, at the soft floor of the bulb band, so on its own it takes hits with almost no armor and leans on its benched ruderals through Duff Stuff instead. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (29) and every turn after on its SPD (34), so it is out-paced off the mark but steadier once a fight settles. Retreat costs 16 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, it swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 31 / 58 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 3 — as a soft bulb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature garlic chives acts last against almost anything younger.
As a ruderal bulb, garlic chives sits in the Ruderal succession group. It hits Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs, vines, trees), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Ruderals and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it native as a buffer whose Duff Stuff turns a full ruderal bench into armor while it is up front, with its overshield helping your active survive — that support role suits it better than fighting, given its low native attack. As an invasive its ATK rises enough to trade and its bench-splashing advanced attack grinds two plants at once, but its thin shell means it wins by chipping, not by soaking hits; Resprout can buy one more turn late in a game. On economy it is edible with a resolved leaf, so feeding it Nitrogen pays ×1.25 coins while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth. It plays as a slow-starting, faster-cruising skirmisher leaning harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 23 as a native and 25 as an invasive — but it is always stronger at higher levels, 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.