Ardisia japonica
A shrub that buffers on defence at home and turns attacker where it is invasive.
A low shrub that firms up under pressure and taunts single-target picks onto itself late. It is a shrub in battle. It is native to East Asia, where it plays as a defensive buffer, and invasive in Eastern North America and South Asia, where it turns attacker.
The starter attack Berry unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun: A measured strike. It deals about 27 damage as a native and 29 as an invasive.
The free once-per-battle ability Shrubland Sere arrives at level 25: Settles the slope: heal 35%, and the foe withers. It costs no Sun — its price is being usable only once per battle.
The advanced attack Fruit Drop Kick opens at level 40 for 6 Sun: Boots a load of fruit — also nicks the bench. It hits for about 25 native and 26 invasive.
Most cards you field sit well below level 40, so introduce these slots in order — a young plant has only its starter.
This card keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category pool; the rest of that pool was dropped and it never gets it. Marcescence (from level 10) holds onto dead leaves as a shield — +4 DEF while it is below half HP.
A second, different trait stacks on later: Lure (Sapromyophily, from level 68) is a taunt: wherever the game must pick one target out of a group — a forced swap, a drifting spore, a splash — this card draws the pick onto itself instead of an ally. Against a lone wild plant there is no group to redirect, so it does nothing in that fight. So for most of its playable life — including at the level 40 snapshot the stats below are read at — this card runs its first trait alone, and only a fully levelled specimen holds both.
This card carries no special trait keywords, and as a shrub it is not eligible for a Moss Pole (that is for climbers — vines and epiphytes). A Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment adds flat DEF, useful on a soft card like this. Playing native, lean into bench support that feeds the overshield; playing invasive, a Cloche helps by absorbing incoming contact poison. See field gear for the full list.
Read at level 40, it carries 103 HP as a native (a +15% cushion) against 89 as an invasive, with DEF 13 and a retreat cost of 16 Sun. Its attack steps up modestly as an invasive (19 native to 23 invasive).
Its opening tempo (initiative, 32) and sustained tempo (SPD, 34) sit close together, so it holds one steady pace through a fight rather than swinging early or late.
Playing native, it and any benched natives project a bench overshield onto your active; playing invasive, it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack (growing as it levels) and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See stats.
As a shrub it firms into a mid DEF band, capping at 28 — tougher than a weed, far short of a tree — while HP reaches 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK 34 / 43. Retreat rises to 33 Sun as it roots down with age, and its once-brisk tempo has sunk to near its floor — the tempo pips in Stats above are as fast as this card ever moves. Levelling buys raw bulk and reach; it costs turn-order speed.
In the succession type chart this shrub is a Competitor. Its attacks hit Ruderal cards (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs) for ×1.5, while Specialist cards (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes) hit it for ×1.5 and shrug its own blows down to ×0.667. Matchups against the off-wheel Weird categories (carrion-aroids, carnivorous plants, mycotrophs and vascular parasites) are neutral both ways. See weaknesses & resistances.
Play it native as a buffer — soak hits, feed the bench overshield, and lean on its defensive trait. Play it invasive as an attacker, where its higher attack cap does the work, but mind the Faustian bench chip. It is not tagged with a resolved edible part, so fertilizer banks ×1.25 XP rather than paying a coin bonus — feed it to level, not to earn.
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.