Aruncus dioicus
A thorny perennial herb that punishes melee and shrugs off a killing blow late — a serviceable Competitor with real bite as an invader.
Goat's beard is a Perennial herb that fights as a prickly, self-preserving skirmisher. It is native across East Asia, Europe, Eastern and Western North America, and South Asia, and invasive in Oceania, so the arena can cast it either way — a native buffer for your bench or an invasive attacker. It is a serviceable card whose thorns and late second wind make it stickier than its soft body suggests.
Its starter attack, Rhizome Creep, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun for about 30 damage native / 32 invasive, laying a poison on the target. The free once-per-battle ability, Autogenic Reaction, arrives at level 25: Remakes its own ground: +6 ATK and heal 25%. The advanced attack, Tonic, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (35 native / 38 invasive) as a plain hit. Most of your Goat's beard sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn.
Goat's beard keeps two always-on traits. Thorns arrives at level 10 and returns recoil to attackers that strike it in melee. Resprout arrives on the level 68 riser: when it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health, but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve. See Abilities.
It carries the thorns keyword, so attackers that hit it in melee take physical recoil. Note the recoil is thorns, not toxin: the plant is otherwise non-toxic, so its attackers are scratched but never poisoned by contact, and its own strikes carry no poison rider beyond the starter's applied poison. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear plays up its thorn wall; as an invasive, offensive gear sharpens its attack.
At level 40 Goat's beard reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive, with ATK of 27 native versus 33 invasive — a strong invasive bump. DEF is only 3, near the perennial-herb floor, so it leans on thorns and healing rather than armor. Its tempo is a quick start into a slower cruise: turn 1 on its initiative (40), every turn after on its SPD (35), so it leads off the mark but is out-paced in a long fight. Retreat costs 15 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a bench overshield; 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, Goat's beard reaches 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 49 / 66 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 5 — as a soft herb it gains health, never real armor, so thorns and its second wind do the defending. Retreat rises to 30 Sun and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature plant acts last against most young cards. Maturing buys health, damage, and resprout, but no wall.
As a perennial herb, Goat's beard is in the Competitor succession group. It strikes Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, bulbs) for x1.5 and takes only x0.667 from them, but it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns), which hit it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
As a native, play Goat's beard as a thorn wall: its recoil, self-heal, and late second wind punish melee attackers while the bench overshield protects a hitter. As an invasive it is a solid attacker whose poison and higher ATK force trades. Its value is also economic — it is inedible, so any nutrient banks x1.25 XP toward leveling. It fights as a quick skirmisher until about level 25 as a native (about 28 as an invasive), then its bulk takes over; there is no reason to hold it back from leveling.
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.