Asimina pygmaea
Dwarf pawpaw (Asimina pygmaea) is a competitor shrub in Supplant — a native-only buffer whose game role is set out below.
The dwarf pawpaw is a low, fruiting shrub of the southeastern United States. In battle it is a Shrub — a Competitor on the succession chart. It is native to eastern North America and invasive nowhere, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker version of this card.
Its starter attack, Drupe Drop, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 24 damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Nurse Shrub, unlocks at Lv 25: Shelters the whole bench — evens their health, and calls the fallen back. The advanced attack, Sucker Punch (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 32.
Sucker Punch carries the initiative rider. In a wild encounter that move takes hard priority and lands before the opponent regardless of either tempo stat (if both sides bring a rider, they cancel and normal turn order decides). In the arena it works differently: a rider strike does not go first, but if it scores a kill — the struck plant actually drops — its user seizes the turn and acts again, and the chain continues as long as it keeps finishing plants.
From Lv 10 it carries Marcescence, +4 DEF once it falls below half HP. At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Lignotuber, so it cannot be Burned — and a Burn aimed at it instead heals it about 4% of its maximum HP, because a chaparral shrub is released by fire rather than harmed by it.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment suits it, adding flat DEF on top of its already-firm armour; feeding it Phosphorus (P), the nutrient matching its edible fruit, pays bonus coins. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 16 ATK with 11 DEF. As a native it carries a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. On defence, its DEF sits in the firmer shrub band. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 32 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 20 — making it a quick starter that is out-paced as the fight goes on. Retreating it costs 14 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190 and its DEF firms to 23, with attack at 28. Retreat rises to 27 Sun, and its inverted tempo has fallen to a sliver — the speed edge it had young is gone. It ages into a durable mid-line plant rather than a true wall.
On the succession chart a Shrub is a Competitor. Competitor plants hit Ruderal categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Specialist categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
Slow and weak on attack, but a strong bench-support card: its ability shelters and revives the whole bench, and two defensive traits toughen it. Native only. Play it as a nurse and fruit coin-earner, not a fighter. Because its edible part (fruit) is recorded, feeding it Phosphorus pays ×1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 15, after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
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.