Atropa belladonna
A quick-opening, deadly-toxic herb that heals through fights and punishes contact hard — a European native or an eastern North American invader.
Deadly nightshade is a Perennial herb that fights on a fast opening and a deadly contact recoil, healing itself as the fight wears on. It is native to Europe and invasive across Eastern North America, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. Its armor is thin, so it leans on tempo, healing, and poison rather than toughness.
Its starter attack, Crown Split, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 44 damage as a native and 48 as an invasive, as a straightforward hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Alkaloid Reservoir, comes in at level 25: Empties a season of alkaloids into the foe — saturating Poison. It mends the plant. The advanced attack, Bitter End, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (30 native / 32 invasive) and heals the plant as it lands. Most of your nightshade sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider.
Nightshade keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, 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 triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
Nightshade holds the Toxin trait at the deadly tier: striking it Poisons the attacker hard, and that recoil fires in player-versus-player (PvP) too. Sulfur soil does not neutralize it, though a Cloche-warded attacker absorbs it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear leans into its punish-and-heal game; as an invasive, offensive gear makes its aggression count.
At level 40 nightshade reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 31 invasive — a real invasive jump. DEF is 4, a step above the perennial-herb floor. Its tempo is a quick starter but a slower cruiser: turn 1 runs on its initiative (51), which leads the opening exchange, and every turn after on its SPD (34), where it is out-paced. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield for 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, nightshade climbs to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 45 / 60 ATK, and its DEF reaches 8 — modest armor for a soft herb, so most of its growth is in health. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so its early lead is gone and it acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys it the durability to keep healing and poisoning through a long fight.
As a perennial herb, nightshade is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and is hit for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play nightshade as a fast-opening body that heals and punishes contact. As a native it is a buffer whose cushion, overshield, self-healing, and deadly recoil let it shelter a fragile hitter; as an invasive its ATK jump and early lead make it a sharper attacker, though it stays thin-skinned. It is inedible, so feeding it any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins. It fights as a quick-opening skirmisher until about level 30, after which its growing bulk takes over, so 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.