Ottawa barberry

Overview

Ottawa barberry hits more softly than most shrubs: fewer than 1 in 10 shrubs in the game sit as low as its ATK of 15 at Lv 40.

Ottawa barberry fights as a shrub (categories) in the Competitor succession group. It is invasive in Europe, where it plays as an attacker, and native nowhere on record; anywhere else it plays neutral (nativity).

Moves

Every card has three move slots (moves): a starter attack from Lv 1, a free once-per-battle ability from Lv 25 and an advanced attack from Lv 40. Damage is the expected hit at Lv 40, before the target's DEF and the succession wheel.

• Bramblemaze — starter attack, 2 Sun. A maze of brambles the foe can't back out of. Expected damage: 26, or 29 where it is invasive.
• Bramble Barrier — ability, free once per battle. A wall of thorns — the foe withers against it. Where it is invasive, this slot holds Facilitation instead: Shelters its own and starves the rest: heal 50%, and the foe's bench withers.
• Fruit Drop Kick — advanced attack, 6 Sun. Boots a load of fruit — also nicks the bench. Expected damage: 23, or 27 where it is invasive.

Always-on traits

Always-on traits arrive on two trait risers, Lv 10 and Lv 68, one trait on each; anything else its category offered is dropped for good (abilities).

• Marcescence — from Lv 10. It gets +4 DEF while at or below half HP.
• Drupe Mast — from Lv 68. When it is knocked out, each of your benched plants heals 8% of its max HP.

Items and economy

• It is edible, so in a wild battle it earns 4 coins for every turn it spends on your team. It is eaten for its fruit or seeds, so a Phosphorus amendment raises those coins by 25%; an N/P/K amendment that doesn't match earns 25% more battle XP instead.
• A Ca/Mg amendment adds +2 DEF.
• Catching it in a wild battle where it is invasive pays a stewardship bounty of 11 coins on top of the 30 a catch pays.

Stats

Every number here is the card without per-card genetics, which nudge HP, ATK, sustained tempo, initiative, retreat cost and DEF on the plant you actually own (stats). HP, ATK, DEF and retreat climb in a straight line from Lv 1 to Lv 100, while both tempo stats fall. An invasive's HP is the neutral figure.

Stat	Lv 40	Lv 100
HP (neutral)	136	282
ATK (neutral)	15	25
ATK (invasive)	24	47
DEF	51	124
Initiative	25	0.41
Sustained tempo (SPD)	23	0.37
Retreat cost (Sun)	13	26

• DEF is diminishing armour: a hit is scaled by ATK ÷ (ATK + DEF), so a strong attacker pushes through armour a weak one can't, and Poison ignores DEF entirely.
• Tempo: initiative decides who acts first on turn 1 and sustained tempo decides every turn after; it opens faster than it cruises. In a wild battle, a tie goes to you. Both fall as it grows, and by Lv 100 every plant is down to a fraction of a point — which is why the Lv 100 tempo column reads in decimals while the rest are whole numbers.
• Retreat: switching it out costs 13 Sun at Lv 40, and after it enters the active slot it must stay 1 turn before it can switch out.
• Sun is what attacks cost. Its bar holds 120, and an empty bar leaves it unable to attack, though its free ability still works.
• Refilling: out of battle it regains one Sun every 15 minutes at Lv 1, rising to 3 times that pace by Lv 45. Above Lv 52 it also regains Sun during battle, up to 4 a turn at Lv 100, and from Lv 85 its starter attack is free and its advanced attack costs 2 Sun.
• As an invasive, each damaging attack costs its lowest-HP benched ally 49 HP at Lv 40, one more per level, and in a Standard 25 arena match knocking it out is worth 2 prizes instead of 1.

Hardiness

Roughly USDA zone 3a — it should come through winters that bottom out near -38 °C. Colder than that and it wants shelter, a wall, or a winter indoors. The zone comes from a regression with an error of about one full zone, so treat it as a guide rather than a promise.

Its measured range runs from a cold edge of -7.4 °C to a warm edge of 21.5 °C, in the cool-temperate band. These are not the same kind of number as the zone above, which is why they look so far apart: the cold edge is how cold the coldest month typically gets across the places it grows, while a hardiness zone is quoted on the extreme annual low, and that runs far below any month's figure. The card's climate chip compares this measured range with where the player is standing, and the only thing it affects is battle XP.

Chip	Meaning	Battle XP
Thrives here	the local winter low and summer heat both sit inside its range	×2
In range	it survives here, but near one of its edges	×1.25
Colder than its range	winters here go below what it tolerates	no bonus
Hotter than its range	summers here run past its warm edge	no bonus

Succession matchups

Ottawa barberry is in the Competitor group (weaknesses and resistances). Its hits land at ×1.5 on Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatic plants and bulbs) and at ×0.67 on Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes). In return, Specialist plants hit it at ×1.5 and Ruderal plants at ×0.67. Everything else is neutral.

Playing it

• As an invasive it is an attacker: its extra ATK comes with damage to its own bench on every damaging attack.
• Over its life, its power overtakes its tempo at Lv 8 as an invasive or neutral: below that level it plays as a fast skirmisher, above it as a heavyweight. Its HP, ATK and DEF only grow as it levels, so the crossover is never a reason to hold it back. The Total power gallery below shows each crossover, with the card at that level and fully grown.