Gray birch

Overview

Gray birch keeps a faster pace than most broadleaf trees: no more than 1 in 6 broadleaf trees in the game reach its sustained tempo of 45 at Lv 40.

Gray birch fights as a broadleaf tree (categories) in the Competitor succession group. It is native to Eastern North America, where it plays as a buffer. It is invasive nowhere on record, so it never takes the attacker role; 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.

• Branch Bash — starter attack, 2 Sun. Pins the foe under a fallen branch. Expected damage: 29.
• Canopy Recruitment — ability, free once per battle. Pushes a sapling into the canopy: heal 35% and +3 ATK.
• Crown Shade — advanced attack, 6 Sun. Casts deep shade that saps the foe. Expected damage: 34.

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).

• Tannin Load — from Lv 10. Every direct hit on it Withers the attacker by 2 ATK.
• Heartwood Core — from Lv 68. It gains up to +8 DEF, growing with its level — nothing at Lv 1, all of it at Lv 100.

Items and economy

• It is not edible, so an N/P/K amendment on it earns 25% more battle XP.
• A Ca/Mg amendment adds +2 DEF.

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. A native's ATK is the neutral figure.

Stat	Lv 40	Lv 100
HP (neutral)	180	387
HP (native)	206	445
ATK (neutral)	23	42
DEF	53	129
Initiative	25	0.42
Sustained tempo (SPD)	45	0.74
Retreat cost (Sun)	15	31

• 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 slower 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 15 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.
• Benched as a native, it adds a green overshield bar to your active plant sized by its conservation status (Least Concern): 1.9% of the active's max HP. Direct attacks drain that bar before HP; Poison, Burn and recoil go straight to HP.

Hardiness

Roughly USDA zone 2a — it should come through winters that bottom out near -44 °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 -10.8 °C to a warm edge of 23.9 °C, in the boreal 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

Gray birch 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 a native it is a buffer: its HP cushion, and the overshield bar it lends your active plant from the bench, are what it adds to a team.
• Over its life, its power overtakes its tempo at Lv 10 as a native and at Lv 12 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.