Card Categories

What a category decides

Your category is baked in at capture and sets four things:

• Move pool + passive. The category picks which moves and always-on abilities a plant can carry.
• Retreat cost. Trees and conifers cost 30 Sun to swap out, shrubs 20, and everything else 10. Woody plants are anchors; get the swap right the first time.
• Rooted band. Each category has its own rooted-turn window after entering play before it can be recalled freely.
• Damage cap. A handful of aggressive spreaders (annual-forb, grass, vine, aquatic) have their advanced-attack damage capped slightly lower — an invasive-leaning guardrail so they don't run away with a match.

Category also sets your succession group for the type-matchup wheel: Ruderal (annual-forb, grass, aquatic, bulb), Competitor (perennial-herb, vine, shrub, broadleaf-tree), Specialist (succulent, conifer, fern, epiphyte), or Weird (carrion-aroid, carnivorous, mycotroph, vascular-parasite). Groups beat each other ×1.5 / ×0.667; Weird sits out. Status immunities (see statuses) are separate.

The 16, at a glance

Category	Combat identity
annual-forb	Reseed: leaves a weak Seedling token on KO. Damage-capped.
perennial-herb	Resprout: survives one lethal hit at ~25% HP.
grass	Allelopathy: wilts the enemy active each checkup. Damage-capped.
succulent	Photosynthesis heal in sunny arenas; succulence regen in any weather.
vine	Climber; Moss Pole eligible. Damage-capped.
shrub	Woody mid-anchor; 20 Sun retreat.
broadleaf-tree	Network Sun overshield + mycorrhiza bench heal. 30 Sun retreat.
conifer	Network Sun overshield + sunny-weather photosynthesis. 30 Sun retreat.
carnivorous	Carnivory lifesteal (~50%).
aquatic	Allelopathy wilt aura. Damage-capped.
fern	Spores (poison the killer) + spore-drift bench chip.
bulb	Resprout: survives one lethal hit at ~25% HP.
epiphyte	Light air-plant; no category passive.
carrion-aroid	Aroid attacker; no active passive (lure is inert).
mycotroph	No passive — a "taker" that drains benched Sun for economy boosts.
vascular-parasite	Haustorial-drain: on KO, drains ~5% of the enemy's max HP straight to base HP, bypassing the overshield.

The mycotroph exception

Mycotrophs carry no passive at all. Instead they're pure takers: they drain Sun from your own bench and convert it into economy perks (a Nitrogen amendment pushes coin income ×1.25 — see field gear). Run them for value, not front-line staying power.

Native vs invasive

Nativity (full detail) rides on top of category — the same species swings between roles by arena region.

	Native (buffer)	Invasive (attacker)
Stat tilt	+15% HP cushion	×1.75 ATK (×1.4 if toxic)
Overshield	Projects HP segments to the active	None; pays self-damage each hit

Pick categories with strong passives (fern, broadleaf-tree, vascular-parasite) when playing native support; lean the damage-capped spreaders into invasive attacker roles. See combat overview and stats to tie it together.