Chamaecyparis lawsoniana
An invasive-only conifer that heals in sun and shields your active from the bench, growing into a hard armored wall.
Ginger pine is a slow, durable Conifer that fights as an armored attacker and bench-support piece. In this game it exists only as an invader — spread across Africa and Europe — so there is no native buffer version; you always play it as an invasive attacker. It is a solid, patient card whose defense and healing let it outlast faster opponents.
Its starter attack, Whomp, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for about 39 as an invasive — a plain strike. The free once-per-battle ability, Boreal Establishment, arrives at level 25: Takes hold in cold ground: heal 35%, and the foe can't heal. — it mends the plant. The advanced attack, Evergreen Grudge, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (35 invasive), another straightforward hit. Most of your pines sit below level 40, where only the starter is live. None of its moves carry an initiative rider.
Ginger pine keeps two always-on traits. Photosynthesis arrives on the level 10 riser: it heals the plant while it holds Sun, but only about 60% of the time, so count it as a bonus rather than a plan. Network comes in on the level 68 riser and, from the bench, projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto your active — a canopy-tree effect that makes it valuable even when it is not fighting.
Ginger pine carries no trait keywords, so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic — no hazard ring, no poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As an invasive attacker, a mix of offensive and defensive field gear suits its slow, grinding style. It is rated Near Threatened in the wild.
At level 40 ginger pine reads 122 HP as an invasive, with ATK around 25. DEF is 18, high for its level and squarely in the conifer band, so it actually shrugs off part of each hit — a real difference from the soft herbs. Its tempo is very back-loaded: turn 1 runs on initiative (7) and every turn after on SPD (22), so it is badly out-paced off the mark but steadier later. Retreat costs 23 Sun. As an invasive it pays self-damage to its own bench per damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, ginger pine becomes an armored wall: 240 HP with DEF climbing all the way to 40, and ATK around 48. A conifer converts its growth into armor as well as health, so a mature one is genuinely hard to kill. Retreat rises to 50 Sun and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so it always acts late — the price of that wall is being slow.
As a conifer, ginger pine is in the Specialist succession group. It hits Competitor plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Ruderal plants, which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Specialists and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play ginger pine as a slow anchor: park it as your active to trade under its armor, or keep it benched so Network feeds a Sun overshield to whoever is fighting. Its healing and defense make it a stubborn attacker that wins by attrition, not speed. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster leveling. It fights as a slow skirmisher early and its bulk takes over around level 1, after which its wall does the work — always worth 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.