Cirsium vulgare
A perennial herb that buffers on its native turf and attacks where it is invasive.
The Spear Thistle is a perennial herb in Supplant. It is native to Africa, East Asia, Europe and South Asia and invasive in Eastern North America, Western North America, Oceania and South America, so it can take whichever role the arena hands it — a defensive buffer on its home turf, or an aggressive attacker where it counts as an introduced weed.
Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Bitter Sap is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Seral Persistence, unlocks at level 25: Refuses to be replaced: heal 60%, and the foe can't heal. The advanced attack, Rhizome Lock, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Locks the foe down underground and saps it.
As a native its attacks land for about 30 (starter) and 22 (advanced); as an invasive those rise to 34 and 27 as the introduced-range aggression matures.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (29) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (44) decides every turn after. This one is slow off the mark but relentless once the fight settles — it usually loses turn 1 and then takes the tempo from turn 2 onward. See turn order for how the two interact.
It has a single eligible passive, Resprout, which arrives at half strength on its level 10 riser and matures at level 68 — a real difference for most of the card's life.
Resprout. A 60% chance to survive one otherwise-lethal hit and cling on at roughly a quarter of its HP. It is a coin-flip-plus reprieve, not a guarantee — useful, but you cannot build around it landing.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag. Played native, favor defensive gear; played invasive, favor anything that pushes its attack.
At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 103, DEF 1, with a retreat cost of 12 Sun and tempo pips of 29 initiative / 44 SPD. Its DEF sits low, in the soft-herb band. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active. As an invasive its ATK rises toward 39 (against 27 native), and it pays "Faustian" self-damage to its own bench on every damaging hit it lands. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.
Biomass HP swells toward 190, but its armor barely leaves the soft band (1) — a bigger body, not a tougher one. Retreat rises to 23 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.
In the succession wheel it is a Competitor. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes). Against its own group and the off-wheel "Weird" categories it is neutral. See the type chart.
Play it native as a defensive buffer — the HP cushion and bench overshield make it a body that protects the rest of your team. Play it invasive as an attacker, remembering it concedes 2 prizes on a knockout and bleeds its own bench with Faustian self-damage each hit. This is a soft-bodied herb: low armor, modest HP. It is more a collection piece and a coin/level earner than a battle carry, and it wants bench support to do real work. It is edible (the game tags the leaf as the eaten part), so feeding it the matching Nitrogen fertilizer pays ×1.25 coins — a steady earner between battles; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 24, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, so there is never a reason to hold it back.
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.