Clethra alnifolia
A soft wetland perennial herb that heals through long fights and pulls ahead the longer they run, and can play either arena role — a North American native or a European invader.
Sweet pepperbush is a low, soft Perennial herb that fights as a self-healing staller: light armor, plain attacks, and staying power that grows the longer a fight lasts. It is native to Eastern North America and invasive in Europe, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. It is an unspectacular but reliable card that wants a harder hitter beside it.
Its starter attack, Bitter Sap, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 29 damage as a native and 30 as an invasive — a straightforward hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Perennating Bud, comes in at level 25: Breaks a stored bud: heal 40%. The advanced attack, Winterkill, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (26 native / 27 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your pepperbushes sit below level 40, where only the starter move is available.
Sweet pepperbush keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
Sweet pepperbush carries no special trait keywords and is non-toxic: no contact recoil and no poison rider on being struck, so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear suits its stalling game; as an invasive, offensive gear makes its aggression count.
At level 40 sweet pepperbush reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 23 native versus 25 invasive — a noticeable invasive edge for a soft herb. DEF is just 2, near the floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on a low initiative (21), so it is out-paced off the mark, but every turn after runs on a much higher SPD (36), so it becomes relentless once a fight settles in. Retreat costs 13 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a bench HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, sweet pepperbush swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 42 / 46 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 3 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health, never armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 25 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature pepperbush acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb, sweet pepperbush is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants, which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play sweet pepperbush as a cheap, self-healing filler that gets better the longer it stays alive — its low opening tempo means it wants long fights, not quick trades. As a native it makes a fair buffer; as an invasive its aggression is moderate, so lean on support over finishing. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins, a steady growth investment. It fights as a back-loaded cruiser and leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 18, so keep leveling it.
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.