Cosmos bipinnatus
The Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus) is a Annual forb that plays as a defensive buffer where native and an attacker where invasive.
The Cosmos is garden cosmos, a widely naturalised ornamental daisy. In battle it plays as a Annual forb. It is native to Eastern North America and Western North America, where it takes the defensive buffer role, and invasive in Africa, East Asia, Europe, Oceania, South America, and South Asia, where it becomes an attacker.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. The starter attack, Insect Alliance, is available from Level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing 29 as a native and 35 as an invasive. Its effect: Calls in insect allies — the foe's whole bench sickens.
The free ability, Disclimax (Level 25), costs no Sun because it is once per battle: Holds the ground open — the foe stalls and withers.
The advanced attack, Allergenic Odor (Level 40, 6 Sun), deals 26 native and 31 invasive: A pollen haze — the foe weakens and its whole bench sickens. Most cards you meet are well below the Level 40 snapshot these numbers are read at, and unlock their kit slot by slot as they level.
This card actually keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category pool with the rest discarded. From Level 10 it carries Ephemeral Bolt, extra ATK while it stays above half health that fades once it drops low. From Level 68 a second, different trait stacks on top: Reseed, which leaves a fresh Seedling token on your bench on a knockout, once per match. Both are working traits — there are no inert abilities in the game — and each arrives at full strength on the riser shown, so for much of the card's life it plays with only the earlier of the two.
It carries no Toxin or Thorns trait, so it inflicts no contact recoil on an attacker. Because its body is soft, a Cloche is a valuable ward against the damage-over-time Poison that bypasses its overshield, and a Cal-Mag amendment shores up its thin armor. See field gear for the full item list and nativity for how region sets its role.
Read at the Level 40 snapshot, its DEF is 1 — a soft floor — annual forbs sit in the lowest DEF band, so it relies on speed and pressure, not armor. It retreats for 13 Sun. Turn 1 is ordered by its initiative (34) and every turn after by its SPD (48). It is slow off the mark but relentless after — outpaced on the opening exchange, then pulling ahead as the fight settles. By nativity it splits two ways. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion (103 HP against 89 invasive) and, from the bench, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. As an invasive its aggression is built from how widely it spreads plus an introduced-range term — compare 19 native ATK against 34 invasive — and it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. The overshield is a bench-built extra ring: up to four green HP bars from benched natives (drained by direct damage first, but bypassed by poison, recoil and splash) and up to two gold Sun bars from benched Network trees.
By Level 100 its DEF has barely left the floor even as biomass HP swells toward 190 — a bigger, softer body, not a tougher one. Its retreat creeps up to 25 Sun and its once-brisk tempo has collapsed to about 1% of cap, so the fast opener it was as a seedling is gone; late, it is a soft mass that must win before it is worn down.
It is a Ruderal on the succession wheel: it reclaims ground from Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes), hitting them for 1.5× and resisting their blows, but is crowded out by Competitors (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees), which hit it 1.5× and shrug off its own attacks. The Weird categories (carrion-aroids, carnivores, mycotrophs and vascular parasites) sit off the wheel and trade neutrally with it. See weaknesses & resistances and categories.
A soft, fast annual forb that spreads bench pressure with its whole kit. As an invasive it chips the enemy back row well, but it is frail; harass, then retreat. It has no resolved edible part, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — a growth boost, not an income stream. On the total-power curve its crossover falls around Level 31 native and 31 invasive: below it the card leans on speed, above it on bulk and attack. It only grows stronger with level, 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.