Cosmos caudatus
The Wild cosmos (Cosmos caudatus) is a Annual forb that plays as a defensive buffer where native and an attacker where invasive.
The Wild cosmos is an edible leafy annual eaten across Southeast Asia. In battle it plays as a Annual forb. It is native to Eastern North America, Western North America, and South America, where it takes the defensive buffer role, and invasive in Africa, Oceania, and South Asia, where it becomes an attacker.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. The starter attack, Cultivate, is available from Level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing 31 as a native and 34 as an invasive. Its effect: Works the ground it stands in — strike and heal 12%.
The free ability, Nudation (Level 25), costs no Sun because it is once per battle: Strips the ground bare — heavy Wither, and the foe can't heal.
The advanced attack, Groundcover Grab (Level 40, 6 Sun), deals 28 native and 31 invasive: Grabs low and holds — the foe is pinned and sapped. 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 Duff Stuff, a real defence that lifts its effective DEF by half the summed DEF of your still-standing benched ruderal allies, so it hardens behind a full bench and softens as those allies faint. From Level 68 a second, different trait stacks on top: Ballistic Dispersal, which flings seed across the board when it is knocked out and chips every enemy. 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. Its edible leaf means the matching Nitrogen (N) fertilizer pays bonus coins (see Gameplay uses). 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 12 Sun. Turn 1 is ordered by its initiative (45) and every turn after by its SPD (39). It is a quick starter that fades — it tends to land the first hit, then gets out-paced turn on turn. 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 23 native ATK against 32 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 22 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 ruderal with edible leaves — worth more for fertilizer coins than for battle. Invasive it applies wilt pressure, but keep it benched behind a tougher card. Because its edible part is a resolved leaf, feeding it Nitrogen pays ×1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. On the total-power curve its crossover falls around Level 30 native and 32 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.