Critonia morifolia
Critonia morifolia (Critonia morifolia) is a competitor shrub in Supplant — a native-only buffer whose game role is set out below.
This is a shrubby, mulberry-leaved relative of the bonesets of the Americas. In battle it is a Shrub — a Competitor on the succession chart. It is native to eastern North America, western North America and South America and invasive nowhere, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker version of this card.
Its starter attack, Hedge Hammer, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 31 damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Arrested Succession, unlocks at Lv 25: Stops the forest before it starts — the foe stalls and can't heal. The advanced attack, Blackthorn Barrage (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 42.
From Lv 10 it carries Marcescence, +4 DEF once it falls below half HP. At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Lignotuber, so it cannot be Burned — and a Burn aimed at it instead heals it about 4% of its maximum HP, because a chaparral shrub is released by fire rather than harmed by it.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment suits it, adding flat DEF on top of its already-firm armour. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 23 ATK with 11 DEF. As a native it carries a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. On defence, its DEF sits in the firmer shrub band. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 40 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 35 — making it a quick starter that is out-paced as the fight goes on. Retreating it costs 12 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190 and its DEF firms to 21, with attack at 41. Retreat rises to 23 Sun, and its inverted tempo has fallen to a sliver — the speed edge it had young is gone. It ages into a durable mid-line plant rather than a true wall.
On the succession chart a Shrub is a Competitor. Competitor plants hit Ruderal categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Specialist categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
A native-only shrub with respectable offence (its advanced barrage hits hard) and two defensive traits — a below-half DEF boost and fire immunity that heals. A dependable defensive card that banks XP. It has no resolved edible part, so fertilising it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful for levelling.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 24, after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
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.