Cucurbita maxima
A slow, soft ruderal forb that plays either arena role — a South American native or a near-global invader.
Great pumpkin is a soft Annual forb that fights as a slow back-loaded skirmisher, badly out-paced on turn 1 and only middling after, with a bench-borrowed defence and little armor of its own. It is native to South America and invasive across Africa, East Asia, Europe, Eastern and Western North America, Oceania and South Asia, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its native attack is low and its tempo poor; this is a weak card, a collection and coin piece.
Its starter attack, Hypergrowth, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 29 damage as a native and 34 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Ruderal Rush, arrives at level 25: Weedy haste — a burst of speed, kept for the match. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Seed Grenade, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (29 native / 34 invasive) and can bind the target. Most of your great pumpkin sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
It keeps two always-on traits. The first, Duff Stuff, arrives on the level 10 riser: while it is the active plant its effective DEF rises by half the combined DEF of your still-alive benched ruderals — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — recomputed live, so the cushion shrinks as those allies faint, though the donors keep their own DEF. It is a genuine, always-on defence, not a one-off. The second, Reseed, arrives on the level 68 riser: when the plant is knocked out a fresh Seedling token steps up in its place — the annual-forb signature. See Abilities.
Great pumpkin is non-toxic, so it has no contact recoil and no poison rider — striking it costs an attacker nothing. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little DEF — shores up its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 17 native versus 31 invasive — the invasive gap is wide and matters, because its native attack is genuinely low (native ATK 17 up to invasive ATK 28). DEF is just 2, at the soft floor of the annual-forb band, so on its own it takes hits with almost no armor and leans on its benched ruderals through Duff Stuff instead. Its tempo is badly back-loaded: turn 1 crawls on its initiative (13) and every turn after runs on its SPD (34), so it almost always moves last early on. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, it swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 30 / 66 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 3 — as a soft forb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature great pumpkin acts last against almost anything younger.
As a ruderal forb, great pumpkin sits in the Ruderal succession group. It hits Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs, vines, trees), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Ruderals and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it native as a buffer whose Duff Stuff turns a full ruderal bench into armor while it is up front, with its overshield helping your active survive and Reseed keeping a body on the field if it drops — that support role suits it better than fighting, given how low its native attack and tempo are. As an invasive its ATK rises enough to trade, but it moves late and folds fast, so lean on its heal and its bench, not on force. On economy it is edible with a resolved fruit, so feeding it Phosphorus pays ×1.25 coins while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth. It plays as a slow-starting, faster-cruising skirmisher leaning harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 14 as a native and 15 as an invasive — but it is always stronger at higher levels, so there is no 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.