Cycas circinalis
A tough, slow-hitting Conifer card that shrugs off part of every hit and amplifies your native bench once matured.
Queen Sago is a Conifer card with both roles: native to South Asia and invasive in Africa. That is a narrow invasive range, and it shows — the attacker version of this card is only slightly sharper than the native one, which is exactly what a single introduced region buys. See nativity and categories.
The starter attack, Whomp, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, reading 35 native and 36 invasive. The full weight of the tree, all at once. It is by far the hardest hit this card has.
The free once-per-battle ability, Boreal Establishment, unlocks at level 25 and costs no Sun. Takes hold in cold ground: heal 35%, and the foe can't heal.
The advanced attack, Duff Dive, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun, reading 23 native and 24 invasive. Buries the foe in acid needle litter — it wilts. Note that it hits for considerably less than the starter while costing three times the Sun — reach for it only when its effect is what you need. See moves.
Xylem Tracheids arrives on the first riser at level 10 at full strength. It is flat damage reduction on incoming direct attacks — cavitation resistance, modelled as armour that applies after the usual ratio. It is most valuable against opponents that land many small hits rather than one large one.
Network stacks on at level 68 and amplifies the buffs your native bench is projecting. It is a support trait rather than a combat one, and it rewards a bench built deliberately around native plants instead of a mixed one.
The species record lists no toxicity here and no trait keywords, so no poison rider applies to this card in play. For field gear, the combination of solid armour and flat damage reduction means gear extending its time on the field compounds well. Its growth habit is not vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte, so a Moss Pole does not apply. Its conservation status is endangered.
At level 40 native reads 103 HP and 15 ATK; invasive reads 89 HP and 17 ATK. The gap between those two attack figures is small, which follows from the single invasive region. Armour is 19, which is good, and retreat is 16 Sun. Opening tempo is 32 and sustained tempo is 34. Invasive it pays Faustian bench damage on every damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes on knockout. See stats.
By level 100 native reaches 190 HP and 25 ATK, invasive 165 HP and 29 ATK, with armour at 42. It matures into a durable card rather than a threatening one — the attack stat never really arrives, but the defensive stack does. Retreat rises to 33 Sun and the inverted tempo has fallen to its floor, so expect a very slow, very hard-to-shift plant at the cap.
Conifer is in the Specialist succession group. Specialist outlasts Competitor, so this card hits perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees harder. It loses to Ruderal — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs. See weaknesses and resistances.
This is a defensive card that happens to have one good punch. Lead with the starter attack, because it out-damages the advanced slot outright, and let the armour and damage reduction do the rest. The Specialist type advantage into trees and vines is where it earns its slot — it is genuinely awkward for Competitor decks to remove.
Be realistic about its offence: a low attack stat and a weak advanced attack mean it will not close games. Network at level 68 points it firmly toward a support role on a native-heavy bench.
It is not eaten, so a soil amendment earns no matching fertiliser coins and instead banks the ×1.25 XP an inedible plant pays. See the battle lab.
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.