Cypripedium guttatum
A native-only epiphyte that plays as a defensive buffer.
The Spotted Lady's Slipper is an epiphyte in Supplant. It is native to East Asia, Europe, Western North America and South Asia and is recorded as invasive nowhere, so it plays purely as a defensive buffer: a card that shores up your team rather than an attacker.
Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Aerial Root is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Mist Harvest, unlocks at level 25: Combs the mist for moisture: heal 30%, and the foe can't heal. The advanced attack, Cling, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Clings on, pinning the foe.
Its attacks land for about 32 (starter) and 32 (advanced) at the snapshot level.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (23) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (34) decides every turn after. This one is slow off the mark but relentless once the fight settles — it usually loses turn 1 and then takes the tempo from turn 2 onward. See turn order for how the two interact.
Spotted lady's slipper carries one trait per riser. Canopy Anchorage (level 10) grants outright immunity to Bound. Tank Reservoir (level 68) has the plant carry its own HP overshield bar, which matters on a frame this soft. See Abilities.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag.
At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 103, DEF 2, with a retreat cost of 16 Sun and tempo pips of 23 initiative / 34 SPD. Its DEF sits at the soft floor — expect no real plating. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active — its whole role is defensive support. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.
HP creeps up toward 190 but DEF stays at the floor (3); it never stops being frail. Retreat rises to 33 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.
In the succession wheel it is a Specialist. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs). Against its own group and the off-wheel "Weird" categories it is neutral. See the type chart.
Its only role is the native buffer: sit it on the bench to project an overshield, or field it as a body that soaks hits for your carries. An epiphyte is a frail, low-armor card, so this one leans on its traits rather than its body — Canopy Anchorage from level 10 and a Tank Reservoir overshield from level 68. It is inedible in the game's economy, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful as level fodder, not as a coin source. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 18, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, 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.