Dahlia × hortensis
An invasive-only bulb that opens fast, poisons attackers on contact, and pays out edible-root coins.
The Bishop of Llandaff is a bulb (Bulb) that plays as a fast, fragile invasive attacker. It is native nowhere in the current arena regions and invasive in Africa, so it fills the invasive-only role — a racer that hits hard and early, with no native buffer stance.
It opens with Triple Nose at Lv 1 for 2 Sun: Three noses at once, each a lighter hit. As an invasive it deals about 63. Its free once-per-battle ability, Bulb Bank, unlocks at Lv 25 for no Sun: Spends the stored season: +4 ATK and heal 20%. — a permanent +4 ATK plus a heal, spending the bulb's stored season. Its advanced attack, Forcing Function, arrives at Lv 40 for 6 Sun and deals about 36: Forced into bloom early — first, and faster after. It has no initiative rider, so treat its "first, and faster after" as a speed boost, not hard turn-order priority.
It keeps two always-on traits. Lycorine Load arrives at Lv 10: any attacker that strikes it takes Poison from its lycorine alkaloids — a contact retaliation that ticks as damage-over-time, bypassing the overshield and ignoring DEF. Perennating Reserve stacks on at Lv 68: the bulb is a stored-energy organ, giving it a private Sun bar it can spend even above the normal Sun cap. Below Lv 68 it has only the contact Poison.
It carries no special trait keywords, and as a bulb it is not a climber, so it takes no Moss Pole. Standard field gear fits; with near-zero armor, a Ca/Mg amendment is the main way to give it any DEF at all.
Read at Lv 40, where every move is unlocked, its DEF is a rock-bottom 1 — this is a glass cannon. As an invasive it has 89 HP and 29 ATK, a clear step up from its 22 base and the point of playing it. On tempo it is a quick starter and a slower cruiser: opening initiative (45) outruns sustained SPD (37), so it usually strikes first on turn 1 and eases off afterward. It pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack (growing as it levels) and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. Retreat costs 12 Sun. See stats.
Matured, HP swells to 165 and invasive ATK to 56 (against 40 base), so it hits ever harder — but its DEF barely leaves the floor, settling around 1, so it stays extremely frail. Retreat rises to 22 Sun, and its fast tempo sinks toward its floor, dulling the early-strike edge that defined it young. It ages into a bigger cannon, never a tank.
As a bulb it is in the Ruderal succession group: strong (×1.5) into Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) and on the losing side against Competitors (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs, broadleaf trees).
Play it as a fast invasive racer: open first, stack +4 ATK from Bulb Bank, and punish attackers with Lycorine Load's contact Poison — but it is desperately fragile and each of its attacks chips your own bench through Faustian, so it needs to win quickly and wants a buffer behind it. Its edible part is the root, so feeding it Potassium (K) fertilizer pays ×1.25 coins, while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP — a small coin engine on the side of its battle use. It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 32, after which its rising attack and bulk take over.
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.