False Amaranth

Overview

False Amaranth is a fast-cycling annual weed in Supplant, fielded in the annual forb category. It is native to Africa, East Asia, Europe, Oceania and South Asia and invasive nowhere in the game's regions, so it only ever plays the native, defensive role — there is no attacker version of this card. Its nativity — set by the arena region you fight in — is the spine of how it plays; see Nativity.

Moves

Its kit unlocks in three stages, and most cards you own sit well below the level where all three are live (the numbers on this page are read at level 40, where every slot is unlocked). See Moves and Abilities.

• Cultivate (starter attack, unlocks at level 1, costs 2 Sun): Works the ground it stands in — strike and heal 12%. It has no fixed damage number — it hits harder each time it lands.
• Old-Field Takeover (free ability, unlocks at level 25, once per battle, no Sun): Overruns the whole field — the foe's bench withers and sickens.
• Arrowseed (advanced attack, unlocks at level 40, costs 6 Sun): A barbed seed goes in first and festers. It deals about 38 damage.

None of its attacks carry the initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn on a killing blow — it takes its turns in the normal order.

Abilities

A card keeps at most two always-on traits, one per riser, and the rest of its category pool is dropped. This one holds:

• Duff Stuff — while it holds this, its effective DEF rises by half the summed DEF of your alive benched ruderals (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs), recomputed live so the bonus fades as those allies faint. It comes in on the level 10 riser.
• Reseed — when it is knocked out it leaves a Seedling token in its slot rather than an empty gap. It comes in on the level 68 riser.

See Abilities.

Features

For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment adds flat DEF, worth more on a plant this soft than any single point of its own. Its growth habit is not a climbing or epiphytic one, so it does not take a Moss Pole.

Stats

Read at level 40: it carries 84 HP (with the native +15% cushion already in) and 25 ATK on 2 DEF (almost no armour). Benched as a native, it projects part of the segmented green HP overshield onto your active plant, sized by how threatened this species is; that shield drains front-first against direct hits but is bypassed by poison, recoil and splash. Damage is diminishing armour — a hit scales by ATK ÷ (ATK + DEF), and poison ignores DEF entirely. On Sun (cap 120, refilling in real time), the starter costs 2 and the advanced attack 6; retreating costs 12 Sun.

It is slow to open but faster once the fight settles: its sustained speed (48, which sets turn 2 onward) outruns its initiative (39, which sets turn 1), so it often takes the first hit and then out-paces the foe from the second turn on.

At Level 100

Grown to level 100, its HP climbs to 147 while DEF only inches up to 3 — biomass swells but armour stays soft, so it hardens as a bigger target rather than a tougher one. Retreat rises to 24 Sun, and its early tempo edge has faded to about its 1% floor by the cap.

Weaknesses & Resistances

It belongs to the Ruderal succession group. As a ruderal it presses succession Specialists — succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes — for ×1.5 damage, and is softened to ×0.667 against Competitors (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees). Weird-group plants are neutral both ways. There is no type effectiveness beyond this wheel; see Weaknesses & Resistances.

Gameplay uses

It only ever fights as a native, so play it as a buffer: field it for its HP cushion, or bench it to feed the overshield to a sturdier active. It is not an attacker. It is a middling card overall: fine for earning coins in single-player battles, but soft enough to want backup on the bench in a tougher fight. Its edible part is tagged, so feeding it the matching Nitrogen fertiliser pays ×1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. See the N/P/K economy. It leans on its opening speed early and crosses onto a power footing around level 36, after which its accumulating HP and attack matter more than its fading turn-order edge. It still only gets stronger as it levels — turn order is about a 5% lever.