Nepeta × faassenii
A light European invasive perennial-herb attacker — a plain hitter that can mend once mid-fight and cling on through a lucky Resprout, but with almost no armor.
Catmint is a Perennial herb that fights as a light invasive attacker — a plain hitter that can mend once mid-fight and cling to life through a lucky Resprout. It is invasive in Europe with no native card, so the arena fields it only as an invasive attacker. Its armor is almost nonexistent, so it lives and dies on hitting first and often.
Its starter attack, Taproot Anchor, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 29 damage, rising to 31 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming, arrives at level 25: Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Crown Division, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (38 native / 44 invasive), a harder plain hit. Most of your catmint sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Catmint keeps one always-on trait, Resprout. It arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 riser — a real difference for most of the card's life. When it works it lets catmint survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health, but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a lucky reprieve rather than a plan. See Abilities.
Catmint is non-toxic — it carries no Toxin trait, so striking it triggers no contact recoil and it lays no poison rider. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As an invasive, offensive field gear suits it best, leaning into the attack that is its only real threat — its armor is too thin to defend meaningfully. See statuses.
At level 40 catmint reads 89 HP with ATK of 29 as an invasive, up from a 22 baseline — the invasive step-up is its whole case for attacking. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (35) and every turn after on its faster SPD (36), so it is out-paced off the mark but quicker once a fight settles in. Retreat costs 11 Sun. 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, catmint swells to 165 HP and 56 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 — as a soft herb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 21 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature catmint acts last against almost anything younger.
As a perennial herb, Catmint sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors (perennial herbs, shrubs, broadleaf trees) and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Catmint as a light invasive racer: use its faster cruising SPD to trade blows once a fight opens, mend once with the ability, and hope Resprout catches a lethal hit. It is a weak attacker — its damage is modest and its armor thinner still — so it is best against Ruderal teams it strikes for ×1.5 and poor against anything that hits back hard. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as a slow-starting racer that leans on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 27 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.