Emilia sonchifolia
A weak annual-forb whose opening attack ramps harder each hit and pools defence from your benched ruderals, played as a neutral card with no native or invasive form.
Sow thistle is a slight Annual forb that fights as a pioneer: it has no native or invasive form, so it plays on a plain neutral line, borrowing defence from its bench and ramping its opening attack the longer it lands. It is a modest card — soft, low on damage, and dependent on allies for its bulk — but it colonizes a fight patiently, hitting a little harder each turn. Treat it as a collection and coin piece rather than a heavy hitter.
Its starter attack, Seed Scatter, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun with no fixed damage number — it ignores armor and hits harder each time it lands. The free once-per-battle ability, Ecesis, arrives at level 25: Establishes fast: heal 35% and gain speed. It is a self-buff that raises its attack. The advanced attack, Groundcover Grab, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (27 native / 30 invasive). Most of your sow thistle sit below level 40, where only the ramping starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Sow thistle keeps two always-on traits. Duff Stuff arrives on the level 10 riser: while it is active, its effective DEF rises by half the summed DEF of your alive benched ruderals — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — recomputed live, so the cushion shrinks as those allies faint while the donors keep their own DEF. Reseed arrives on the level 68 riser: when sow thistle is knocked out, a fresh Seedling token steps up in its place, the annual-forb signature. Both work at full strength from the riser that grants them. See Abilities.
Sow thistle is non-toxic, so it carries no contact recoil and no poison rider — nothing punishes an attacker for striking it. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. With no native or invasive form it takes gear on its plain line: defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium or magnesium amendment for a little DEF — shores up its thin armor, while offensive gear helps its weak attack. See statuses.
At level 40 sow thistle reads 103 HP and 22 ATK — low on both counts. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the annual-forb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and leans on Duff Stuff to borrow bulk from the bench. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its lower initiative (41) and every turn after on its higher SPD (47), so it is out-paced off the mark but faster once the fight drags on. Retreat costs 12 Sun. With neither a native nor an invasive form it gains no HP cushion or overshield and pays no invasive self-damage; it simply fights on its base line. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, sow thistle climbs to 190 HP and 40 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 1 — as a soft forb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so its own defence stays paper-thin and the bench cushion matters more than ever. Retreat rises to 24 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature card acts last against almost anything younger.
As an annual forb, sow thistle sits in the Ruderal succession group. It hits Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs, broadleaf trees), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Ruderal plants and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play sow thistle patiently: lead its ramping, armor-ignoring opener and let it climb, keep benched ruderals alive to feed Duff Stuff, and reseed back in when it falls. It is a weak card overall — better as a support body and a collection entry than as a finisher — so lean on the bench cushion and the ramp rather than expecting big hits. It is edible at the leaf, so feeding it Nitrogen pays ×1.25 coins while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth. It plays as a slow opener that gathers speed and force in long fights and leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 36 — 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.