Epipactis microphylla
Small leaved Helleborine (Epipactis microphylla) is a specialist epiphyte in Supplant — a native-only buffer whose game role is set out below.
The small-leaved helleborine is a woodland orchid that partly feeds through fungi. In battle it is a Epiphyte — a Specialist on the succession chart. It is native to Africa and Europe and invasive nowhere, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker version of this card.
Its starter attack, Twist, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 27 damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Aerial Anchor, unlocks at Lv 25: Anchors hard to the bark — Bind and Wither the foe. The advanced attack, Rootless Aggression (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 32.
Rootless Aggression carries the initiative rider. In a wild encounter that move takes hard priority and lands before the opponent regardless of either tempo stat (if both sides bring a rider, they cancel and normal turn order decides). In the arena it works differently: a rider strike does not go first, but if it scores a kill — the struck plant actually drops — its user seizes the turn and acts again, and the chain continues as long as it keeps finishing plants.
From Lv 10 it carries Canopy Anchorage, so it can neither be Bound nor shoved — its aerial roots grip rather than let go. At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: CAM Idling, a reliable heal of about 2% of its maximum HP every checkup that keeps working through a Blight.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF, which a soft-bodied plant like this feels most. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 25 ATK with 2 DEF. As a native it carries a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. On defence, its DEF stays near the floor, so it relies on tempo and offence rather than soaking hits. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 24 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 34 — making it slow to open but relentless once it gets going. Retreating it costs 16 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190, but its DEF barely leaves its band at 3 — a soft-category plant stays soft no matter how much biomass it puts on. Attack reaches 44, retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its inverted tempo has sunk to a sliver, so the speed it relied on young is spent. It grows bulkier but never becomes a wall.
On the succession chart a Epiphyte is a Specialist. Specialist plants hit Competitor categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Ruderal categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
Immune to Bind and shove from early on, with reliable self-healing later and one initiative-seizing attack, but soft and low-damage. A slippery defensive curiosity and collection piece that banks XP. It has no resolved edible part, so fertilising it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful for levelling.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 18, after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
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.