Japanese anemone

Overview

Japanese anemone (Eriocapitella × hybrida) is a perennial herb, a resilient mid-weight body in battle terms. It is registered as neither native nor invasive in any battle region, so it always fields its plain neutral card — no native health cushion, no invasive attacking edge. Read across the fight it is a quick starter that seizes the opening turn, then cruises slower.

Moves

The kit fills in as the card levels — most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 used for the numbers here.

• Bitter Sap (unlocks at Level 1) is the starter attack: Bitter compounds poison the foe. As an invasive attacker it deals 31. It costs 2 Sun.
• Hemicryptophyte Hold (unlocks at Level 25) is the free once-per-battle ability: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. It costs no Sun and deals no damage — it is pure utility.
• Self-Medicate (unlocks at Level 40) is the advanced attack: Strikes and treats itself — heal 30%. It deals 31 as an invasive attacker. It costs 6 Sun.

Abilities

This card keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category's pool and locked in once and for all — everything else the pool offered was dropped.

• From Level 10, Bitter Principle Withers any attacker that strikes it (2 stacks), the bitter sap sapping the striker's strength.
• From Level 68, Deep Taproot makes it immune to Bind — it can never be held in place.

Features

It carries no special keyword traits — no innate toxin, thorns, carnivory or succulence — so it plays as a straight perennial herb. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climbing one, so it does not take a Moss Pole. For field gear, a native copy leaning into the defender role wants a Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment to firm up its otherwise thin DEF; an attacker copy would rather spend the slot on the fertilizer that suits its role, and a Cloche is worth holding if you expect a poison-heavy opponent. See nativity for how region sets its role and abilities for the trait model.

Stats

Read at the snapshot level of 40, where every move is unlocked: 89 HP, 4 DEF, tempo of 43 opening / 34 sustained, and a 16 Sun retreat cost. Its Sun bar caps at 120 and refills in real time; from Level 52 it also regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a Level 85 capstone makes the starter free. Its DEF is soft (4 at the snapshot level), the low perennial herb band, so it leans on health and recovery rather than armor. See stats for the full model.

At Level 100

Grown to the cap, its HP reaches 165 while DEF firms only modestly to 8 — the middling perennial herb band, tougher than a weed but no wall. The retreat cost rises to 33 Sun, and the inverted tempo has fallen to about 1% of cap from its higher early reading. Maturing buys bulk and a little more staying power, at the cost of the speed it had when young.

Weaknesses & Resistances

By category it belongs to the Competitor succession group. On the type wheel, Competitor deals extra damage to Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatic plants and bulbs) and takes extra from Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes); a strong matchup lands at ×1.5 and a resisted one at ×0.667. Everything off those two edges — including the Weird categories — is neutral. See weaknesses and resistances.

Gameplay uses

Holding neither role, it is a neutral utility card — no cushion and no attacking bonus — so it earns its slot on its moves and traits rather than on a nativity edge. It is a serviceable mid-weight card — usable in single-player and worth collecting, without being a top-tier pick. It is inedible, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP — a steady way to level a collection piece. Leveling steadily trades falling turn-order speed for rising bulk and attack: it fights as a fast skirmisher up to about Level 32, after which its power takes over — it is monotonically stronger the higher you level it, so there is never a reason to hold it back. The Total power panel below charts this trade-off for each stance it can hold.