Filago pyramidata
Broad Leaved Cudweed (Filago pyramidata) is a annual forb that buffers your team where it is native and attacks where it has become invasive.
Broad Leaved Cudweed is an annual forb — a fast weed built around a first-strike opener. It is native to Africa, East Asia, Europe, and South Asia, where it plays a defensive buffer, and has become invasive in western North America, where it fights as an attacker.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. Its starter attack, Quick Bloom (unlocked at level 1, 2 Sun), deals 42 as a native or 42 as an invader: Seizes initiative: first in the wild, acts again on a kill. Its once-per-battle ability, Ruderal Rush (level 25, free), is pure utility: Weedy haste — a burst of speed, kept for the match. Its advanced attack, Covercrop Crush (level 40, 6 Sun), deals 32 native or 33 invasive: Blankets the ground — the foe and its bench wither. Quick Bloom carries an initiative rider. In a wild encounter it takes hard priority and strikes first regardless of speed; if it lands a killing blow, the plant seizes the turn and acts again. In the arena the rider works differently — it does not grant first strike but pays out on a kill, letting the plant keep going after it finishes off an enemy. If both sides bring a rider move, they cancel and normal turn order decides.
These are the always-on traits this card actually keeps, and the level each one arrives at (a plant draws at most one trait per growth stage). From level 10, Photoblastic heals it a small amount each checkup, but only in sunny weather (its germination and growth are light-triggered). From level 68, Ballistic Dispersal flings seed on the way down: when it is knocked out it chips every enemy still standing.
On the field it draws on field gear to shore up its weaknesses. With little natural armor it leans on amendments that add DEF or on healing gear to offset its fragility. Native and invasive copies want different gear — the native buffer favors defensive and healing picks, the invader favors damage and speed.
Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked, it holds 103 health and 26 attack as a native, with 1 DEF. That is thin armor, so it takes close to full damage from any real attacker; its defense is its health pool and its tricks, not its DEF. Its retreat costs 12 Sun. On tempo it opens at 32 initiative (which orders the first turn) and cruises at 39 speed (which orders every turn after). It is slow off the mark but relentless afterward — it often cedes the opening hit, then out-paces the foe from turn 2. As a native it carries a 15% health cushion (103 versus 89 as an invader), and while benched it projects a green overshield bar onto your active plant, sized by how threatened it is. As an invader its attack identity is built from how widely it has spread, so its 28 attack outstrips its native 26; it pays for that aggression with self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out.
Grown to level 100, its health swells to 190 and its attack to 48, but its armor stays low (1 DEF) — it never becomes a wall, just a bigger version of the same soft plant. Retreat rises to 23 Sun as the older plant grows more rooted, and its once-quick tempo has sunk to a sliver — it goes late in turn order now. Maturing buys it raw bulk and hitting power; it costs it the speed edge it had as a seedling.
In the succession type chart, Broad Leaved Cudweed's category (annual forb) belongs to the Ruderal group. Ruderal, Competitor, and Specialist form a wheel: Ruderal hits Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, and epiphytes) for 1.5× damage, and takes 1.5× from Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs, and broadleaf trees), resisting each the other way at about two-thirds. The off-wheel Weird categories are neutral both ways.
A glass cannon with a real trick: its Quick Bloom opener seizes the initiative in the wild and can act again on a kill, and it hits hard. With no armor it dies to anything solid, so open with it and cash the early tempo. It plays the invader in western North America. It is not a coin-earner through fertilizer — feeding it any nutrient banks 1.25× experience rather than coins, so its off-battle value is leveling and family-tree collection. On the power curves below, it fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 24 as a native (level 27 as an invader), after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its fading speed — a shift in which edge dominates, not a sign it is weaker when grown.
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.