Gerbera jamesonii
A soft, relentless-cruising herb that poisons and self-heals but has essentially no armor, playing either role — an African native or a wide invader.
Gerbera daisy is a soft Perennial herb that fights as a slow starter and a relentless cruiser: out-paced on turn 1, then increasingly hard to shake as a fight drags on. It is native to Africa and invasive across East Asia, Oceania, South America, and South Asia, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer or an invasive attacker. It is a fragile card that leans on poison, self-healing, and a survival trick rather than on any armor.
Its starter attack, Steady Growth, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 32 damage as a native and 35 as an invasive, and it can poison the target for ongoing damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Autogenic Reaction, arrives at level 25: Remakes its own ground: +6 ATK and heal 25%. It mends the plant. The advanced attack, Bitter End, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (26 native / 30 invasive) and heals as it strikes. Most of your daisies sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn.
Gerbera daisy keeps a single always-on ability: Resprout. It draws only one eligible trait, so Resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Gerbera daisy carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin recoil — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it, though its starter can still apply poison. It is non-toxic on contact: no recoil and no passive poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear that shores up its paper-thin armor helps it survive; as an invasive, lean into offense.
At level 40 Gerbera daisy reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 16 native versus 26 invasive — the invasive form gains a solid edge (native ATK 16 to invasive ATK 24). DEF is just 1, at the perennial-herb floor, so it takes hits with essentially no armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on a lower initiative (38), but every turn after runs on a higher SPD (44), so it loses the opening exchange but pulls ahead the longer a fight lasts. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, an HP overshield onto your active; 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, Gerbera daisy swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 28 / 53 ATK, but as a soft herb its DEF stays at 1 — it gains health and almost no armor, so a real hitter still cuts through it. Retreat rises to 24 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so its late-fight speed edge disappears. Maturing buys HP and a matured Resprout, not resilience.
As a perennial herb, Gerbera daisy is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and is struck for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which hit it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Gerbera daisy as a poisoner that wants long fights. As a native the HP cushion, self-heals, and Resprout stretch its slim body far enough to grind an opponent down with poison and tempo; as an invasive its higher ATK makes it a genuine attacker, at the cost of chipping its own bench. Its bare armor keeps it out of straight trades against real hitters. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward leveling rather than coins. It fights as a slow skirmisher that grows relentless with time, and it only gets stronger at higher levels, crossing over around level 31 as a native and 33 as an invasive — 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.