Gurania lobata
Frog's foot gourd (Gurania lobata) is a vine that plays a native buffer, with no introduced range to make it an attacker.
Frog's foot gourd is a vine — a smothering plant that hits hardest while it is fresh. It is native to South America and has no introduced range, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker scenario for it.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. Its starter attack, Creeping Smother (unlocked at level 1, 2 Sun), deals 26 as a native: Creeps over and smothers — the foe weakens. Its once-per-battle ability, Gap Colonizer (level 25, free), is pure utility: Races into a light gap: +4 ATK and speed, kept. Its advanced attack, Choke Point (level 40, 6 Sun), deals 23 native: Finds the narrow spot and closes it — the foe stalls and wilts.
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, Heteroblasty grants bonus attack power on turns 1 and 2 — the aggressive juvenile foliage before the vine settles into its adult form. From level 68, Apical Dominance grants bonus attack power while the vine is at full health: an untouched leader shoot hits hardest.
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.
Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked, it holds 103 health and 22 attack as a native, with 8 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 16 Sun. On tempo it opens at 32 initiative (which orders the first turn) and cruises at 34 speed (which orders every turn after). Its opening and sustained tempo are close, so it holds a steady place in turn order across the fight. 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.
Grown to level 100, its health swells to 190 and its attack to 39, but its armor stays low (15 DEF) — it never becomes a wall, just a bigger version of the same soft plant. Retreat rises to 33 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, Frog's foot gourd's category (vine) belongs to the Competitor group. Ruderal, Competitor, and Specialist form a wheel: Competitor hits Ruderal plants (annual-forbs, grasses, aquatic plants, and bulbs) for 1.5× damage, and takes 1.5× from Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, and epiphytes), resisting each the other way at about two-thirds. The off-wheel Weird categories are neutral both ways.
A modest card. Its attack bonuses only apply while it is healthy or in the opening turns, so it wants to strike early and be swapped before it is worn down. Native-only and lightly armored, it is more a collection piece than a mainstay. 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 22, 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.