Heuchera americana
A low perennial herb that opens with a lingering poison and heals through long fights, playable as an Eastern North American native or a European invader.
American alumroot is a low Perennial herb that fights as a cheap, self-mending skirmisher. It is native to Eastern North America and invasive in Europe, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker (see nativity). It is a modest card: light damage and thin armor, but a slow drip of poison and a couple of heals keep it in fights longer than its size suggests.
Its starter attack, Crown Split, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 42 damage as a native and 42 as an invasive; it also lays a poison that keeps chipping the target over later turns. The free once-per-battle ability, Stabilization, arrives at level 25: Pins the ground down — the foe stalls, and can't break away. The advanced attack, Deep Root Strike, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (42 native / 42 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your alumroots sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn — it wins by outlasting. See moves.
Alumroot keeps a single always-on trait, Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, 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.
Alumroot carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no spore chemistry — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic: no contact recoil and no poison rider beyond its starter move, and it shows no hazard ring. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, general defensive field gear suits its stalling game; as an invasive, lean into offense to make its aggression count.
At level 40 alumroot reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 24 native versus 24 invasive — the invasive edge is real but slim here. DEF is just 4, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (13) and every turn after on its SPD (34), so it is out-paced off the mark but relentless once a fight settles in. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active; as an invasive it pays self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, alumroot swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 43 / 43 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health, never armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature alumroot acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb, alumroot is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and is hit for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike 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 alumroot as a cheap, self-healing filler that trades evenly and buys time. As a native its cushion and bench overshield help a fragile hitter survive; as an invasive its aggression stays middling, so it works better as support than as a finisher. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a steady growth-earner. It fights as a back-loaded skirmisher that leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 12 — and higher levels only help, so keep leveling it.
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.