Hoslundia opposita
A hard-hitting African shrub that buffs, saps, hardens as it wears down and heals the bench when it falls — a native-only card.
Butter berry is a mid-sized Shrub 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 has no invasive form, so the arena only ever plays it as a native buffer for your bench. It hits respectably hard for a shrub, thickens up once it is hurt, and heals your whole bench when it finally falls.
Its starter attack, Drupe Drop, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 27 damage — a plain hit with no rider. The free once-per-battle ability, Nurse Shrub, arrives at level 25: Shelters the whole bench — evens their health, and calls the fallen back. It raises the plant's attack for the fight. The advanced attack, Briar Cage, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (22 damage) and saps the target, wearing it down. Most of your butter berries sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn.
Butter berry holds two always-on traits, and its berries are not flavour text — they are the level-68 payout. Marcescence (level 10) adds +4 DEF at half HP or below. Drupe Mast (level 68) heals every surviving benched ally 8% of its max HP when this card is knocked out. See Abilities.
Butter berry carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin chemistry — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic: no contact recoil and no poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, general defensive field gear (a Cloche, a Ca/Mg amendment) helps it reach the late-fight window where its tempo shines.
At level 40 butter berry reads 103 HP with ATK of 26 — a strong figure for its class. It is a native-only card, so it has no separate invasive attacker form. DEF is 11, in the middle shrub band, so it has modest armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on a lower initiative (36), but every turn after runs on a higher SPD (39), so it loses the opening exchange but pulls ahead the longer a fight lasts. Retreat costs 11 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, butter berry swells to 190 HP and 47 ATK, with DEF reaching 21 — a shrub gains real health and a moderate amount of armor, toughening up without ever becoming a true wall. Retreat rises to 21 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so its late-fight speed advantage disappears. Maturing buys bulk and damage, not resilience.
As a shrub, butter berry 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 butter berry as a native attacker that wants long fights: its strong ATK, the attack buff, and its late-fight tempo let it grind down an opponent, while the HP cushion and bench overshield support it in a native role. Its own healing only lands on its knockout, so pair it with cards that supply shields while it is still standing. 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 23 — 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.