Hypochaeris radicata
Cat's ear is a tough, wide-spread perennial-herb — a rosette-armored buffer at home and a genuinely dangerous attacker across the many regions it has invaded.
Cat's ear is a perennial-herb: a persistent, mid-tempo card with a bit more staying power than a pure weed. It is native to Africa and Europe, where it buffers your bench, and invasive across a wide sweep — East Asia, Eastern and Western North America, Oceania, South America and South Asia — where it becomes a hard attacker. That broad introduced range is not cosmetic: it is exactly what drives its attack identity up when it plays as an invader.
Its starter, Rhizome Creep (Lv 1, 2 Sun), creeps underground into the foe's back row for 30 native / 34 invasive; it carries no initiative rider. The once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming (Lv 25, free), primes root chemistry to Poison the foe — Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. — a free source of damage-over-time that ignores DEF and bypasses the overshield. The advanced attack, Deep Root Strike (Lv 40, 6 Sun), draws on deep roots for 43 native / 47 invasive — its heaviest single blow. See moves.
Two always-on traits, one per stage. From Lv 10 it carries Basal Rosette, a flat +3 DEF that models a mowing- and grazing-resistant rosette — small, but meaningful on a card whose category floor is otherwise near zero. At Lv 68 Vernalization Memory adds +5 ATK from turn 3 onward, rewarding a fight that goes long: the early exchanges are ordinary, then it bolts. Neither rides the 60% sustain chance — both are steady, unconditional effects.
It holds no thorns or Toxin trait, so it does not bite an attacker on contact; its offense comes from the ability's applied Poison, not a passive. It is not a climber, so no Moss Pole. A Calcium/Magnesium amendment stacks further DEF onto the rosette for a native wall build; an invasive copy would rather amplify its already-strong attack. See field gear.
At Lv 40 (Perennial herb) it reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive and 26 / 38 ATK — one of the wider native-to-invasive attack gaps you will see, a direct read on how globally it has spread. Its displayed DEF is a soft 1 at the herb floor, with the Basal Rosette trait adding a further flat +3 in combat on top of that. Opening tempo (initiative) is 26 and sustained tempo (Speed) is 46 — a slow starter that speeds up, so it tends to lose turn 1 and win the turns after. Retreat costs 12 Sun. Native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a bench overshield; invasive it trades that for the attack edge, pays Faustian self-damage to its bench per damaging hit, and concedes 2 prizes on a knockout. See stats.
By Lv 100 HP reaches 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK 48 / 79, while its displayed DEF stays at 1 — a herb never hardens into a wall, though the Basal Rosette's flat +3 keeps applying in combat. Retreat rises to 23 Sun and the inverted tempo sinks to roughly its 1% floor, so the mature card leans entirely on bulk and attack rather than the turn order it once controlled. Maturing turns it from a slippery skirmisher into a heavy, rooted hitter.
As a perennial-herb it belongs to the Competitor group: strong (×1.5) against Ruderals (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), weak (×0.667) into Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), even against other Competitors and the Weird categories. Its poison ability is its answer to armored tanks, since Poison ignores DEF entirely. See weaknesses & resistances.
This is one of the better cards in this group. Native, it is a durable buffer whose rosette DEF and free poison let it grind; invasive, its high ATK plus a DEF-ignoring poison make it a real threat that can pressure both soft racers and armored walls. It is edible with a resolved leaf part, so Nitrogen fertilizer pays ×1.25 coins — a useful side income — while other nutrients bank ×1.25 XP. It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 24 (Lv 25 as an invasive), after which its bulk and attack take over.
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.