Juniperus communis
A native-only conifer that plays as a defensive buffer.
The Common juniper is a conifer in Supplant. It is native to Africa, East Asia, Europe, Eastern North America, Western North America and South Asia and is recorded as invasive nowhere, so it plays purely as a defensive buffer: a card that shores up your team rather than an attacker.
Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Raysteal is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Litterfall, unlocks at level 25: Drops a season of needles — the foe's whole bench withers. The advanced attack, Conifer Conniption, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Thrashes twice with stiff boughs.
Its attacks land for about 34 (starter) and 44 (advanced) at the snapshot level.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (7) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (7) decides every turn after. The two are close on this card, so it neither dominates nor loses the tempo battle outright. See turn order for how the two interact.
It reads Photosynthesis from level 10, and a second passive, Network, stacks on at level 68.
Photosynthesis. A 60% chance to heal itself in sunny weather — reliable-ish grind, but weather-dependent and never guaranteed.
Network. While this plant sits on your bench it lends the active card a gold Sun-overshield bar — a reserve that is only spent once the base Sun bar runs dry. It is a support perk it plays for any active, native or invasive, so its real value shows when it is benched, not fighting.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag.
At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 140, DEF 22, with a retreat cost of 20 Sun and tempo pips of 7 initiative / 7 SPD. Its DEF is conifer-grade wall, hardening with level on its wood density; damage is diminishing armor, not flat subtraction, and only poison bypasses it. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active — its whole role is defensive support. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.
It hardens into a wall — DEF rising to about 49 on wood density and HP toward 276. A slow, very durable endgame body. Retreat rises to 44 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.
In the succession wheel it is a Specialist. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs). Against its own group and the off-wheel "Weird" categories it is neutral. See the type chart.
Its only role is the native buffer: sit it on the bench to project an overshield, or field it as a body that soaks hits for your carries. Conifers are walls: high wood-density DEF and deep HP make this a genuinely strong front-line card — slow, but very hard to shift, and its 60% heals help it grind. It is edible (the game tags the fruit as the eaten part), so feeding it the matching Phosphorus fertilizer pays ×1.25 coins — a steady earner between battles; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 1, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, so there is never a 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.