Juniperus flaccida
A slow, high-HP conifer that plays as a native attrition wall, healing itself a little and chipping the enemy a little every round.
Drooping juniper is a conifer — a slow, durable Conifer built to outlast rather than out-hit. It is native to eastern and western North America and is recorded as invasive nowhere in the current regions, so it holds only the native buffer role: a high-HP bench wall.
Blazing Pitch unlocks at Lv 1 and costs 2 Sun for 27 damage, setting the foe alight with a Burn. The free once-per-battle ability Allelopathic Duff (Lv 25) deals no damage: Sours the whole forest floor — the foe's bench sickens and withers.. The advanced attack Terpene Trap (Lv 40, 6 Sun) lands 22 and layers a volatile haze that sickens and stalls the target. It carries no initiative rider, so tempo alone sets its turn order.
Its two always-on traits arrive far apart. Evergreen Canopy comes in at Lv 10: it heals about 2% of its maximum HP every checkup in any weather — a small, reliable trickle that fires every checkup, not on the 60% regen roll. Needle Duff stacks on at Lv 68 — its acidic litter chips the opposing active for about 2% of that card's maximum HP each checkup, ignoring DEF and the overshield. Together they make it a slow grind: it heals itself a little and wears the enemy down a little, every round.
No trait keywords, and a conifer is not a climber, so no Moss Pole. As a native wall, fit it with DEF- or overshield-boosting field gear.
At Lv 40 it is the bulkiest card in this set: 140 HP behind 22 DEF, with the +15% native cushion on top and a projected HP overshield when it sits on your bench. Its attack is modest at 19 ATK — it wins by attrition, not force. Unusually, its sustained tempo 31 is higher than its opening tempo 20, so it is a slow starter that picks up: expect it to move late on turn 1 and a little sooner afterward, though it is a slow mover overall. Retreat costs 20 Sun. See stats.
As a conifer it hardens toward a wall: HP climbs to 276 and DEF to 49 on wood density, while ATK only reaches 34. Retreat rises to 44 Sun and its tempo pips fall to about a percent of cap, so the modest turn-2 edge it had young is gone. Maturing buys durability and the steady chip of Needle Duff, at the cost of nearly all its speed.
A conifer is a Specialist. It beats Competitors (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs, broadleaf trees) for x1.5 and resists them to x0.667, but loses to Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), who hit it for x1.5.
Play it as a native attrition wall: park it to feed the overshield, then bring it in to soak damage while Evergreen Canopy tops it off and Needle Duff bleeds the enemy. It is one of the better single-player coin earners among slow cards because it survives long fights, but its own attack is weak, so it wants a hitter alongside it. It is not edible, so fertilizer banks x1.25 XP toward leveling rather than coins. Its bulk makes it power-favored from a low level — it fights as a heavyweight for most of its life, crossing over around Lv 8.
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.