Lactuca serriola
A widespread annual-forb that races on tempo and hits noticeably harder as an invader, but has essentially no armor.
Prickly lettuce is an annual-forb — a soft, fast weed. It is native across Africa, East Asia, Europe and South Asia and invasive in eastern and western North America, Oceania and South America, so it holds both roles: a native buffer at home, an invasive attacker abroad. The invasive side hits meaningfully harder.
Its opening attack, Seed Scatter (level 1), costs 2 Sun for 29 native / 34 invasive: "Scatters seed across the foe's whole back row." The ability Germination Flush (level 25) does "The seed bank breaks at once: +4 ATK, kept for the match." Its advanced attack, Groundcover Grab (level 40), costs 6 Sun for 29 / 34: "Grabs low and holds — the foe is pinned and sapped."
From level 10 it carries Rapid Cycling — its sustained tempo climbs a point each checkup, up to +5, so it gets faster the longer a fight runs. At level 68 it adds Soil Seed Bank, a revive: when it would be knocked out it clings on at about 15% HP, and this lands about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip-plus save rather than a guarantee. Below level 68 it has only the tempo ramp.
No thorns, no toxin, no keyword — free to hit. Not a climber, so no Moss Pole. Its Rapid Cycling rewards staying in a drawn-out fight; cheap survivability gear (a Ca/Mg amendment) helps it live long enough to build the tempo.
At level 40 it reads, native, HP 103 / ATK 28; invasive, HP 89 / ATK 40 — a clear attacker step. DEF is 1 (floor) and retreat 12 Sun. Opening tempo 36, sustained tempo 42: a slightly slow opener that cruises faster, and Rapid Cycling pushes that sustained speed higher still. Invasive, it pays Faustian self-damage to its bench each attack and concedes 2 prizes on a knockout; native, it lends a +15% HP cushion and a bench overshield.
By the cap, native HP reaches 190 and ATK 51 (invasive 165 / 83), while DEF crawls to only 1 — biomass, not armor. Retreat rises to 24 Sun and its base tempo sinks near floor, though Rapid Cycling still claws some of it back mid-fight. Maturing buys a hard invasive attacker with no durability.
Prickly lettuce is a Ruderal. It hits Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) for ×1.5 and is hit for ×1.5 by Competitors (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs, broadleaf trees), trading evenly with fellow Ruderals.
Native, it is a fast bench buffer. Invasive, it is a decent single-player coin-earner whose damage grows the longer the fight lasts — but its floor DEF means it dies to a solid return hit, so keep backup benched. It is edible with a leaf you eat: a Nitrogen amendment pays ×1.25 coins, any other fertilizer banks ×1.25 XP. It plays as a tempo skirmisher until about level 26, after which its bulk and attack take over; level it up.
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.