Lathyrus oleraceus
A ruderal legume that leads turn one and plays either arena role — a native across Africa, East Asia and Europe or an invader almost everywhere else.
Garden pea is a soft Annual forb that fights as a front-loaded opener: quick off the mark, slower once a fight goes long, with a bench-borrowed defence and little armor of its own. It is native across Africa, East Asia and Europe and invasive across Eastern and Western North America, Oceania, South America and South Asia, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its shell is thin; its edge is tempo.
Its starter attack, Colonize, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about {{move.starter.power.native}} damage as a native and {{move.starter.power.invasive}} as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Ruderal Rush, arrives at level 25: Weedy haste — a burst of speed, kept for the match. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Somnolent Smell, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (25 native / 30 invasive). One of its moves carries an initiative rider: in wild encounters it seizes the initiative and strikes first, and in the arena it instead finishes a kill and keeps going. Most of your garden pea sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. See Moves.
It keeps two always-on traits. The first, Duff Stuff, arrives on the level 10 riser: while it is the active plant its effective DEF rises by half the combined DEF of your still-alive benched ruderals — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — recomputed live, so the cushion shrinks as those allies faint, though the donors keep their own DEF. It is a genuine, always-on defence, not a one-off. The second, Reseed, arrives on the level 68 riser: when the plant is knocked out a fresh Seedling token steps up in its place — the annual-forb signature. See Abilities.
Garden pea is non-toxic, so it has no contact recoil and no poison rider — striking it costs an attacker nothing. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little DEF — shores up its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 38 invasive — the invasive gap is wide (native ATK 25 up to invasive ATK 36). DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the annual-forb band, so on its own it takes hits with almost no armor and leans on its benched ruderals through Duff Stuff instead. Its tempo is front-loaded: it leads turn 1 on its initiative (44) but is out-paced every turn after on its SPD (33), so it wants to land its damage early. Retreat costs 13 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, it swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 45 / 77 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 1 — as a soft forb it buys bulk in health and none to speak of in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 25 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so even its turn-1 lead is gone and a mature garden pea acts last against almost anything younger.
As a ruderal legume, garden pea sits in the Ruderal succession group. It hits Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs, vines, trees), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Ruderals and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it native as a buffer whose Duff Stuff turns a full ruderal bench into armor while it is up front, and lean on its turn-1 lead to land the first blow before it falls behind; Reseed keeps a body on the field if it drops. As an invasive its higher ATK and initiative rider let it open hard and, in the wild, strike first — but its thin shell means it must win early. On economy it is edible with a resolved fruit, so feeding it Phosphorus pays ×1.25 coins while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP; as a legume, roughly one in four caught wild also arrives with a free Nitrogen amendment for an economy head start, which decomposes after a month. It plays as a quick-starting, slower-cruising skirmisher leaning harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 27 as a native and 28 as an invasive — but it is always stronger at higher levels, 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.