Leycesteria formosa
Pheasant berry (Leycesteria formosa) is a shrub that buffers your team where it is native and attacks where it has become invasive.
Pheasant berry is a shrub that is a firm defender at home and a fast invader across several regions. It is native to East Asia and South Asia, where it plays a defensive buffer, and has become invasive in Africa, Europe, western North America, and Oceania, where it fights as an attacker.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. Its starter attack, Bramble Lash (unlocked at level 1, 2 Sun), deals 33 as a native or 35 as an invader: A thorny lash. Its once-per-battle ability, Frugivore Pact (level 25, free), is pure utility: Trades fruit for carriage: +3 ATK, and the foe's whole bench sickens. Its advanced attack, Hedgerow Havoc (level 40, 6 Sun), deals 25 native or 27 invasive: The whole hedgerow comes down on the bench.
These are the always-on traits this card actually keeps, and the level each one arrives at (a plant draws at most one trait per growth stage). From level 10, Sclerophylly reduces incoming direct-attack damage by a flat few points — tough, leathery leaves shedding part of every blow. From level 68, Lignotuber makes it immune to Burn, and more: fire does not merely fail to burn it but releases the lignotuber, healing the plant instead.
On the field it draws on field gear to shore up its weaknesses. A Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF that suits its firmer frame. Native and invasive copies want different gear — the native buffer favors defensive and healing picks, the invader favors damage and speed.
Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked, it holds 103 health and 20 attack as a native, with 10 DEF. That is a firm mid-tier armor — armor is diminishing rather than flat, so it shaves a real fraction off small and medium attackers, though a heavy hitter still punches through. Its retreat costs 12 Sun. On tempo it opens at 37 initiative (which orders the first turn) and cruises at 52 speed (which orders every turn after). It is slow off the mark but relentless afterward — it often cedes the opening hit, then out-paces the foe from turn 2. As a native it carries a 15% health cushion (103 versus 89 as an invader), and while benched it projects a green overshield bar onto your active plant, sized by how threatened it is. As an invader its attack identity is built from how widely it has spread, so its 25 attack outstrips its native 20; it pays for that aggression with self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out.
Grown to level 100, its health swells to 190 and its attack to 36, and its armor firms up to 20 DEF — genuinely tough, though never a tree-class wall. Retreat rises to 22 Sun as the older plant grows more rooted, and its once-quick tempo has sunk to a sliver — it goes late in turn order now. Maturing buys it raw bulk and hitting power; it costs it the speed edge it had as a seedling.
In the succession type chart, Pheasant berry's category (shrub) belongs to the Competitor group. Ruderal, Competitor, and Specialist form a wheel: Competitor hits Ruderal plants (annual-forbs, grasses, aquatic plants, and bulbs) for 1.5× damage, and takes 1.5× from Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, and epiphytes), resisting each the other way at about two-thirds. The off-wheel Weird categories are neutral both ways.
A well-rounded card: decent mid armor, a leathery damage buffer, and fire-released healing at high levels, plus a genuine attacker role and good speed abroad. One of the more usable shrubs here in both roles. Off the battlefield it earns money: it has an edible fruit, so feeding it Phosphorus fertilizer pays 1.25× coins (any other nutrient banks 1.25× experience instead). On the power curves below, it fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 30 as a native (level 32 as an invader), after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its fading speed — a shift in which edge dominates, not a sign it is weaker when grown.
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.