Liatris pycnostachya
A native-only bulb that plays as a defensive buffer.
The Prairie blazing star is a bulb in Supplant. It is native to Eastern North America 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. Bulb Toxin is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Naturalized Sward, unlocks at level 25: Spreads through the whole meadow — the foe's bench withers. The advanced attack, Naturalize, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Spreads — also nicks the bench.
Its starter is a utility opener that deals no direct damage; the advanced attack lands for about 41 at the snapshot level.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (38) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (22) decides every turn after. This one is the quicker starter — it tends to land the opening blow on turn 1, then cede the pace as the fight wears on. See turn order for how the two interact.
It reads Duff Stuff from level 10, and a second passive, Resprout, stacks on at level 68.
Duff Stuff. While it is the active card it hardens on leaf litter, adding half the pooled DEF of any ruderal allies (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs) benched behind it — so it rewards a ruderal-stacked team and does nothing on a mixed bench.
Resprout. A 60% chance to survive one otherwise-lethal hit and cling on at roughly a quarter of its HP. It is a coin-flip-plus reprieve, not a guarantee — useful, but you cannot build around it landing.
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 103, DEF 1, with a retreat cost of 12 Sun and tempo pips of 38 initiative / 22 SPD. Its DEF sits at the soft ruderal floor. 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.
HP grows toward 190 while DEF stays pinned in the soft band (1) — more mass, no real plate. Retreat rises to 23 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 Ruderal. It hits Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees). 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. A soft ruderal whose Resprout reprieve is its main trick. It is a light body and a coin/level earner more than a battle carry. It is inedible in the game's economy, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful as level fodder, not as a coin source. 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 19, 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.