Liatris spicata
A soft native perennial herb that poisons, heals as it fights, and can cheat one death - a defender, never an attacker.
Dense blazing-star is a soft Perennial herb that fights as a poisoning self-healer with a built-in second chance. It is native to Eastern North America and has no invasive form, so it always plays the native side - a buffer for your bench, never an attacker. It has strong ATK for a herb but almost no armor, so it trades on chip damage, healing, and luck. See nativity.
Its starter attack, Stolon Reach, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 33 damage and leaving poison on the target. The free once-per-battle ability, Chronosequence, arrives at level 25: Time on its side: +3 ATK and speed, kept. The advanced attack, Bitter End, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (30 damage) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your blazing-stars sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Blazing-star keeps one always-on trait: Resprout. It draws only one eligible trait, so Resprout comes in at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health - but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
It carries no trait keywords. Its attacks apply poison, but the plant itself is non-toxic to the touch - no contact recoil and no hazard ring, so nothing punishes an attacker merely for hitting it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. Since it only plays the native side, defensive field gear that shores up its thin armor suits it best.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP and 26 ATK; there is no invasive card, so it always plays the native side. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (22) and every turn after on its SPD (22), the same value, so it is neither a fast opener nor a fast cruiser - and both numbers are low, so it usually acts late. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, blazing-star swells to 190 HP and 48 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 - a soft herb gains health, never armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 24 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature blazing-star acts last against almost anything young. Leveling buys HP, healing power, and a matured Resprout, not a wall.
As a perennial herb, dense blazing-star is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and takes only x0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which hit it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it as an aggressive native chipper: open with poison, mend through the fight, and count on Resprout for one extra turn. Its damage is strong for a herb, but its fragility means it works best striking and retreating behind a tougher plant rather than standing in. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward faster leveling rather than coins. In player-versus-player (PvP) matches it fights at an even tempo throughout and relies more on its HP as it levels, crossing over around level 10 - always stronger the higher you take it.
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.