Lysimachia borealis
A modest perennial-herb skirmisher that poisons on its opening hit and mends mid-fight, played purely as an Eastern and Western North American native buffer.
Northern Starflower is a low Perennial herb that fights as a poisoning skirmisher — it poisons on its opening hit and can mend once mid-fight. It is native only to Eastern and Western North America, so the arena fields it purely as a native buffer; there is no invasive version. Its own damage is on the low side, and its armor is thinner still.
Its starter attack, Rhizome Creep, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage and leaving the target poisoned. The free once-per-battle ability, Chronosequence, arrives at level 25: Time on its side: +3 ATK and speed, kept. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (30 damage), a plain, harder hit. Most of your starflower sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Northern Starflower keeps one always-on trait, Resprout. It arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 riser — a real difference for most of the card's life. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health, but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a lucky reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Northern Starflower is non-toxic — it carries no Toxin trait, so striking it costs an attacker nothing and it lays no contact recoil or poison rider of its own. 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 — helps offset its thin armor. See statuses.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP with ATK of 25 — modest on both counts. DEF is just 4, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and leans on its poison and heal instead. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (51) and every turn after on its slower SPD (34), so it leads off the mark but is out-paced in a longer fight. Retreat costs 16 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, it swells to 190 HP and 45 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 — as a soft herb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature starflower acts last against almost anything younger.
As a perennial herb, Northern Starflower sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors (perennial herbs, shrubs, broadleaf trees) and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Northern Starflower as a support-leaning native buffer: bench it to project its HP overshield onto your active, or lead with it to poison the enemy and heal through the early exchanges. It is not a strong attacker — its damage is low and its armor thinner still — so it earns its slot as a collection and buffer piece rather than a finisher. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as a fast opener that leans on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 30 — 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.