Lythrum alatum
A native-only American loosestrife that heals off its own strikes and withers whatever bites it, but is paper-thin on defense.
Winged lythrum is a Perennial herb — a soft-bodied loosestrife that trades on self-healing and chip pressure. Unlike its invasive relatives it is native to eastern and western North America and South America, and invasive nowhere, so it only plays the native buffer role. It is a support-leaning card that needs a bench behind it.
Its starter, Herbal Draught, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, deals 30, and heals it 12% of the hit — an attack that pays its own upkeep. The free ability Allelochemical Priming opens at level 25: Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. The advanced attack Winterkill unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun, deals 27, and stops the foe from healing. No move carries an initiative rider.
It keeps two always-on traits. From level 10 it holds Bitter Principle: when an attacker strikes it, the attacker is Withered (a sesquiterpene-lactone response). From level 68 it adds Deep Taproot, which makes it immune to being Bound. Neither is a big board-shaper, but Bitter Principle taxes anything that trades blows with it, and the taproot keeps it from being locked in place.
No combat keyword, and as a perennial herb it is not Moss-Pole-eligible. Its own moves apply Wither and heal-denial, so field gear that extends status pressure or shores up its very low DEF (a Calcium/Magnesium amendment) is the natural fit.
At level 40: HP 103, ATK 26, DEF 4 — a genuinely soft body, near the bottom of the armor bands. On tempo it is a slow opener but a faster cruiser: its initiative (13) is low, so it usually acts second on turn one, but its sustained speed (34) is much higher and carries the tempo from turn two on. As a native it gets the +15% HP cushion and a bench overshield. With such low DEF and only middling ATK, it leans on its self-heal and Wither rather than on trading raw damage.
By level 100 its HP swells to 190, but its DEF barely leaves its band at 8 — a soft weed stays soft even as biomass piles on. ATK reaches 48 and retreat rises to 33 Sun. Its early speed edge collapses to roughly 1% of cap by the endgame. Maturing buys it a much bigger health pool to heal against, not armor.
Perennial-herb is in the Competitor group: ×1.5 into Ruderal, ×0.667 from them, and ×1.5 taken from Specialists. Neutral against other Competitors and the Weird categories.
Play it as a sustain-and-chip native: its self-heal and heal-lock let it stall, and Bitter Principle punishes melee trades, but its thin DEF means it folds to any real burst — keep a wall or an attacker on the bench. It is not an edible plant, so any fertilizer banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins; treat it as a growth and family-tree collection piece rather than a coin generator. It fights on the back of its speed early, but as it levels its bulk carries it — do not avoid leveling it. Each plant runs one Sun bar (cap 120, refilling +1 every 15 minutes). The starter attack costs 2 Sun, the advanced attack 6, and the ability is free — it is priced by being usable only once per battle. Retreating to the bench costs 16 Sun, and an empty bar attack-locks the card until it refills. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and at level 85 a capstone makes the starter free and drops the advanced attack to 2 Sun.
See nativity, moves, abilities, stats, statuses, field gear, weaknesses & resistances, the Battle Lab and the category guide for the mechanics referenced here.
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.