Malus baccata
A thorny broadleaf tree that walls up on defense and mends its bench, playable as an East/South Asian native buffer or an invader across Europe and North America.
Siberian Crab Apple is a Broadleaf tree that fights as a durable wall: heavy armor, thorns that bite back, and a bench-healing trait late on. It is native to East Asia and South Asia and invasive across Europe and both coasts of North America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. As a tree it is one of the tougher cards here.
Its starter attack, Acorn Drop, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 26 damage as a native and 30 as an invasive and splashing damage onto the enemy bench. The free once-per-battle ability, Leaf Litter, arrives at level 25: Buries the ground in litter — the foe's whole bench withers. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Out on a Limb, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (40 native / 46 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your Siberian Crab Apple sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Siberian Crab Apple keeps two always-on traits. Thorns arrives at full strength on the level 10 riser and damages anything that strikes it in melee. Mycorrhiza arrives on the level 68 riser and heals a benched ally, but as a sustain trait it fires only about 60% of the time, so the bench mending is frequent rather than guaranteed. See Abilities.
Siberian Crab Apple is non-toxic — it carries no poison rider — but its Thorns trait does punish melee attackers once it reaches the level 10 riser, so this is contact damage rather than poison. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear further hardens an already tough card; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 Siberian Crab Apple reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 23 native versus 33 invasive — a wide invasive gain. DEF is 26, a broadleaf-tree wall that shrugs off hits the soft cards cannot. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (41), which leads, while every turn after runs on its lower SPD (34), so it opens fast and is out-paced late. Retreat costs 14 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and projects an HP overshield onto your active while benched; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, Siberian Crab Apple swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 43 / 66 ATK, and unlike the soft cards its DEF climbs to 60 — a genuine wall that keeps it standing against real hitters. Retreat rises to 28 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature tree acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing buys a great deal of durability and switches on Mycorrhiza's bench healing; it costs turn order.
As a broadleaf tree, Siberian Crab Apple 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 and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Siberian Crab Apple as a wall: as a native, anchor it up front to soak hits, punish melee with Thorns, and heal the bench with Mycorrhiza once it matures; as an invasive, its much higher ATK plus the tree's bulk make it a strong, self-sustaining attacker. It is one of the better cards in this set thanks to its armor. Out of battle it pays well: it is edible with a resolved fruit, so feeding it Phosphorus pays ×1.25 coins, while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP. It plays as a quick opener that leans on its wall as it levels, crossing over around level 22 as a native and 23 as an invasive — 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.