Maranta cristata
A quick-opening perennial herb that poisons on its first hit, mends mid-fight and can cling to life once, playing either a native South American buffer or an East Asian invader.
Maranta cristata is a low, broad-leaved Perennial herb that fights as a quick-opening poisoner: it leads the first turn, poisons what it strikes, and can mend itself part-way through a fight. It is native to South America and invasive across East Asia, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its own damage is modest; its edge is the poison and its staying power.
Its starter attack, Crown Split, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 38 damage as a native and 40 as an invasive, and leaving the target poisoned. The free once-per-battle ability, Seral Persistence, arrives at level 25: Refuses to be replaced: heal 60%, and the foe can't heal. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (27 native / 28 invasive) as a plain hit. Most of your maranta sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Maranta cristata keeps one always-on trait, Resprout, which arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 riser — so for most of the card's life it runs at the weaker half. When it works it lets maranta survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health, but as a sustain trait it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a lucky reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Maranta cristata does not hold the Toxin trait, so striking it carries no contact recoil; its poison comes only from its starter attack, not from being touched. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche or a calcium or magnesium amendment for a little DEF — offsets its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 maranta reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 17 native versus 21 invasive — a modest step up when invasive. DEF is just 4, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on its poison and its 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 opens quick but is out-paced in a long fight. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; 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, maranta swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 30 / 38 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 — as a soft herb it buys bulk in health and little 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 maranta acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing does bring Resprout to full strength, its one real dividend.
As a perennial herb, maranta 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 maranta as a quick-opening poisoner: lead with it to poison the enemy active, then mend through the fight and lean on Resprout to buy an extra turn. As a native it is a fine bench buffer; as an invasive its higher ATK helps, though it still wins by attrition rather than force and its bench pays for the aggression. On economy, maranta is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as a quick opener that leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 33 as a native and 36 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.