Matteuccia struthiopteris
An invasive-only fern that fights as a self-healing, poison-leading attacker with thin armor and a strong cruising speed.
Fiddle fern (ostrich fern) is a woodland Perennial herb that fights as a self-healing, poison-leading attacker. In the arena it exists only as an invasive card, spreading into Europe, so there is no native buffer version — you always play it forward as an aggressor. It is a fair, soft attacker: decent damage and healing let it grind, but almost no armor keeps it fragile. See nativity.
Its starter attack, Taproot Anchor, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun for about 29 damage, leaving the target poisoned so it keeps losing health over the next turns — see statuses. The free once-per-battle ability, Autogenic Reaction, arrives at level 25: Remakes its own ground: +6 ATK and heal 25%. Its advanced attack, Winterkill, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (26 damage) and mends the fern as it strikes. Most of your specimens sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. See moves.
Fiddle fern keeps a single 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 rather than a guarantee. See abilities.
It carries no trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it, and it is non-toxic with no hazard ring. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As an invasive attacker, offensive field gear suits it best, pushing its damage and healing further, since it will be up front rather than benched.
At level 40 it reads 89 HP with 23 ATK in its invasive form. DEF is just 4, low in the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is uneven: turn 1 runs on a modest initiative (32), so it is out-paced off the mark, but every turn after runs on a higher SPD (34), so it grows relentless as a fight drags on. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As an invasive it draws its ATK from trait sourcing but pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack, and it concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100 it swells to 165 HP and 42 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 — as a soft fern it gains bulk in health, never armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun and its tempo sinks to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature fern acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing buys HP, poison, and healing volume, not toughness.
As a fern in play it sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and is struck for only x0.667 by 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 a forward invasive attacker: open with poison, then heal through the reply and let its strong cruising speed grind bulkier foes down over several turns. Its thin armor means it wants to be finishing fights, not soaking them, and its Faustian bench damage means you should not stack it behind cards you need kept healthy. It is a fair mid-tier aggressor, best against Ruderal targets it beats. Its value is also economic: it is inedible, so any nutrient banks x1.25 XP rather than coins. It fights as a slow-opening skirmisher whose bulk takes over as it levels, crossing around level 26 — always stronger in raw stats higher up, so never 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.