Medicago falcata
A poisoning perennial-herb skirmisher that clings on through a resprout and plays either arena role — a Eurasian native or a widespread invader.
Sickle medick is a Perennial herb that fights as a poisoning skirmisher, opening with a hit that leaves the target poisoned and clinging to life through a resprout. It is native to East Asia, Europe and South Asia and invasive across Africa, Eastern and Western North America and South America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its armor is almost nonexistent, so it wins by poison and attrition rather than by soaking hits.
Its starter attack, Bitter Sap, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage as a native and 34 as an invasive, and leaving the target poisoned. The free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, arrives at level 25: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. The advanced attack, Rhizome Lock, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (22 native / 26 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your sickle medick sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Sickle medick 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, since it spends the long stretch between risers at the weaker version. When it works, Resprout 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.
Sickle medick is non-toxic, so there is no contact recoil and no poison rider from being struck — its poison comes only from its own attack. 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 — offsets its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 sickle medick reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 27 native versus 38 invasive — the invasive gap is wide. DEF is just 2, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on its poison and healing instead. Its tempo is nearly even, tilting to the cruise: turn 1 runs on its initiative (42) and every turn after on a slightly higher SPD (43), so it is a shade quicker in a long fight than off the mark. Retreat costs 13 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, sickle medick swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 49 / 77 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 3 — 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 26 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature medick acts last against almost anything younger.
As a perennial herb, sickle medick 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 sickle medick as a poison-first skirmisher: lead with it to poison the enemy active and heal through the fight, letting the resprout buy an extra turn when it fires. As an invasive its higher ATK makes it a real attacker, though it still leans on poison and attrition given its paper-thin armor; as a native it is a fine buffer whose poison taxes anyone who trades with it. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. As a legume, about one in four caught wild also arrives with a free Nitrogen amendment — an economy head start that decomposes after a month. It plays as an even-tempo skirmisher leaning harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 30 as a native and 31 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.