Medicago × varia
A non-toxic legume perennial herb that grinds out fights with a mid-fight heal and a survival trait, playing either arena role — a native of East Asia and Europe or an invader across the Americas, Oceania and South Asia.
Sand Lucerne is a low Perennial herb that fights as a grinder: modest damage, a mid-fight heal, and a survival trait to hang on. It is native to East Asia and Europe, and invasive across Eastern and Western North America, Oceania and South Asia, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its raw attack is low, so it wins through attrition, not force.
Its starter attack, Crown Split, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 40 damage as a native and 50 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Autogenic Reaction, arrives at level 25: Remakes its own ground: +6 ATK and heal 25%. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Taproot Canal, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (25 native / 30 invasive). Most of your Sand Lucerne sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Sand Lucerne keeps one always-on trait, Resprout, which arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 riser — so it works at reduced strength for most of the card's life. When it works it 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.
Sand Lucerne is non-toxic: it holds no Toxin trait, so nothing recoils onto an attacker and its hits carry no poison. 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 Sand Lucerne reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 20 native versus 34 invasive — the invasive role lifts its attack, though it is a low hitter even so. DEF is just 3, near the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on its heal and survival trait instead. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on a low initiative (43) that is out-paced off the mark, but every turn after runs on a higher SPD (47), so it is a slow starter and a relentless cruiser. Retreat costs 14 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, Sand Lucerne swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 36 / 71 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 5 — 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 28 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature Sand Lucerne acts last against almost anything younger.
As a perennial herb, Sand Lucerne 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 Sand Lucerne as a grinder: heal through exchanges, lean on Resprout to hang on, and win by attrition rather than force, since its own attack is weak. As an invasive its higher ATK helps it press; as a native it is a fine buffer whose bench overshield props up a stronger active. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins — but as a legume in the Fabaceae, roughly one in four caught wild arrives with a free Nitrogen amendment, an economy head start that decomposes after about a month. It plays as a slow-starting, relentless cruiser leaning harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 33 as a native and 34 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.