Monotropa uniflora
A native-only mycotroph that plays as a defensive buffer.
The Indian pipe is a mycotroph in Supplant. It is native to East Asia, Eastern North America, Western North America and South Asia and is recorded as invasive nowhere, so it plays purely as a defensive buffer: a card that shores up your team rather than an attacker.
Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Nutrient Tap is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Fungal Ecesis, unlocks at level 25: Finds its partner and settles in: heal 30% and gain speed. The advanced attack, Root of the Problem, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Goes straight for the roots and holds on.
Its attacks land for about 28 (starter) and 36 (advanced) at the snapshot level.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (24) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (28) decides every turn after. This one is slow off the mark but relentless once the fight settles — it usually loses turn 1 and then takes the tempo from turn 2 onward. See turn order for how the two interact.
It has a single eligible passive, Sun-siphon, which arrives at half strength on its level 10 riser and matures at level 68 — a real difference for most of the card's life.
Sun-siphon. When it cannot cover a move from its own Sun bar it siphons the shortfall from its benched allies' Sun. This is a taker's mechanic — it funds its attacks off your own team rather than buffing itself — and it arrives weak, strengthening only as it matures.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag.
At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 121, DEF 1, with a retreat cost of 13 Sun and tempo pips of 24 initiative / 28 SPD. Its DEF sits at the soft floor — expect no real plating. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active — its whole role is defensive support. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.
HP climbs toward 233 while DEF holds at the soft floor (1); it stays frail to the end. Retreat rises to 26 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.
Its category is off the succession wheel entirely, so it deals and takes neutral damage against every group — no type advantage in either direction. It lives or dies on raw stats and its kit, not the matchup chart.
Its only role is the native buffer: sit it on the bench to project an overshield, or field it as a body that soaks hits for your carries. A taker, not a fighter: off the succession wheel with no combat passive, its only trick is siphoning Sun off your own bench. Treat it as a novelty and collection card, not a competitive pick. It is inedible in the game's economy, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful as level fodder, not as a coin source. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 11, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, so there is never a 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.