Nabalus altissimus
A native-only perennial-herb with wither retaliation and a coin-flip resprout save, a self-healing skirmisher.
Tall rattlesnake root is a perennial-herb: a soft, quick card with a knack for self-repair. It is native to eastern North America and invasive nowhere, so it plays only the native buffer role — a +15% HP cushion fielded, an HP overshield projected onto your active when benched.
Its starter, Rhizome Creep (Level 1, 2 Sun), deals 30 and Creeps underground into the foe's back row. The free ability, Perennating Bud (25), is Breaks a stored bud: heal 40%. — a heal. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate (40, 6 Sun), deals 30 and Strikes and treats itself — heal 30%. — it strikes and heals at once. Between the ability and the advanced move, it has genuine on-demand sustain. See Moves.
From Level 10 it carries Bitter Principle: striking it Withers the attacker, cutting its ATK, on every damaging hit it takes. At Level 68 Resprout stacks on: when it would be knocked out it has a 60% chance to cling on at roughly a quarter of its maximum HP instead — a coin-flip-plus save, not a guarantee, and it works only once. (The roll is seeded, so a given battle always replays the same way, but treat it as a chance, not a certainty.)
No thorns or toxin keyword. Not Moss-Pole-eligible. With very low DEF a Calcium/Magnesium field gear amendment helps most; inedible, so nutrients bank XP.
At Level 40 it reads 103 HP and 25 ATK, with a soft DEF of 1. Retreat is 13 Sun. Its opening initiative is 27 and sustained SPD is 38: an average starter that pulls ahead as the fight runs on. It leans on healing and retaliation rather than armor.
By Level 100 HP grows to 190 and ATK to 45, while DEF stays soft at 1. Retreat rises to 25 Sun and its early speed fades. Leveling adds biomass and self-heal headroom, not toughness.
As a Competitor it hits ruderals for 1.5x and is resisted to 0.667x by Specialists; neutral against other Competitors and Weird. See the succession wheel.
A scrappy self-healer: field it to trade hits while its ability, advanced attack and Resprout keep it alive longer than its DEF suggests, and let Bitter Principle sap the attacker's ATK. It is soft, though, so it works best whittling down a single foe rather than anchoring against a whole team. Inedible, so fertilizer banks 1.25x XP. It skirmishes on speed until about Level 21, after which its bulk leads — level it up.
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.