Origanum onites
An edible perennial herb with almost no armor that leans on poison and control moves, buffing in Europe and attacking across Africa.
Pot marjoram is a perennial herb, placing it in the Competitor succession group but with the soft armor typical of a herb. It is native to Europe, where it plays the nativity buffer role, and invasive in Africa, where it becomes an attacker. Its combat plan is chemical and control-based rather than raw damage: it poisons, binds and withers, chipping a foe down while its own low armor keeps it fragile.
Its starter, Volatile Oils, unlocks at Lv 1 for 2 Sun: Releases volatile oils — Poison the foe. It deals 25 native / 26 invasive, and lays Poison on top — a damage-over-time effect that ignores DEF and bypasses the overshield entirely, which matters against tanky, well-armored targets.
At Lv 25 it gains its free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. This is a control tool, not a damage move — it stalls and drains the foe.
Its advanced attack, Perennial Problem, arrives at Lv 40 for 6 Sun: It was always going to come back. It hits for 40 native / 42 invasive. Neither attack carries the initiative rider, so tempo alone sets turn order. See moves and statuses.
This card keeps two always-on abilities, arriving at different levels. At Lv 10 it gains Basal Rosette — it hunkers into a ground-hugging rosette, a defensive posture trait, live at full strength from arrival. At Lv 68 it stacks on Deep Taproot, an anchoring sustain trait that comes online only in the late game. For most of a player's collection this card is running on the rosette alone.
It carries no special trait keywords and is not a climber, so it takes no Moss Pole. Because its base DEF is so low, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment for flat DEF is one of the more useful field gear choices on it, native or invasive. Otherwise favor Sun economy on the native buffer and attack gear on the invasive.
At Lv 40 every move is unlocked. Its DEF is 1 — effectively nothing, the softest herb band, so it takes near-full damage from any direct hit. As a native it reads 103 HP and 19 ATK with the +15% HP cushion, and projects an overshield bar onto your active while benched. As an invasive it reads 89 HP and a higher 22 ATK from its introduced range, pays escalating Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack, and concedes 2 prizes on knockout. It opens at initiative 37 and sustains at SPD 35 — a brisk, fairly even racer at both stages. See stats.
By Lv 100 its HP swells to 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK to 33 / 40, but its DEF barely moves — 2, still in the soft herb band. That is the herb's defining trade: it gains biomass but never armor, so it stays a glass attacker that must win through poison and control before it is worn down. Retreat rises to 21 Sun and its tempo has fallen to roughly its floor.
As a perennial herb it is in the Competitor group: strong (x1.5) into Ruderal cards, weak (x0.667) into Specialists, even against other Competitors. Because its poison ignores armor, it is a reasonable answer to a heavily armored tree despite the type wheel. See weaknesses & resistances.
Pot marjoram is a chip-and-control card, not a bruiser. Lead with the poison, then use its ability to bind and wither while the damage-over-time ticks — that path works even into targets it can't out-muscle. Its low armor means it needs to close fights before it is hit back, so it wants backup on the bench rather than solo duty. It is edible with a resolved leaf part, so feeding it Nitrogen (the leaf fertilizer) pays x1.25 coins; other nutrients bank x1.25 XP instead — a small but real coin engine. As a rough guide to its power curve, it stays a fast skirmisher until about Lv 26 native (Lv 29 invasive), after which its growing bulk leads.
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.