Panicum virgatum
A prairie grass that plays either role — a native across the Americas or an invader in Europe, Asia and Oceania — pinning targets and chipping the enemy bench.
Old Switch Panicgrass is a prairie Grass that fights as a control-leaning attacker: it pins its target, chips the enemy bench, and borrows armor from your own. It is native across Eastern and Western North America and South America and invasive across East Asia, Europe, Oceania and South Asia, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its armor is minimal, so it wins by control and its team, not by soaking hits.
Its starter attack, Tick Tumble, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 32 damage as a native and 34 as an invasive, and binding the target. The free once-per-battle ability, Pyric Herbivory, arrives at level 25: Burns the sward to draw the grazers back — sets the foe alight. The advanced attack, Grazing Damage, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun, dealing about 29 damage as a native and 31 as an invasive. Most of your panicgrass sit below level 40, where only the starter is live. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Old Switch Panicgrass keeps two always-on traits. Duff Stuff arrives on the level 10 riser: while it is your active plant, its effective DEF rises by half the summed DEF of your alive benched ruderals — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — recomputed live, so the bonus fades as those allies faint, while the donors keep their own DEF. It is a real, always-on defence, not a chance effect. Spore-drift arrives later, on the level 68 riser: it chips the enemy bench each turn — a dispersal-derived trickle of damage that wears down the plants waiting behind the active. See Abilities.
Old Switch Panicgrass is non-toxic: it has no contact recoil and forces no poison rider, so nothing touching it is punished. 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 panicgrass reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 27 native versus 33 invasive — the invasive gap is real. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the grass band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on Duff Stuff and its bench to firm up. Its tempo is lopsided: turn 1 runs on a low initiative (41), so it is out-paced off the mark, but every turn after runs on a higher SPD (56), so it settles into a relentless cruiser. Retreat costs 12 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, panicgrass swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 49 / 64 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 1 — as a soft grass it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 24 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature panicgrass acts last against almost anything younger.
As a ruderal grass, Old Switch Panicgrass sits in the Ruderal succession group. It hits Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs, trees, vines), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Ruderals and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Old Switch Panicgrass two ways. As a native it is a buffer: keep other ruderals benched so Duff Stuff can prop up its armor, and lean on the HP cushion and overshield it projects onto your active. As an invasive it is an attacker: its higher ATK (33 versus 27 native), its opening pin, and its bench chip let it grind the enemy team down, though it pays self-damage to its own bench on each hit and hands the enemy 2 prizes if it falls. On economy, panicgrass is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as a slow-starting cruiser that leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 34 as a native and 37 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.