Pelargonium × domesticum
A neutral-only perennial herb with soft armor, a control-heavy kit, and a late resprout as its main durability.
Regal pelargonium is a perennial-herb card. In the current arenas it counts as neither native nor invasive anywhere, so neither the native HP cushion nor the invasive attacker edge applies — it plays only as its neutral base card. As a perennial herb it is a Competitor with a low armor band.
Its starter attack, Taproot Anchor, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and 29 damage — Anchors deep and holds the foe with it. Its free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, unlocks at level 25: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. That control — binding and withering the foe — is the kit's most useful piece. The advanced attack, Winterkill, arrives at level 40 for 6 Sun and 26 damage, also blocking the foe's healing — Kills it back to the ground — it withers and can't heal. No move carries the initiative rider. See moves.
Reading its trait schedule, it keeps two always-on traits. From level 10 it has basal-rosette: hugging the ground against grazing, it carries a flat +3 DEF at all times — a small but welcome bump for a soft herb. At level 68 it adds Resprout, one of the sustain effects that triggers only about 60% of the time — when it does, the card survives one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly 25% HP, so treat it as a better-than-a-coin-flip save, not a guarantee. Before level 68 the card runs on basal-rosette alone. It holds no Toxin trait. See abilities.
It carries no confirmed keyword traits and is not toxic. Its habit is not a climber, so it is not Moss Pole-eligible. For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment helps its thin DEF; it is not edible, so any fertilizer banks XP rather than coins.
At the snapshot level of 40 the neutral base card reads 89 HP (no native cushion) and 22 ATK (no invasive edge), with a soft 4 DEF typical of a perennial herb. Opening tempo (initiative) is 34 and sustained tempo (SPD) is 34, so it is roughly even off the mark and a touch faster on the sustain. Retreat costs 16 Sun. See stats.
By level 100 its HP grows to 165 but its DEF barely leaves the floor at 8 — a soft herb that gains mass, not armor. ATK reaches 40. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has fallen to about 1% of cap. Maturity buys it bulk and a late Resprout, but never a hard front-line body.
As a perennial herb it is a Competitor: strong ×1.5 against Ruderal cards (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), and weak against Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), who hit it for ×1.5 while its hits on them are resisted to ×0.667. Neutral against other Competitors and the Weird group. See weaknesses & resistances.
This is a control-leaning card rather than a heavy hitter: use Hemicryptophyte Hold and its healing-denial advanced move to pin and grind a foe while the rest of your team does the damage, and rely on the late, 60%-chance Resprout for staying power. Its low DEF means it should not be your wall. Being inedible, every fertilizer banks ×1.25 XP. It leans on speed early and power later, crossing over around level 27 — a note about which edge dominates, not a reason to hold it back, since it only grows stronger with levels.
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.