Persicaria longiseta
A annual forb that buffers on defence at home and turns attacker where it is invasive.
A ruderal weed with a huge double-hit opener whose attack climbs hard as an invader. It is a annual forb in battle. It is native to East Asia, Oceania and South Asia, where it plays as a defensive buffer, and invasive in Europe, Eastern North America and Western North America, where it turns attacker.
The starter attack Yolo unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun: Throws everything at it — twice. It deals about 50 damage as a native and 56 as an invasive.
The free once-per-battle ability Germination Flush arrives at level 25: The seed bank breaks at once: +4 ATK, kept for the match. It costs no Sun — its price is being usable only once per battle.
The advanced attack Covercrop Crush opens at level 40 for 6 Sun: Blankets the ground — the foe and its bench wither. It hits for about 31 native and 35 invasive.
Most cards you field sit well below level 40, so introduce these slots in order — a young plant has only its starter.
This card keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category pool; the rest of that pool was dropped and it never gets it. Photoblastic (from level 10) germinates on light: it heals a little (about 2% of its HP) each checkup, but only while the weather is sunny.
A second, different trait stacks on later: Ballistic Dispersal (from level 68) flings its seed on a faint — when this card is knocked out it chips the whole enemy team for a parting hit. So for most of its playable life — including at the level 40 snapshot the stats below are read at — this card runs its first trait alone, and only a fully levelled specimen holds both.
This card carries no special trait keywords, and as a annual forb it is not eligible for a Moss Pole (that is for climbers — vines and epiphytes). A Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment adds flat DEF, useful on a soft card like this. Playing native, lean into bench support that feeds the overshield; playing invasive, a Cloche helps by absorbing incoming contact poison. See field gear for the full list.
Read at level 40, it carries 103 HP as a native (a +15% cushion) against 89 as an invasive, with DEF 2 and a retreat cost of 16 Sun. Its attack jumps hard as an invasive (24 native to 34 invasive), a sign of how widely it has spread beyond its home range.
It is slow off the mark but relentless after: a low opening tempo (13 initiative) but a higher sustained tempo (34 SPD), so it often loses turn 1 and then out-paces the foe from turn 2.
Playing native, it and any benched natives project a bench overshield onto your active; playing invasive, it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack (growing as it levels) and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See stats.
As an annual forb it stays a glass cannon. HP fills out to 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK to 44 / 67, but DEF barely leaves its floor at 3 — biomass without armor. Retreat rises to 33 Sun as it roots down with age, and its once-brisk tempo has sunk to near its floor — the tempo pips in Stats above are as fast as this card ever moves. Levelling buys raw bulk and reach; it costs turn-order speed.
In the succession type chart this annual forb is a Ruderal. Its attacks hit Specialist cards (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes) for ×1.5, while Competitor cards (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees) hit it for ×1.5 and shrug its own blows down to ×0.667. Matchups against the off-wheel Weird categories (carrion-aroids, carnivorous plants, mycotrophs and vascular parasites) are neutral both ways. See weaknesses & resistances.
Play it native as a buffer — soak hits, feed the bench overshield, and lean on its kit. Play it invasive as an attacker, where its higher attack cap does the work, but mind the Faustian bench chip. It is not tagged with a resolved edible part, so fertilizer banks ×1.25 XP rather than paying a coin bonus — feed it to level, not to earn. As a soft, fast card it stays tempo-favored — leaning on speed — until roughly level 12, after which its bulk and attack take over; it is still monotonically stronger the more you level it.
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.