Phegopteris hexagonoptera
An Eastern North American native fern support — a plain hitter that mends and saps mid-fight and poisons whatever finally kills it, with soft armor throughout.
Broad Beech Fern is a Fern that fights as a defensive native support — a plain hitter that mends and saps mid-fight and poisons whatever finally kills it. It is native only to Eastern North America, so the arena fields it as a native buffer; there is no invasive version. Its own damage is average and its armor soft, so it earns its slot through attrition and its passives.
Its starter attack, Frond Whip, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 35 plain damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Fern Disclimax, arrives at level 25: Locks the succession here — the foe stalls and can't heal. It mends the plant while sapping the enemy. The advanced attack, Fiddlehead Flail, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (40 damage), a harder plain hit. Most of your fern sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Broad Beech Fern keeps two always-on traits. Unpalatable arrives on the level 10 riser and makes the fern an unrewarding thing to attack. Spores arrives on the level 68 riser and poisons whatever plant lands the killing blow on it, so trading it down still costs the attacker. Both are steady passives — neither is a chance-based sustain, and neither starts at half strength. See Abilities.
Broad Beech Fern is non-toxic — it carries no Toxin trait, so striking it triggers no contact recoil and it lays no poison rider on attack. 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 — helps offset its thin armor. See statuses.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP with ATK of 25. DEF is just 2, at the soft fern floor, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on its heal, sap, and passives instead. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (30) and every turn after on its faster SPD (34), so it is out-paced off the mark but quicker once a fight settles in. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, it swells to 190 HP and 46 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 3 — as a soft fern it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature fern acts last against almost anything younger.
As a fern, Broad Beech Fern sits in the Specialist succession group. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs, broadleaf trees) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Broad Beech Fern as a native support piece: grind with the mend-and-sap while its Unpalatable passive discourages attackers and its Spores punishes whatever kills it, or bench it for the HP overshield. It is a middling card that wins slow fights rather than fast ones, and it is best pointed at Competitor teams it strikes for ×1.5. On economy, it 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 on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 21 — 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.