Phlox paniculata
A middling perennial-herb Competitor whose self-mending kit lets it grind out long single-player fights, native across eastern and western North America and invasive in East Asia and Europe.
Garden phlox is a perennial-herb, a middling all-rounder in battle rather than a standout. It is native across eastern and western North America (where it plays as a buffer) and invasive in East Asia and Europe (where it leans into attack). Its succession group is Competitor, so its role by nativity is the axis that matters most.
Garden phlox opens with Stolon Reach, unlocked at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing 32 when native and 35 when invasive. At level 25 it gains the free once-per-battle ability Allelochemical Priming — Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. — a self-heal that keeps it in a war of attrition. Its heavy hitter, Tonic, arrives at level 40 for 6 Sun and lands 35 native / 37 invasive. None of its moves seize the initiative, so its turn order is decided purely by tempo (see Stats).
The only always-on trait it keeps is Resprout, which arrives at level 10 and matures at level 68 — so for most of a card's life it survives one lethal hit at reduced effect, coming fully online only late. Resprout is a sustain effect: it triggers about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip-plus save rather than a guarantee.
Garden phlox carries no thorns and no toxin trait, so nothing punishes an attacker that strikes it. It is not a climber, so it cannot take a Moss Pole. A calcium/magnesium soil amendment adds flat DEF, which is its most useful piece of field gear given how thin its armor is.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native (89 invasive) with 25 / 32 ATK and only 4 DEF — soft, like most herbs. Its opening tempo is 35 and its sustained tempo 34, near enough that it neither dominates the opening nor fades badly afterward. Native, it gains a 15% HP cushion and projects an HP overshield onto your active while benched; invasive, it hits harder but pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes on a knockout. Retreat costs 16 Sun.
By level 100 its HP swells to 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK to 45 / 63, but DEF only reaches 8 — a soft weed gains biomass, not armor, so it stays easy to punch through. Retreat rises to 33 Sun as it roots down, and its inverted tempo has sunk toward its floor: the quickness it had young is gone. Maturing buys it staying power and a bigger hit, but never a wall.
As a Competitor it deals 1.5× damage to Ruderal categories (annual-forb, grass, aquatic, bulb) and takes 1.5× from Specialists (succulent, conifer, fern, epiphyte); it resists Ruderal hits at 0.667×. Weird categories are neutral both ways. Its thin DEF means poison and hard-hitting attackers cut it down quickly regardless.
Play it native as a resilient buffer that self-heals through long fights and shields your active from the bench, or invasive as a modest attacker. It is a solid coin-earner in single-player battles but wants backup — it is not a card that carries a team. Being inedible, feeding it any fertilizer banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins. It fights as a fairly even skirmisher until about level 24, after which its growing bulk and attack take over; leveling always makes it stronger in raw stats, 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.