Golden Bamboo

Overview

Golden Bamboo is a grass, and it plays as a Grass card. It is native to East Asia, where it fights as a buffer, and invasive in Eastern North America, where it takes the attacker role.

Moves

• Turf Smother (unlocks at level 1, costs 2 Sun) deals 28 damage native and 33 invasive. Smothers under dense turf — the foe weakens.
• Fire Climax (unlocks at level 25) is the free once-per-battle ability: A grassland that burns to stay a grassland — fire on the foe, and fire through its own ranks. It costs no Sun.
• Tiller Thrash (unlocks at level 40, costs 6 Sun) deals 40 damage native and 50 invasive. Throws two tillers at once.

None of its moves carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes first strike or an extra turn — its turn order is set by its tempo (see Stats).

Abilities

Read off the card's actual trait schedule, it keeps these always-on traits, arriving at the levels shown:

• Duff Stuff arrives at level 10: while it stands, its effective DEF rises by half the summed DEF of your alive benched ruderals (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs), fading as those allies faint.
• Intercalary Meristem arrives at level 68: it regrows from the base, healing 2% of its maximum HP every checkup, even through Blight.

Features

It carries no certain trait keywords beyond the schedule above. It is not Moss Pole-eligible (it is not a climber). A Calcium/Magnesium amendment is the most useful slot for its soft body; a Cloche shields an attacker from contact poison.

Stats

Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked: DEF 1, retreat 14 Sun. Its tempo splits the usual way — initiative 44 orders turn 1 and SPD 59 orders turn 2 onward — and it is slower off the mark but steadier afterward — it cruises faster than it opens.

Its two nativity roles read differently. Native, it is a buffer: HP 121 (a +15% cushion baked in) and a benched HP overshield for your active, with ATK 16. Invasive, it is an attacker: HP 106 and ATK 29 — the higher figure is the introduced-range term the engine adds for a spreading invader, showing as the card matures. The invasive form pays "Faustian" self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack (10 + level - 1, growing as it levels) and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out.

At Level 100

Maturity swells its HP toward 233, but its soft category keeps DEF at only 2 — it never becomes a wall. Retreat rises to 27 Sun and its inverted tempo bottoms out; it ends soft but bulky, and a strong attacker still punches through it.

Weaknesses & Resistances

Golden Bamboo is in the Ruderal group on the succession wheel. It deals x1.5 to Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) and takes x1.5 from Competitors (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs, broadleaf trees), whose defense resists it to x0.667.

Gameplay uses

A fast ruderal that borrows defense from your benched weeds through Duff Stuff and heals from its base each checkup. Fragile alone; best as a coin earner with backup. It is edible (leaf), so feeding it Nitrogen pays x1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks x1.25 XP instead. The Total power gallery below marks its crossover — the level where its rising bulk overtakes its falling speed — at level 35 at home and 36 abroad; either way it only grows stronger with level, so there is never a reason to under-level it.