Picea jezoensis
An East Asian native conifer wall with firm armor and a sun-fed heal, a mid-fight mend, and a bench Sun overshield once it matures.
Yezo Spruce is a Conifer that fights as a durable native wall — firm armor, a sun-fed heal, and a canopy overshield once it matures. It is native only to East Asia, so the arena fields it as a native buffer; there is no invasive version. It soaks hits and supports the bench rather than hitting hard.
Its starter attack, Blazing Pitch, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 28 plain damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Litterfall, arrives at level 25: Drops a season of needles — the foe's whole bench withers. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Sappy Ending, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (28 damage), a harder plain hit. Most of your spruce sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Yezo Spruce keeps two always-on traits. Photosynthesis arrives on the level 10 riser and heals it in sunlight, though it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat the mend as likely rather than guaranteed. Network arrives on the level 68 riser: as a canopy tree it projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto your active from the bench. See Abilities.
Yezo Spruce is non-toxic — it carries no Toxin trait, so striking it triggers no contact recoil and it lays no poison rider. 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 — stacks onto armor that is already firm, making it harder still to move. See statuses.
At level 40 it reads 140 HP with ATK of 21 — its attack is unremarkable; its bulk is the point. DEF is 17, well up in the conifer band, so it holds real armor above the soft herb and fern floor. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (31) and every turn after on its slower SPD (21), so it leads off the mark but slows in a long fight. Retreat costs 19 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 276 HP and 37 ATK, and its DEF climbs to 37 — a genuine wall, since conifers buy armor as they grow rather than just health. Retreat rises to 41 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature spruce acts last against almost anything younger but is very hard to knock down.
As a conifer, Yezo Spruce 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 Yezo Spruce as a native wall and bench support: hold it up front to soak damage while its sun-heal tops it off and its mid-fight mend buys a turn, or bench it once matured to feed your active the Sun overshield. Its own damage is low, so it wins by lasting rather than by hitting, and it is strongest against 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, tanky piece that only gets harder to move as it levels, crossing over around level 9 — 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.