Picea obovata
An East Asian and European native conifer wall with firm armor and a sun-fed heal, an attack-sharpening ability, and a bench Sun overshield once it matures.
Siberian 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 to East Asia and Europe, so the arena fields it as a native buffer; there is no invasive version. It is built to soak hits and support the bench rather than to hit hard.
Its starter attack, Whomp, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 38 plain damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Old-Growth Stand, arrives at level 25: Ancient and immovable: heal 70%, and the foe is pinned. It sharpens its own attack for the exchanges that follow. The advanced attack, Sappy Ending, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (29 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.
Siberian 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.
Siberian 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 23 — 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 (26) and every turn after on its slower SPD (22), so it leads off the mark but slows in a long fight. Retreat costs 18 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 41 ATK, and its DEF climbs to 37 — a genuine wall, since conifers buy armor as they grow rather than just health. Retreat rises to 39 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, Siberian 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 Siberian Spruce as a native wall and bench support: hold it up front to soak damage while its sun-heal tops it off and its ability sharpens its counter-punch, 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 7 — 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.