Picea sitchensis
A conifer that buffers on its native turf and attacks where it is invasive.
The Sitka spruce is a conifer in Supplant. It is native to Western North America and invasive in Europe and Eastern North America, so it can take whichever role the arena hands it — a defensive buffer on its home turf, or an aggressive attacker where it counts as an introduced weed.
Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Deathshadow is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Terpene Fog, unlocks at level 25: A haze of volatile resin — the foe is saturated and stalls. The advanced attack, Cone Cap, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Caps the foe under a cone — it stalls and can't heal.
As a native its attacks land for about 25 (starter) and 20 (advanced); as an invasive those rise to 28 and 23 as the introduced-range aggression matures.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (7) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (22) decides every turn after. This one is slow off the mark but relentless once the fight settles — it usually loses turn 1 and then takes the tempo from turn 2 onward. See turn order for how the two interact.
It reads Photosynthesis from level 10, and a second passive, Network, stacks on at level 68.
Photosynthesis. A 60% chance to heal itself in sunny weather — reliable-ish grind, but weather-dependent and never guaranteed.
Network. While this plant sits on your bench it lends the active card a gold Sun-overshield bar — a reserve that is only spent once the base Sun bar runs dry. It is a support perk it plays for any active, native or invasive, so its real value shows when it is benched, not fighting.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag. Played native, favor defensive gear; played invasive, favor anything that pushes its attack.
At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 140, DEF 17, with a retreat cost of 19 Sun and tempo pips of 7 initiative / 22 SPD. Its DEF is conifer-grade wall, hardening with level on its wood density; damage is diminishing armor, not flat subtraction, and only poison bypasses it. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active. As an invasive its ATK rises toward 28 (against 19 native), and it pays "Faustian" self-damage to its own bench on every damaging hit it lands. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.
It hardens into a wall — DEF rising to about 37 on wood density and HP toward 276. A slow, very durable endgame body. Retreat rises to 41 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.
In the succession wheel it is a Specialist. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs). Against its own group and the off-wheel "Weird" categories it is neutral. See the type chart.
Play it native as a defensive buffer — the HP cushion and bench overshield make it a body that protects the rest of your team. Play it invasive as an attacker, remembering it concedes 2 prizes on a knockout and bleeds its own bench with Faustian self-damage each hit. Conifers are walls: high wood-density DEF and deep HP make this a genuinely strong front-line card — slow, but very hard to shift, and its 60% heals help it grind. It is inedible in the game's economy, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful as level fodder, not as a coin source. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 1, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, so there is never a 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.