Pieris japonica
A slow, mid-armor shrub that hardens when hurt and pulls single-target picks onto itself late; a collectible that trades on stats in either arena role.
Heath is a slow Shrub that fights on its stats alone. It is native to East Asia and invasive in Eastern North America, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. It is a modest card: mid-band shrub armor, thickening further once it drops to half HP, with a late taunt that lets it eat a pick meant for something better.
Its starter attack, Tick Tumble, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for about 27 native / 28 invasive — a plain strike. The free once-per-battle ability, Facilitation, arrives at level 25: Shelters its own and starves the rest: heal 50%, and the foe's bench withers. — it buffs its own attack. The advanced attack, Thicket, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (32 native / 33 invasive) and saps the target as it hits. Most of your heaths sit below level 40, where only the starter is live. None of its moves carry an initiative rider.
Heath holds a working trait on each riser. Marcescence (level 10) keeps its dead foliage on the stem as improvised plating, worth +4 DEF once the card is at half HP or below — armour that only appears when it is already hurt. Sapromyophily (level 68) makes the dense heath mat a decoy: wherever the engine has to single out one victim from a group — Seed Rain, a forced swap, an incoming spore-drift — this card takes it instead of an ally. See Abilities.
Heath carries no trait keywords, so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic — no hazard ring, no poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. Field gear stacks well on it: defensive gear as a native, offensive gear as an invasive, on top of the Marcescence armour it already brings.
At level 40 heath reads 121 HP native / 106 invasive, with ATK of 18 native versus 21 invasive — a modest invasive edge. DEF is 11, mid-band for a shrub, so it shrugs off a little of each hit — more than a soft herb, far less than a tree. Its tempo is even but low: turn 1 runs on initiative (18) and every turn after on SPD (18), which sit at the same value, so it is slow both off the mark and in a long fight. Retreat costs 13 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a bench HP overshield; as an invasive it pays self-damage to its own bench per attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, heath reaches 233 HP native / 203 invasive with DEF climbing to 22, and ATK around 31 / 37. A shrub picks up moderate armor as well as health, so a mature one is sturdier than a herb but still no wall. Retreat rises to 26 Sun and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so it always acts late.
As a shrub, heath is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants, which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Heath is best treated as a collectible and a bench-filler rather than a carry. Its tempo is slow, so it trades on bulk — Marcescence armour and a taunt that buys your better cards a turn. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster leveling — a fine use for it while you save room for stronger cards. It fights as a slow skirmisher early and its modest bulk takes over around level 1 as a native and 4 as an invasive — always worth leveling if you field it.
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.