Cyprus turpentine

Overview

Cyprus turpentine (Pistacia terebinthus) is a broadleaf tree, a heavyweight, armored body in battle terms. It is native to Africa and Europe and invasive nowhere on the map, so it only ever fields its native, defensive form — there is no attacker version of this card. Read across the fight it is a quick starter that lands the first hit, then cruises a little slower.

Moves

The kit fills in as the card levels — most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 used for the numbers here.

• Raysteal (unlocks at Level 1) is the starter attack: Takes the light by force — strike and heal 10%. As a native defender it deals 31. It costs 2 Sun.
• Canopy Recruitment (unlocks at Level 25) is the free once-per-battle ability: Pushes a sapling into the canopy: heal 35% and +3 ATK. It costs no Sun and deals no damage — it is pure utility.
• Out on a Limb (unlocks at Level 40) is the advanced attack: Two swings from the same limb. It deals 40 as a native defender. It costs 6 Sun.

Abilities

This card keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category's pool and locked in once and for all — everything else the pool offered was dropped.

• From Level 10, Tannin Load Withers any attacker that hits it (2 stacks) with astringent tannins.
• From Level 68, Network projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto your active plant from the bench, the way canopy trees feed a forest's shared network; it backs your team regardless of this card's nativity.

Features

It carries no special keyword traits — no innate toxin, thorns, carnivory or succulence — so it plays as a straight broadleaf tree. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climbing one, so it does not take a Moss Pole. For field gear, a native copy leaning into the defender role wants a Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment to push its DEF even higher into wall territory; an attacker copy would rather spend the slot on the fertilizer that suits its role, and a Cloche is worth holding if you expect a poison-heavy opponent. See nativity for how region sets its role and abilities for the trait model.

Stats

Read at the snapshot level of 40, where every move is unlocked: 103 HP (native, including the roughly 15% cushion), 30 DEF, tempo of 42 opening / 34 sustained, and a 16 Sun retreat cost. Its Sun bar caps at 120 and refills in real time; from Level 52 it also regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a Level 85 capstone makes the starter free. Its DEF (30 at the snapshot level) is category-sourced from being a tree scaled by wood density, so it is genuinely armored where soft plants are not. As a native defender it gains a roughly 15% HP cushion (103 HP at the snapshot level) and, while benched, projects a green overshield bar onto whatever card is active for you. See stats for the full model.

At Level 100

Grown to the cap, the floor-to-cap stat law turns this card into a wall: HP climbs to 190 and DEF hardens to 71 off its wood density, well beyond its Level-40 reading, while the retreat cost rises to 33 Sun as an old tree grows harder to move. The inverted tempo, high when it was a seedling, has sunk to about 1% of cap by now — a mature tree is slow but very hard to bring down. Leveling buys real bulk and armor at the cost of ever going first.

Weaknesses & Resistances

By category it belongs to the Competitor succession group. On the type wheel, Competitor deals extra damage to Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatic plants and bulbs) and takes extra from Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes); a strong matchup lands at ×1.5 and a resisted one at ×0.667. Everything off those two edges — including the Weird categories — is neutral. See weaknesses and resistances.

Gameplay uses

With no invasive form, it is purely a defender: park it as a native on the bench to feed the overshield, or lead with it as a durable wall. As a tree it is a strong single-player pick — durable, good for grinding coins, and a solid family-tree collection piece. It is edible with a resolved edible part (fruit), so feeding it the matching phosphorus fertilizer pays ×1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. Leveling steadily trades falling turn-order speed for rising bulk and attack: it fights as a fast skirmisher up to about Level 22, after which its power takes over — it is monotonically stronger the higher you level it, so there is never a reason to hold it back. The Total power panel below charts this trade-off for each stance it can hold.