Platycodon grandiflorus
A soft perennial herb with a survival trait and little armor, playable as an East Asian native or a European and Oceanian invader.
Balloon flower is a soft, low Perennial herb that fights as a fragile, self-mending trader. It is native to East Asia and invasive in Europe and Oceania, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker (see nativity). It is a modest card: light damage and thin armor, held together mainly by a single survival trait.
Its starter attack, Steady Growth, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 34 damage as a native and 34 as an invasive — a plain hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Chronosequence, arrives at level 25: Time on its side: +3 ATK and speed, kept. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (29 native / 29 invasive), another clean strike with no rider. Most of your balloon flowers sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See moves.
Balloon flower keeps a single always-on trait, Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health, but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve. See abilities.
Balloon flower carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no spore chemistry. It is non-toxic: no contact recoil, no poison rider, and no hazard ring. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear helps it survive; as an invasive, lean into offense to make its aggression count.
At level 40 balloon flower reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 22 native versus 24 invasive — a modest invasive edge. DEF is just 4, near the floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (32) and every turn after on its SPD (34), so it is out-paced off the mark but a little quicker once the fight settles. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active; as an invasive it pays self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, balloon flower swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 38 / 43 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 — a soft herb gains bulk in health and almost no armor, so it stays exposed. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature balloon flower acts last against younger cards.
As a perennial herb, balloon flower is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and is hit for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), 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.
Play balloon flower as a cheap, self-healing filler that trades evenly and buys time. As a native the HP cushion and bench overshield make it a passable buffer for a fragile hitter; as an invasive its slightly higher attack is not enough to make it a real threat, so keep it in a support slot. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a modest growth-earner. It fights as a back-loaded skirmisher that leans on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 23 — and higher levels only help, so keep leveling 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.