Polemonium reptans
A soft perennial herb that poisons and can cheat one death - a North American native or a European invader.
Creeping Jacob's-ladder is a low, soft Perennial herb that fights as a poisoning skirmisher with a built-in second chance. It is native to Eastern North America and invasive across Europe, so the arena can field it as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its ATK is respectable for a herb, but it has almost no armor and leans on chip damage and luck. See nativity.
Its starter attack, Steady Growth, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 35 damage as a native and 35 as an invasive, leaving poison on the target. The free once-per-battle ability, Chronosequence, arrives at level 25: Time on its side: +3 ATK and speed, kept. The advanced attack, Crown Division, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (40 native / 40 invasive) as a plain, harder strike. Most of your plants sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Jacob's-ladder keeps one always-on trait: Resprout. It draws only one eligible trait, so Resprout comes in 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, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
It carries no trait keywords. Its attacks apply poison, but the plant itself is non-toxic to the touch - no contact recoil and no hazard ring, so nothing punishes an attacker merely for hitting it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear helps offset its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear presses its ATK.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 25 invasive - a modest invasive step up. DEF is just 4, near the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with very little armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (32), but every turn after runs on its higher SPD (34), so it is out-paced on turn 1 and steadier once a fight settles. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield 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, it swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 45 / 45 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 - a soft herb gains health, never much armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature plant acts last against almost anything young. Leveling buys HP, damage, and a matured Resprout, not a wall.
As a perennial herb, creeping Jacob's-ladder is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and takes only x0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which hit it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it as a poisoning chipper that hopes to cheat one death with Resprout. As an invasive its damage is decent; as a native it is a passable buffer that still threatens poison ticks. Its fragility means it wants a tougher plant to fall back behind. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward faster leveling rather than coins. In player-versus-player (PvP) matches it starts a touch slow but settles into a steadier beat, with its bulk taking over around level 22 as a native (about level 26 as an invasive) - always stronger leveled up.
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.