Pontederia crassipes
One of the world's worst aquatic weeds: a fast ruderal attacker abroad that speeds up when hurt and can revive from turions.
Water Hyacinth is an aquatic plant, and it plays as a Aquatic card. It is native to South America, where it fights as a buffer, and invasive in Africa, East Asia and Eastern North America, where it takes the attacker role.
None of its moves carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes first strike or an extra turn β its turn order is set by its tempo (see Stats).
Read off the card's actual trait schedule, it keeps these always-on traits, arriving at the levels shown:
It carries no certain trait keywords beyond the schedule above. It is not Moss Pole-eligible (it is not a climber). A Calcium/Magnesium amendment is the most useful slot for its soft body; a Cloche shields an attacker from contact poison.
Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked: DEF 2, retreat 12 Sun. Its tempo splits the usual way β initiative 61 orders turn 1 and SPD 61 orders turn 2 onward β and it holds a fairly steady tempo across the fight.
Its two nativity roles read differently. Native, it is a buffer: HP 84 (a +15% cushion baked in) and a benched HP overshield for your active, with ATK 23. Invasive, it is an attacker: HP 73 and ATK 37 β the higher figure is the introduced-range term the engine adds for a spreading invader, showing as the card matures. The invasive form pays "Faustian" self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack (10 + level - 1, growing as it levels) and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out.
Maturity swells its HP toward 147, but its soft category keeps DEF at only 3 β it never becomes a wall. Retreat rises to 24 Sun and its inverted tempo bottoms out; it ends soft but bulky, and a strong attacker still punches through it.
Water Hyacinth is in the Ruderal group on the succession wheel. It deals x1.5 to Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) and takes x1.5 from Competitors (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs, broadleaf trees), whose defense resists it to x0.667.
One of the world's worst aquatic weeds: a fast ruderal attacker abroad that speeds up when hurt and can revive from turions. Soft, so keep a wall behind it. It is not edible, so any fertilizer you feed it banks x1.25 XP rather than coins. The Total power gallery below marks its crossover β the level where its rising bulk overtakes its falling speed β at level 49 at home and 47 abroad; either way it only grows stronger with level, so there is never a reason to under-level it.
Leveling trades speed for power. A plantβs 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 β native adds a HP cushion, invasive an attack edge, neutral neither β with the card at its crossover and fully grown at LvΒ 100.