Populus nigra
Black poplar (Populus nigra) is a broadleaf tree that plays as a native buffer or invasive attacker in Supplant.
Black poplar (Populus nigra, Salicaceae) is a broadleaf tree in Supplant's battle system. It is native to Africa, East Asia and Europe — where it plays as a defensive buffer — and invasive in eastern North America, western North America, Oceania, South America and South Asia, where it turns attacker. Like other trees it is built to be a slow, high-HP, hard-DEF wall. Read on for its exact kit at Lv 40.
Raysteal (starter, unlocks at Lv 1, 2 Sun) — Takes the light by force — strike and heal 10%. It hits for about 33 native / 36 invasive.
Gap Capture (ability, Lv 25, free once per battle) — Takes the fallen giant's light: +5 ATK, kept for the match. An ability deals no damage; it is pure utility.
Lignin Lockdown (advanced attack, Lv 40, 6 Sun) — Goes woody and immovable — the foe stalls and wilts. It hits for about 25 native / 28 invasive.
The numbers above are read at Lv 40, the level its whole kit is unlocked; a card you catch far below that has only the moves whose levels it has reached.
This card keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category pool and locked in for good — the rest of the pool was dropped. They arrive on the level risers, one at a time, so for most of a card's life it is playing with just the first.
From Lv 10: Tannin load — oak-style tannins that Wither any attacker on contact, sapping its healing.
From Lv 68: Network — benched, it feeds a gold Sun-overshield bar to your active card, of any nativity, backing up the Sun bar once the base runs dry.
Read these off the card's own trait schedule; the category pool lists more, but this plant carries only these two. Learn more at Abilities.
No Moss Pole here — that fits only climbers (vines and epiphytes), and this is a broadleaf tree. A Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment adds flat DEF, which suits a card that already wants to hold ground. A Cloche wards off Poison if you expect a toxic opponent. See Field gear for the full kit.
At Lv 40 this card reads 103 HP native versus 89 invasive, and 26 ATK native versus 35 invasive — the invasive edge is deferred onto the caps, so the gap widens as it grows. DEF is 17 and retreat costs 16 Sun regardless of nativity.
Its sustained tempo (56) sits above its opening tempo (26): it is a slow starter that cruises — it may cede the first hit but leads the tempo from turn 2 onward. It rewards patience over an opening burst. Both tempo stats fall as the card levels.
Benched as a native, it projects an HP overshield bar onto your active, sized by its rarity. As an invasive attacker its aggression is trait-sourced, not a flat multiplier, and it pays "Faustian" self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack (growing with level) and concedes 2 prizes on knockout.
See Stats and the overshield for how these bars work.
By Lv 100 this is a wall. HP climbs to 190, ATK to 47, and — because DEF is category-plus-wood-density — its armor hardens to 36, far past the soft floors a weed ever reaches. Retreat rises to 33 Sun (older means more rooted), and the inverted tempo has sunk to roughly its 1% floor, so the quick-versus-slow story from the Stats section is a young-card affair — a mature tree is slow whatever it started as. Growing it up trades speed for sheer staying power.
Roughly USDA zone 5a — it should come through winters that bottom out near -26 °C. Colder than that and it wants shelter, a wall, or a winter indoors. Its measured climate envelope runs from a cold edge near -0.1 °C to a warm edge near 24.7 °C — a Temperate band. Treat the zone as a rough guide rather than a promise: it comes from a regression whose error runs a little over one full zone, which is why the reading says "roughly."
On a card you will see one of four climate chips, read for wherever you are standing (so it shifts as you travel). Thrives here means your winter low and summer heat both sit inside its range, and it earns x2 battle XP. In range means it survives but sits near an edge, for x1.25 XP. Colder than its range or Hotter than its range means your winters or summers run past what it tolerates, for no bonus — and "colder than its range" is usually just a fact about the winter outside, not a verdict on the plant. Climate changes battle XP and nothing else: not damage, stats, growth speed or the economy.
As a broadleaf tree it belongs to the Competitor succession group. It hits the Ruderal categories — grasses, annual forbs, aquatics and bulbs — for ×1.5 and shrugs their blows down to ×0.667. The Specialists reverse that: succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes strike it for ×1.5 while resisting what it deals. Against other Competitors, and against the off-wheel Weird categories (carrion-aroids, carnivores, mycotrophs and parasites), the exchange is even. See Succession & weaknesses.
Played native, it is a bench wall: huge HP, hard DEF, and an overshield for your active. Played invasive, it is a slow heavyweight attacker that has to soak the Faustian bench cost — bring it where its aggression pays.
Its value is durability, not tempo — a dependable wall for the bench and a steady coin-earner, if never a fast finisher.
It is not eaten in-game, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins.
One framing note: it fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 26, after which its rising bulk and attack take over from its falling tempo. That is about which edge dominates, not about being stronger young — a card is always stronger in raw HP, ATK and DEF at higher levels, so level it up. The Total power gallery below the article shows the crossover and the fully grown card.
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.