Potentilla canadensis
A low native herb that poisons on its opening strike and taxes attackers with thorns — soft-bodied, and native-only.
Common cinquefoil is a low, creeping Perennial herb that fights as a defensive irritant: it poisons the enemy with its opening strike and makes anything that hits it bleed on its thorns. It is native to Eastern North America, and no invasive card exists — the arena only ever fields it as a native buffer for your bench. It is a soft, patient support card rather than a hitter; its armor is thin and its damage modest.
Its starter attack, Crown Split, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, hitting for about 42 damage and leaving the target poisoned from its bitter compounds. The free once-per-battle ability, Seral Persistence, arrives at level 25: Refuses to be replaced: heal 60%, and the foe can't heal. — a mid-fight mend that suits its wear-them-down game. The advanced attack, Tonic, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (34 native) and draws on its deep roots for a heavier blow. Most of your cinquefoil sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Beyond its thorns (covered under Features), common cinquefoil gains a single always-on trait: Resprout, which arrives at full strength on the level 68 riser. When it works, it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health — but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Common cinquefoil holds the thorns keyword, so every damaging hit it takes deals flat HP recoil back to the attacker, off its physical armature. That recoil matures on the level 10 riser, so it lands at full strength from early on. The plant itself is non-toxic — its starter poisons the foe as an attack, but striking the plant carries no chemical recoil, only the thorns. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole; as a native, general defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little extra DEF — leans into its irritant game.
At level 40 common cinquefoil reads 103 HP and 23 ATK. DEF is just 3, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on its poison, its thorns, and its healing instead. Its tempo splits across the fight: the opening turn runs on its initiative (42) and every turn after on its SPD (33) — read the two together, since if initiative is the higher number it opens fast and fades, and if SPD is higher it starts slow and grows relentless. Retreat costs 14 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, common cinquefoil swells to 190 HP and 43 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 5 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 28 Sun as it roots in, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature cinquefoil acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys health and the Resprout reprieve; it never buys the armor it wants.
As a perennial herb, common cinquefoil sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from 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 common cinquefoil as a native buffer and defensive irritant: bench it to lend a fragile hitter the HP cushion and overshield, or lead with it to poison the enemy active and tax attackers on its thorns while it heals through the exchange. Its damage and armor are both thin, so it supports rather than finishes. It is inedible with no resolved edible part, so fertilizer does not pay coins — any nutrient instead banks ×1.25 XP, a plain growth boost. It plays as a soft, slow skirmisher whose bulk takes over as it levels, crossing over around level 27 — and it is always stronger at higher levels in raw stats, so there is no reason to hold it back.
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.