Potentilla reptans
Creeping cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans) is a competitor perennial herb in Supplant — a native buffer and invasive attacker whose game role is set out below.
Creeping cinquefoil is a low, stoloniferous perennial of lawns and waste ground. In battle it is a Perennial herb — a Competitor on the succession chart. Native across Africa, East Asia, Europe and South Asia, it plays as a defensive buffer; where it has spread as an invasive into eastern North America, western North America, Oceania and South America, it turns attacker.
Its starter attack, Volatile Oils, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 28 damage as a native and 30 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, unlocks at Lv 25: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 31 native and 33 invasive.
From Lv 10 it carries Bitter Principle, so an attacker that strikes it is Withered (its attack drops by 2). At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Deep Taproot, so it cannot be Bound.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF, which a soft-bodied plant like this feels most. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 28 ATK as a native, or 89 HP and 35 ATK as an invasive, with 2 DEF. As a native it adds a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it trades that for the higher attack ceiling and pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. On defence, its DEF stays near the floor, so it relies on tempo and offence rather than soaking hits. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 48 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 40 — making it a quick starter that is out-paced as the fight goes on. Retreating it costs 14 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190, but its DEF barely leaves its band at 4 — a soft-category plant stays soft no matter how much biomass it puts on. Attack reaches 50, retreat rises to 29 Sun, and its inverted tempo has sunk to a sliver, so the speed it relied on young is spent. It grows bulkier but never becomes a wall.
On the succession chart a Perennial herb is a Competitor. Competitor plants hit Ruderal categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Specialist categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
A strong invasive attacker for a soft plant: a Poison starter, a Wither recoil on contact, and later immunity to Bind. Its wide introduced range lifts its attack well above its native self. A good coin-earner that needs bench cover. It has no resolved edible part, so fertilising it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful for levelling.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 31 (a little later as an invasive, around Lv 33), after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
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.