Prunus serotina
A hard-hitting, thorned broadleaf tree that saps its target, playable as a wide-ranging native or a near-global invader.
Black cherry is a heavy Broadleaf tree that fights as a hard-hitting, thorned front-liner. It is native across Eastern and Western North America and South America, and invasive in Africa, East Asia, Europe, Oceania and South Asia, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker (see nativity). It is a strong tree: real armor, a big invasive attack, contact thorns, and a draining advanced move.
Its starter attack, Leaf Smother, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 28 damage as a native and 30 as an invasive — a plain hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Canopy Recruitment, arrives at level 25: Pushes a sapling into the canopy: heal 35% and +3 ATK. The advanced attack, Barking Mad, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (38 native / 41 invasive) and saps the target, withering its output as it deals damage. Most of your black cherries sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See moves and statuses.
Black cherry keeps two working always-on traits. Thorns arrives at level 10 at full strength: attackers that strike it in melee take contact recoil, so trading with it hurts. Mycorrhiza arrives at level 68 and heals a benched ally, but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so it is a bonus rather than a reliable clock. See abilities.
Black cherry carries the Thorns trait keyword, which punishes attackers with recoil each time they hit it. It is non-toxic: no poison rider and no hazard ring, but its thorns still bite. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear deepens its wall and makes the thorns matter more; as an invasive, offensive gear presses its heavy attack.
At level 40 black cherry reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 27 native versus 35 invasive — a large invasive jump that makes the invader hit hard. DEF is 21, high for the broadleaf-tree band, so it shrugs off most hits. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (45) and every turn after on its SPD (45), which sit at the same value, so it is neither a fast opener nor a fast cruiser. Retreat costs 17 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar 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, black cherry climbs to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 49 / 69 ATK, and its DEF reaches 47 — a heavy armored wall, since a tree keeps converting growth into armor. Retreat rises to 36 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature black cherry acts late but hits hard and stands firm. Maturing buys a wall-plus-hammer at the cost of tempo.
As a broadleaf tree, black cherry is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and is hit for only ×0.667 by 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.
Black cherry is a strong front-line tree. As an invasive it hits hard, saps its target's output with the advanced move, and punishes trades with thorns; as a native it is a durable wall that shields your team while still hurting attackers. It rewards a simple stand-and-fight plan. It is inedible in this card set, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a steady growth-earner. It fights as an even-tempo body early and settles into a wall-plus-hammer as it levels, crossing over around level 28 — and higher levels only make it scarier, so keep leveling it.
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.