Pteris tremula
A fern that buffers on defence at home and turns attacker where it is invasive.
A brake fern that punishes attackers with irritant chemistry and chips the enemy bench late. It is a fern in battle. It is native to Oceania, where it plays as a defensive buffer, and invasive in Africa, Western North America, South America and South Asia, where it turns attacker.
The starter attack Spore Cloud unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun: A cloud of irritant spores. It deals about 26 damage as a native and 28 as an invasive.
The free once-per-battle ability Understory Ecesis arrives at level 25: Takes the forest floor: heal 30%, and the foe can't heal. It costs no Sun — its price is being usable only once per battle.
The advanced attack Primordial opens at level 40 for 6 Sun: Ancient resilience — strike and heal 15%. It hits for about 36 native and 38 invasive.
Most cards you field sit well below level 40, so introduce these slots in order — a young plant has only its starter.
This card keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category pool; the rest of that pool was dropped and it never gets it. Unpalatable (from level 10) laces the fronds with bitter chemistry: any attacker that strikes it is Poisoned for 2 stacks. A Sulfur soil amendment on the attacker neutralizes this one.
A second, different trait stacks on later: Spore-drift (from level 68) sheds spores that settle on one of the foe's benched cards each turn, chipping the enemy bench. So for most of its playable life — including at the level 40 snapshot the stats below are read at — this card runs its first trait alone, and only a fully levelled specimen holds both.
This card carries no special trait keywords, and as a fern it is not eligible for a Moss Pole (that is for climbers — vines and epiphytes). A Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment adds flat DEF, useful on a soft card like this. Playing native, lean into bench support that feeds the overshield; playing invasive, a Cloche helps by absorbing incoming contact poison. See field gear for the full list.
Read at level 40, it carries 103 HP as a native (a +15% cushion) against 89 as an invasive, with DEF 2 and a retreat cost of 16 Sun. Its attack jumps hard as an invasive (22 native to 27 invasive), a sign of how widely it has spread beyond its home range.
It is slow off the mark but relentless after: a low opening tempo (13 initiative) but a higher sustained tempo (34 SPD), so it often loses turn 1 and then out-paces the foe from turn 2.
Playing native, it and any benched natives project a bench overshield onto your active; playing invasive, it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack (growing as it levels) and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See stats.
As a fern it gains HP to 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK to 39 / 52, but stays soft: DEF never leaves the floor, capping at 3. Retreat rises to 33 Sun as it roots down with age, and its once-brisk tempo has sunk to near its floor — the tempo pips in Stats above are as fast as this card ever moves. Levelling buys raw bulk and reach; it costs turn-order speed.
In the succession type chart this fern is a Specialist. Its attacks hit Competitor cards (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees) for ×1.5, while Ruderal cards (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs) hit it for ×1.5 and shrug its own blows down to ×0.667. Matchups against the off-wheel Weird categories (carrion-aroids, carnivorous plants, mycotrophs and vascular parasites) are neutral both ways. See weaknesses & resistances.
Play it native as a buffer — soak hits, feed the bench overshield, and lean on its kit. Play it invasive as an attacker, where its higher attack cap does the work, but mind the Faustian bench chip. It is not tagged with a resolved edible part, so fertilizer banks ×1.25 XP rather than paying a coin bonus — feed it to level, not to earn.
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.