Pycnanthemum virginianum
A native-only, soft perennial herb that poisons on its opening hit and grows relentless in long fights — a North American buffer with no invasive form.
Virginia mountain-mint is a slender, soft Perennial herb that fights as a self-healing skirmisher: light armor, a poisoning opener, and staying power that grows the longer a fight runs. It is native to Eastern North America and has no invasive form, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker version to build around. It is a modest but useful support card.
Its starter attack, Rhizome Creep, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage and leaving the target poisoned so it keeps bleeding health after the hit lands. The free once-per-battle ability, Perennating Bud, comes in at level 25: Breaks a stored bud: heal 40%. The advanced attack, Perennial Problem, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (43 damage) — a straightforward, harder hit. Most of your mountain-mints sit below level 40, where only the starter move is available.
Virginia mountain-mint keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
Virginia mountain-mint carries no special trait keywords and is non-toxic in the arena sense: no contact recoil and no poison rider on being struck, so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it (its own poison comes only from its opening move). Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear suits its buffering game.
At level 40 Virginia mountain-mint reads 103 HP with ATK of 25. DEF is just 1, at the floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on a lower initiative (36), so it is out-paced off the mark, but every turn after runs on a higher SPD (40), so it becomes relentless once a fight settles in. Retreat costs 11 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, Virginia mountain-mint swells to 190 HP and 45 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health, never armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 21 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature mountain-mint acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb, Virginia mountain-mint is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants, 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 Virginia mountain-mint as a native support piece that opens with poison and then grinds: lead with the starter to stack chip damage, and let its back-loaded tempo carry longer fights. Its HP cushion and bench overshield help a fragile finisher survive, but its own damage is modest, so pair it with a stronger hitter. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins, a steady growth investment. It is out-paced early and turns relentless as it levels, crossing over around level 26, 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.