California live oak

Overview

California live oak hits more softly than most broadleaf trees: no more than 1 in 5 broadleaf trees in the game sit as low as its ATK of 16 at Lv 40. Its initiative stands out too: no more than 1 in 8 of the category reach 53.

California live oak fights as a broadleaf tree (categories) in the Competitor succession group. It is native to Western North America, where it plays as a buffer. It is invasive nowhere on record, so it never takes the attacker role; anywhere else it plays neutral (nativity).

Moves

Every card has three move slots (moves): a starter attack from Lv 1, a free once-per-battle ability from Lv 25 and an advanced attack from Lv 40. Damage is the expected hit at Lv 40, before the target's DEF and the succession wheel.

• Leaf Smother — starter attack, 2 Sun. Buries the foe under a canopy's worth of leaf — it weakens. Expected damage: 24.
• Nurse Log — ability, free once per battle. The fallen feed the next: heal 25%, even the bench, and call back the lost.
• Deadfall — advanced attack, 6 Sun. The whole tree comes down. Expected damage: 39.

Always-on traits

Always-on traits arrive on two trait risers, Lv 10 and Lv 68, one trait on each; anything else its category offered is dropped for good (abilities).

• Tannin Load — from Lv 10. Every direct hit on it Withers the attacker by 2 ATK.
• Epicormic Buds — from Lv 68. Once per battle, when it would be knocked out, it has a 35% chance to survive at 35% of its max HP, shedding every status.

Items and economy

• It is edible, so in a wild battle it earns 4 coins for every turn it spends on your team. It is eaten for its fruit or seeds, so a Phosphorus amendment raises those coins by 25%; an N/P/K amendment that doesn't match earns 25% more battle XP instead.
• A Ca/Mg amendment adds +2 DEF.

Stats

Every number here is the card without per-card genetics, which nudge HP, ATK, sustained tempo, initiative, retreat cost and DEF on the plant you actually own (stats). HP, ATK, DEF and retreat climb in a straight line from Lv 1 to Lv 100, while both tempo stats fall. A native's ATK is the neutral figure.

Stat	Lv 40	Lv 100
HP (neutral)	184	398
HP (native)	212	457
ATK (neutral)	16	28
DEF	77	190
Initiative	53	0.86
Sustained tempo (SPD)	20	0.33
Retreat cost (Sun)	22	47

• DEF is diminishing armour: a hit is scaled by ATK ÷ (ATK + DEF), so a strong attacker pushes through armour a weak one can't, and Poison ignores DEF entirely.
• Tempo: initiative decides who acts first on turn 1 and sustained tempo decides every turn after; it opens faster than it cruises. In a wild battle, a tie goes to you. Both fall as it grows, and by Lv 100 every plant is down to a fraction of a point — which is why the Lv 100 tempo column reads in decimals while the rest are whole numbers.
• Retreat: switching it out costs 22 Sun at Lv 40, and after it enters the active slot it must stay 2 turns before it can switch out.
• Sun is what attacks cost. Its bar holds 120, and an empty bar leaves it unable to attack, though its free ability still works.
• Refilling: out of battle it regains one Sun every 15 minutes at Lv 1, rising to 3 times that pace by Lv 45. Above Lv 52 it also regains Sun during battle, up to 4 a turn at Lv 100, and from Lv 85 its starter attack is free and its advanced attack costs 2 Sun.
• Benched as a native, it adds a green overshield bar to your active plant sized by its conservation status (Least Concern): 1.9% of the active's max HP. Direct attacks drain that bar before HP; Poison, Burn and recoil go straight to HP.

Hardiness

USDA zone 7, per Trees and Shrubs Online (Coombes & Cameron 2026) — it should come through winters that bottom out near -18 °C. Colder than that and it wants shelter, a wall, or a winter indoors. The zone comes from a regression with an error of about one full zone, so treat it as a guide rather than a promise.

Its measured range runs from a cold edge of 4.7 °C to a warm edge of 23.4 °C, in the subtropical band. These are not the same kind of number as the zone above, which is why they look so far apart: the cold edge is how cold the coldest month typically gets across the places it grows, while a hardiness zone is quoted on the extreme annual low, and that runs far below any month's figure. The card's climate chip compares this measured range with where the player is standing, and the only thing it affects is battle XP.

Chip	Meaning	Battle XP
Thrives here	the local winter low and summer heat both sit inside its range	×2
In range	it survives here, but near one of its edges	×1.25
Colder than its range	winters here go below what it tolerates	no bonus
Hotter than its range	summers here run past its warm edge	no bonus

Succession matchups

California live oak is in the Competitor group (weaknesses and resistances). Its hits land at ×1.5 on Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatic plants and bulbs) and at ×0.67 on Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes). In return, Specialist plants hit it at ×1.5 and Ruderal plants at ×0.67. Everything else is neutral.

Playing it

• As a native it is a buffer: its HP cushion, and the overshield bar it lends your active plant from the bench, are what it adds to a team.
• Over its life, its power overtakes its tempo at Lv 10 as a native and at Lv 12 neutral: below that level it plays as a fast skirmisher, above it as a heavyweight. Its HP, ATK and DEF only grow as it levels, so the crossover is never a reason to hold it back. The Total power gallery below shows each crossover, with the card at that level and fully grown.