Quercus cerris
A well-rounded oak that walls up and buffs the bench as a native or hits harder as an invader, with heavy late armor.
Turkey Oak is a Broadleaf tree that fights as a sturdy, adaptable oak: strong armor, a fair hit, and bench support from the canopy. It is native to Europe and invasive in Eastern North America and Oceania, so the arena can field it either way — a native buffer for your bench or an invasive attacker with sharper teeth. It is a dependable card in either role, leaning defensive by nature.
Its starter attack, Branch Bash, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and lands a plain hit of about 29 damage native / 31 invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Old-Growth Reaction, arrives at level 25: Centuries of shade — the foe stalls and withers. The advanced attack, Mast Bombard, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (24 native / 25 invasive) and saps the target, draining it as it strikes. Most of your Turkey Oaks sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. See Moves.
Turkey Oak keeps two always-on traits, one per riser. Network arrives on the level 10 riser and, as a canopy tree, projects a gold Sun overshield bar from the bench onto your active plant. Mycorrhiza arrives on the level 68 riser and heals a benched ally, though it fires only about 60% of the time. Together they make it a strong bench anchor once mature. See Abilities.
It carries no special trait keywords and is non-toxic, so an attacker takes no recoil or poison for hitting it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear suits its walling game — a Cloche or a calcium/magnesium amendment; as an invasive, offensive gear makes its higher attack count.
At level 40 it reads 140 HP native / 122 invasive and 23 / 28 ATK — a real invasive uplift that turns a defensive tree into a credible attacker. DEF is 30, strong within the broadleaf-tree band, so it soaks hits well. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (30) and later turns on its SPD (23), so it leads early then slows. Retreat costs 18 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield for your active; as an invasive it draws its higher ATK from traits but pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. Link Stats.
Matured to level 100, Turkey Oak becomes an armored wall: 276 / 240 HP, 41 / 55 ATK, and DEF reaching 70 — as a tree it turns late growth into heavy armor as well as health. Retreat rises to 39 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature oak acts last. Maturing buys a near-immovable body at the cost of speed.
As a broadleaf tree it sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them, but 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.
Play Turkey Oak as a bench anchor and wall as a native — Sun overshield out, mycorrhiza heals to your active — or as an invasive front-liner that trades harder thanks to its trait-boosted attack. It is a well-rounded card with no glaring weakness beyond its slow tempo. It is inedible, so any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — a steady leveler. It opens quick and hardens into a wall as it grows, crossing over around level 8 as a native (about 10 as an invasive) — always stronger at higher levels, 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.