Quercus gambelii
A heavily armored broadleaf tree that shields the bench, mends benched allies and heals as it strikes, serving only as a native North American wall with an acorn-fed coin income.
Scrub oak is a stout, deep-rooted Broadleaf tree that fights as a defensive anchor: it soaks hits behind heavy armor, shields your active from the bench, and mends as it strikes. It is native across both Eastern and Western North America and has no invasive form, so the arena only ever fields it as a native wall. Its damage is ordinary; its value is being nearly impossible to move.
Its starter attack, Limb Lash, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 38 damage as a plain hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Old-Growth Reaction, arrives at level 25: Centuries of shade — the foe stalls and withers. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Buttress Bash, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (33 damage) and mends the oak as it strikes. Most of your scrub oak sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Scrub oak keeps two always-on traits. Network arrives on the level 10 riser and, as a canopy tree, projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto your active from the bench; it is not a sustain trait, so it works reliably from early on. Mycorrhiza arrives on the level 68 riser and heals a benched ally, but as a sustain trait it fires only about 60% of the time. Together they make it a support tree first and a fighter second. See Abilities.
Scrub oak does not hold the Toxin trait, so striking it carries no contact recoil and its attacks lay no poison. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native it already carries the heaviest armor here, so field gear is best spent on utility — a Cloche against status rather than more DEF it barely needs. See statuses.
At level 40 scrub oak reads 140 HP with ATK of 21; as a native-only card there is no invasive attack gap. DEF is 30, a broadleaf-tree wall that shrugs off most hits. Its tempo is even but rock-bottom: both its initiative (10) and its SPD (10) sit at the floor, so it almost always acts last — the price of being a tree. Retreat costs 18 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active on top of its Network shield. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, scrub oak swells to 276 HP and 37 ATK, and its DEF climbs to 70 — a broadleaf tree hardens into the hardest wall in the set. Retreat rises to 39 Sun, and its already-slow tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature oak acts last against effectively everything. Maturing buys an immovable wall and its bench-healing Mycorrhiza, at the flat cost of ever going first.
As a broadleaf tree, scrub oak 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; 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 scrub oak as a native wall and bench engine: stand it in front to soak punishment behind its armor, or bench it to stack its Network shield, its HP overshield, and its benched-ally heal onto a harder hitter. Its own offense is unremarkable and it always moves last, so lean on it for durability and support rather than damage. On economy it earns its keep: because its acorn fruit is a resolved edible part, feeding it Phosphorus pays ×1.25 coins, while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth. It plays as an ever-slow anchor that only grows tougher as it levels, crossing over around level 1 — but it is always stronger at higher levels, so there is no reason to hold it back.
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.