Rhododendron arborescens
A slow, soft native shrub with modest damage that hardens when hurt and cannot be Burned — a buffer and collection piece.
Sweet azalea is a Shrub that fights as a slow, soft native buffer with modest damage. It is native to Eastern North America, and no invasive card exists, so it plays only as a native buffer, never as an attacker. It hits gently, so it is among the weaker cards here, though it hardens at low HP and cannot be Burned from level 68.
Its starter attack, Berry, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 28 damage as a native. The free once-per-battle ability, Shrubland Sere, arrives at level 25: Settles the slope: heal 35%, and the foe withers. The advanced attack, Hedgerow Havoc, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (26 native) and saps the target, weakening its attack. Most of your sweet azalea sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Sweet azalea holds two working traits. Marcescence (level 10) gives +4 DEF at half HP or below. Lignotuber (level 68) gives the shrub a root crown fire cannot touch: Burn does not stick, and the attempt heals it. See Abilities.
Sweet azalea is non-toxic, so there is no contact recoil and no poison rider — striking it costs an attacker nothing. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little DEF — firms its light armor. See statuses.
At level 40 sweet azalea reads 121 HP with ATK of 21. DEF is 10, toward the soft end of the shrub band, so it takes hits with only light armor. Its tempo is strongly back-loaded: turn 1 runs on a low initiative (18) so it is out-paced off the mark, but every turn after runs on a higher SPD (34), so it grows quicker once a fight settles in. Retreat costs 14 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, sweet azalea swells to 233 HP and 37 ATK, and its DEF firms only to 20 — a soft shrub buys most of its growth in health, not armor, so it stays exposed to a real hitter. Retreat rises to 27 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature azalea acts last against almost anything younger.
As a shrub, sweet azalea 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 sweet azalea as a native buffer: bench it to lend your active the HP cushion and overshield, and expect it to trade only softly when it has to fight. With low damage and slow opening tempo it is a weak card whose main value is filling out the family tree, defensive traits notwithstanding. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as a slow, back-loaded buffer that leans on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 11 — 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.