Ribes nigrum
A soft, self-healing perennial herb that plays either role - a fragile native buffer or a harder-hitting invasive attacker.
Black currant is a low Perennial herb that fights as a self-healing staller: cheap hits, a couple of mends, and very little armor. It is native to East Asia and Europe and invasive across Eastern North America and South Asia, so the arena can cast it either way - as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is a soft, middling card that leans on healing to outlast rather than on raw force.
Its starter attack, Bitter Sap, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage as a native and 33 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming, arrives at level 25: Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. It restores a chunk of health mid-fight. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (30 native / 33 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your currants sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn out of order. See Moves.
Currant 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 rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Currant carries no special trait keywords - no thorns, no toxin, no spore chemistry - so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. It is non-toxic, with no hazard ring. As a native, defensive field gear (a Cloche, a small DEF amendment) props up its stalling; as an invasive, offensive gear makes its aggression count.
At level 40 currant reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 34 invasive - a clear invasive edge. DEF is only 4, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (51) and every turn after on its slower SPD (34), so it opens fast and is out-paced later. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, currant swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 46 / 68 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 - as a soft herb it gains health, never armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature currant acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing buys HP and a firmer Resprout; it never buys toughness.
As a perennial herb, currant sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and takes only x0.667 from them, while Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) strike it for x1.5 and resist its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the trade is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play currant as a cheap, self-healing filler that buys time. As a native it is a passable buffer whose HP cushion and bench overshield help a fragile hitter survive; as an invasive its damage is better but its paper-thin DEF means it folds the moment healing runs dry, so it works best as support. It is inedible, so feeding it any nutrient banks x1.25 XP rather than coins. It fights as a quick skirmisher early and leans on its bulk as it grows, crossing over around level 30; higher levels only raise its raw stats, 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.