Ribes odoratum
A slow-starting, self-healing native shrub-herb from eastern North America that pulls ahead in longer fights.
Missouri Giant is a Perennial herb that fights as a back-loaded grinder: cheap attacks, steady damage, and a tempo that climbs as a fight drags on. It is native to Eastern North America and has no invasive card, so the arena only ever fields it in its native, bench-support role. It is a dependable, unflashy card — a slow burner more than a finisher.
Its starter attack, Bitter Sap, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage — a plain, reliable hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming, arrives at level 25: Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. The advanced attack, Perennial Problem, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (43 damage) and is a harder, straightforward strike. Most of your plants sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
It keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout comes in 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, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
It carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin chemistry — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic: no contact recoil and no poison rider baked in. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear (a Cloche, a Ca/Mg amendment for a little extra DEF) suits its patient game.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP with 25 ATK, with no invasive form to compare against. DEF is 4, toward the upper edge of the perennial-herb band but still low, so it takes hits with little armor. Its tempo is sharply back-loaded: turn 1 runs on a very slow initiative (13) that gets out-paced, but from turn 2 on its much faster SPD (34) takes over, so it opens behind and then becomes relentless. Retreat costs 16 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, it climbs to 190 HP and 44 ATK, and its DEF reaches 8 — better than most herbs but still modest, so it banks most of its growth in health rather than armor. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature plant acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb it 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; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it as a native buffer built for longer fights — it opens slow but its high SPD lets it out-trade sluggish foes as a bout runs on, while the HP cushion and overshield protect a fragile ally. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP rather than coins. It starts as a slow skirmisher and leans harder on its bulk and SPD as it levels, crossing over around level 11; it is always stronger at higher levels in 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.