Ribes rubrum
A shrub that plays native buffer in Europe and a notably harder-hitting invasive attacker across much of the world, with an edible fruit that pays coins.
Red currant is a shrub with a firm mid-range body. It is native to Europe, where it plays the native buffer role, and invasive across East Asia, South Asia and eastern and western North America, where it becomes an attacker. See nativity.
The starter, Snarl, unlocks at Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals 27 native / 32 invasive, snarling the foe so it cannot pull loose. The free once-per-battle ability, Frugivore Pact, unlocks at Lv 25: it grants +3 ATK and sickens the foe's whole bench. The advanced attack, Fruit Drop Kick, arrives at Lv 40 for 6 Sun, hitting for 25 native / 29 invasive and also nicking the bench. No move carries the initiative rider. See moves.
It keeps two always-on traits. Sclerophylly, from the Lv 10 riser, is its tough-leaf armour: it shaves a flat 3 damage off every incoming direct attack, on top of its DEF. Lure, from the Lv 68 riser, is a working taunt: wherever the engine picks a single victim out of a group — a splash, a scatter, or bench-reaching drift — this card steps in and soaks that incidental hit instead of an ally. At the mature Lv 68 tier it always draws those single-target stray hits onto itself. Both are steady passives once unlocked, and neither is a 60% sustain-heal trait.
It holds no Toxin or Unpalatable contact-recoil trait, and no Thorns trait either — despite the thorny flavor of its snarl move, there is no armature recoil on it. It is not a climber, so no Moss Pole. A Calcium/Magnesium field gear amendment complements its shrub armor.
At Lv 40 the native carries 103 HP (with the +15% cushion) and 19 ATK; the invasive drops to 89 HP but its introduced range lifts ATK to 32 — a large step, so the invasive hits much harder. DEF is 13, firm for a shrub. The invasive pays Faustian self-damage (10 plus level minus one) to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes on KO. Opening tempo 48 is well above sustained tempo 34, so it is a quick starter that slows into a cruiser. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a common species its bench overshield bar is a sliver. See stats.
HP grows to 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK to 34 native / 66 invasive, where the invasive edge is widest. DEF firms to 28, a solid shrub wall. Retreat rises to 33 Sun and the inverted tempo sinks to its ~1% floor, ending its quick-start edge. From Lv 52 it regenerates Sun in battle; at Lv 85 the starter is free.
As a shrub it is a Competitor: ×1.5 into Ruderal cards, ×0.667 into Specialists (who hit it for ×1.5), even against other Competitors and the Weird group.
Red currant is at its best as an invasive attacker: the big ATK step, the bind on its starter, the bench-wide sickening from its ability and the bench chip on its advanced attack let it pressure a whole team at once, at the cost of the Faustian self-damage and the extra prizes it hands over on death. As a native it is a firmer-than-average support. It is edible with the fruit as the eaten part, so Phosphorus fertilizer pays ×1.25 coins (other nutrients bank ×1.25 XP), making it a reliable coin earner. As a native its power curve overtakes its tempo curve around Lv 28.
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.