Ribes uva-crispa
A soft perennial herb that hits hard on offense and can cheat one death - a Euro-African native or a wide invader.
Common gooseberry is a low, soft Perennial herb that fights as a hard-hitting grinder with a built-in second chance. It is native to Africa and Europe and invasive across East Asia, Eastern North America, and South Asia, so the arena can field it as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its large invasive ATK is its main draw; its armor is close to nothing. See nativity.
Its starter attack, Crown Split, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 42 damage as a native and 50 as an invasive - a plain strike. The free once-per-battle ability, Perennating Bud, arrives at level 25: Breaks a stored bud: heal 40%. The advanced attack, Herbaceous Assault, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (31 native / 35 invasive) as a harder plain hit. Most of your gooseberries sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Gooseberry keeps one always-on trait: Resprout. It draws only one eligible trait, so 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 trait keywords and is non-toxic - no contact recoil, no hazard ring, no poison on its strikes. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear helps offset its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear presses its strong ATK.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive, with ATK of 23 native versus 34 invasive - a large invasive jump that anchors its offense. DEF is just 4, near the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with very little armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (32), but every turn after runs on its higher SPD (34), so it is out-paced on turn 1 and steadier once a fight settles. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, gooseberry swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 43 / 70 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 - a soft herb gains health, never much 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 gooseberry acts last against almost anything young. Leveling buys HP, damage, and a matured Resprout, not a wall.
As a perennial herb, common gooseberry is 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 hit 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 straightforward attacker that hits hard and hopes to cheat one death. As an invasive its high ATK makes it a real threat; as a native it is a passable buffer that still deals meaningful damage. Its fragility means it wants a tougher plant to fall back behind. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward faster leveling rather than coins. In player-versus-player (PvP) matches it starts a touch slow but settles into a steady beat, with its bulk taking over around level 23 as a native (about level 24 as an invasive) - always stronger leveled up.
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.