Rubus phoenicolasius
A thorny bramble that taxes attackers on contact and toughens mid-fight — it plays either arena role, an Asian and Eastern North American native or a widespread invader.
Wine raspberry is a dense, bristly Shrub that fights as a thorny brawler: firm-ish armor for its class, a mid-fight ATK buff, and thorns that punish anything striking it. It is native to East Asia and Eastern North America and invasive across Africa, Europe, Western North America, Oceania, and South America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an aggressive invasive attacker. It is one of the sturdier cards in this group, though still no heavy hitter on its own.
Its starter attack, Tick Tumble, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and lands a plain hit for about 28 damage as a native and 32 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Frugivore Pact, arrives at level 25: Trades fruit for carriage: +3 ATK, and the foe's whole bench sickens. — a permanent ATK bump that makes its later attacks bite harder. The advanced attack, Thicket, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (33 native / 37 invasive) and hems the foe in as it strikes. Most of your wine raspberry sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Wine raspberry holds two working traits. Sclerophylly (level 10) blunts each direct hit by a flat 3. Sapromyophily (level 68) makes the dense bramble thicket the engine's single-victim pick, which is exactly what you want a bramble doing in front of a bench. See Abilities.
Wine raspberry holds the thorns keyword, so every damaging hit it takes deals flat HP recoil back to the attacker, off its physical armature. That recoil matures on the level 10 riser, so it lands at full strength from early on — a meaningful tax on anything that trades blows with it. It is non-toxic, so nothing chemical punishes an attacker on top of the thorns. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole; as a native, general defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little extra DEF — leans into its wall-and-recoil game, while as an invasive, offensive gear sharpens its bite.
At level 40 wine raspberry reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 20 native versus 31 invasive — compare the two to see how much of an edge the invasive form actually buys here. DEF is 12, in the firmer shrub band, so it soaks hits better than the herbs around it; damage is diminishing armor (ATK ÷ (ATK+DEF)), not flat subtraction, so that DEF matters. Its tempo splits across the fight: the opening turn runs on its initiative (35) and every turn after on its SPD (31) — read the two together, since if initiative is the higher number it opens fast and fades, and if SPD is higher it starts slow and grows relentless. Retreat costs 14 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, wine raspberry swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 36 / 63 ATK, with DEF reaching 24 — solid for a shrub, so it stays reasonably hard to break, though it never becomes a true tree wall. Retreat rises to 29 Sun as it roots in, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature wine raspberry acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys bulk, armor, and harder-hitting thorns at the cost of speed.
As a shrub, wine raspberry 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 wine raspberry as a durable thorny wall: as a native, bench it to lend a fragile hitter the HP cushion and overshield, or park it up front to soak hits and tax attackers on its thorns; as an invasive, lean on its higher ATK and its mid-fight Dense buff to actually threaten damage, accepting the Faustian bench self-damage and conceded prizes. It is one of the sturdier cards here, but its raw damage is still modest, so it works best applying pressure while a finisher closes. On economy it is an edible-fruit plant, so feeding it Phosphorus pays ×1.25 coins, while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. It plays as a sturdy brawler whose bulk and thorns compound as it levels, crossing over around level 21 as a native and 22 as an invasive — and 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.