Rubus pruinosus
Pruinose Bramble (Rubus pruinosus) is a shrub that plays a native buffer, with no introduced range to make it an attacker.
Pruinose Bramble is a thorny bramble shrub — a defensive plant that punishes anything that touches it. It is native to Europe and has no introduced range, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker scenario for it.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. Its starter attack, Snarl (unlocked at level 1, 2 Sun), deals 26 as a native: Snarls the foe up in thorny growth — it can't pull loose. Its once-per-battle ability, Shrubland Sere (level 25, free), is pure utility: Settles the slope: heal 35%, and the foe withers. Its advanced attack, Thorn in the Side (level 40, 6 Sun), deals 29 native: A thorn that festers — Poison the foe.
These are the always-on traits this card actually keeps, and the level each one arrives at (a plant draws at most one trait per growth stage). From level 10, Thorns punishes melee: every attacker that lands a damaging hit takes a flat chunk of recoil damage off the plant's armature. From level 68, Drupe Mast turns its own death into a gift — when it is knocked out it feeds its bench, healing each surviving teammate a little.
On the field it draws on field gear to shore up its weaknesses. A Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF that suits its firmer frame.
Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked, it holds 103 health and 15 attack as a native, with 12 DEF. That is a firm mid-tier armor — armor is diminishing rather than flat, so it shaves a real fraction off small and medium attackers, though a heavy hitter still punches through. Its retreat costs 15 Sun. On tempo it opens at 47 initiative (which orders the first turn) and cruises at 39 speed (which orders every turn after). It is a quick starter but a slower cruiser — it tends to land the first hit and then get out-paced. As a native it carries a 15% health cushion (103 versus 89 as an invader), and while benched it projects a green overshield bar onto your active plant, sized by how threatened it is.
Grown to level 100, its health swells to 190 and its attack to 25, and its armor firms up to 24 DEF — genuinely tough, though never a tree-class wall. Retreat rises to 31 Sun as the older plant grows more rooted, and its once-quick tempo has sunk to a sliver — it goes late in turn order now. Maturing buys it raw bulk and hitting power; it costs it the speed edge it had as a seedling.
In the succession type chart, Pruinose Bramble's category (shrub) belongs to the Competitor group. Ruderal, Competitor, and Specialist form a wheel: Competitor hits Ruderal plants (annual-forbs, grasses, aquatic plants, and bulbs) for 1.5× damage, and takes 1.5× from Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, and epiphytes), resisting each the other way at about two-thirds. The off-wheel Weird categories are neutral both ways.
A defensive card with low attack but firm armor and thorns that make melee costly. It has no invader role and does little damage itself, so lean on it as a wall and a fruit coin-earner rather than a finisher. Off the battlefield it earns money: it has an edible fruit, so feeding it Phosphorus fertilizer pays 1.25× coins (any other nutrient banks 1.25× experience instead). On the power curves below, it fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 31, after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its fading speed — a shift in which edge dominates, not a sign it is weaker when grown.
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.