Rubus ursinus
The California blackberry (Rubus ursinus) is a Shrub that plays as a defensive buffer where native and an attacker where invasive.
The California blackberry is a trailing native bramble. In battle it plays as a Shrub. It is native to Western North America, where it takes the defensive buffer role, and invasive in Oceania, where it becomes an attacker.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. The starter attack, Snarl, is available from Level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing 28 as a native and 28 as an invasive. Its effect: Snarls the foe up in thorny growth — it can't pull loose.
The free ability, Facilitation (Level 25), costs no Sun because it is once per battle: Shelters its own and starves the rest: heal 50%, and the foe's bench withers.
The advanced attack, Hedgerow Havoc (Level 40, 6 Sun), deals 25 native and 25 invasive: The whole hedgerow comes down on the bench. Most cards you meet are well below the Level 40 snapshot these numbers are read at, and unlock their kit slot by slot as they level.
This card actually keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category pool with the rest discarded. From Level 10 it carries Marcescence, which grants DEF while it is below half health, hardening as it takes damage. From Level 68 a second, different trait stacks on top: Drupe Mast, which heals your own bench whenever it scores a knockout. Both are working traits — there are no inert abilities in the game — and each arrives at full strength on the riser shown, so for much of the card's life it plays with only the earlier of the two.
It carries no Toxin or Thorns trait, so it inflicts no contact recoil on an attacker. Because its body is soft, a Cloche is a valuable ward against the damage-over-time Poison that bypasses its overshield, and a Cal-Mag amendment shores up its thin armor. Its edible fruit means the matching Phosphorus (P) fertilizer pays bonus coins (see Gameplay uses). See field gear for the full item list and nativity for how region sets its role.
Read at the Level 40 snapshot, its DEF is 11 — a firm mid band — shrubs harden well past a weed, short of a tree. It retreats for 14 Sun. Turn 1 is ordered by its initiative (21) and every turn after by its SPD (52). It is slow off the mark but relentless after — outpaced on the opening exchange, then pulling ahead as the fight settles. By nativity it splits two ways. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion (103 HP against 89 invasive) and, from the bench, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. As an invasive its aggression is built from how widely it spreads plus an introduced-range term — compare 20 native ATK against 20 invasive — and it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. The overshield is a bench-built extra ring: up to four green HP bars from benched natives (drained by direct damage first, but bypassed by poison, recoil and splash) and up to two gold Sun bars from benched Network trees.
By Level 100 that firmness has grown into real armor at 22 DEF, with HP toward 190; retreat rises to 27 Sun and its tempo has fallen to about 1% of cap. It ends as a tough, slow body that trades blows rather than racing.
It is a Competitor on the succession wheel: it crowds out Ruderals (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs), hitting them for 1.5× and resisting their blows, but is outlasted by Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes), which turn its 1.5× disadvantage against it. The Weird categories (carrion-aroids, carnivores, mycotrophs and vascular parasites) sit off the wheel and trade neutrally with it. See weaknesses & resistances and categories.
A firm-DEF shrub with edible fruit and a strong 50% self-heal ability. A durable, self-sustaining buffer that also earns coins; a good bench anchor. Because its edible part is a resolved fruit, feeding it Phosphorus pays ×1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. On the total-power curve its crossover falls around Level 24 native and 28 invasive: below it the card leans on speed, above it on bulk and attack. It only grows stronger with level, so there is never a 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.