Ruizia cordata
A rare, native-only broadleaf tree from Africa that walls up on defense and, unusually for a tree, moves fast at both stages of the fight.
Ruizia cordata is a broadleaf tree, carrying a tree's armor wall and sitting in the Competitor succession group. It is native to Africa and invasive nowhere, so it is a native-only card: it always plays the nativity buffer role and never takes on an attacker form. What sets it apart from most trees is its tempo — it is quick both off the mark and across the fight, which is rare for a heavy category.
Its starter, Whomp, unlocks at Lv 1 for 2 Sun: The full weight of the tree, all at once. As a native it deals 35.
At Lv 25 it gains its free once-per-battle ability, Old-Growth Reaction: Centuries of shade — the foe stalls and withers. This is a control effect that stalls and withers the foe, dealing no direct damage.
Its advanced attack, Buttress Bash, unlocks at Lv 40 for 6 Sun: Swings a buttress root and pins the foe. As a native it hits for 31 and pins the foe in place. Neither attack carries the initiative rider. See moves.
This card keeps two always-on abilities, arriving far apart. At Lv 10 it gains Buttress Roots — a structural, defensive stability trait, live at full strength from arrival. At Lv 68 it stacks on Mycorrhiza, a benched-ally heal that triggers only about 60% of the time it is eligible, so it is a useful but unreliable sustain. For most of its leveling it runs on the buttress trait alone. See the abilities guide.
As a broadleaf tree it carries no special trait keywords here and is not a climber, so it takes no Moss Pole. Its DEF is already firm, so field gear is best spent on Sun economy or on leaning into its unusual speed rather than on more armor.
At Lv 40 every move is unlocked. Its DEF is 24 — solidly in tree territory, so direct hits are heavily reduced. As a native it reads 103 HP and 15 ATK with the +15% HP cushion, and while benched it projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. It is native-only, so it never gains the invasive ATK step, the Faustian bench cost, or the extra knockout prizes an attacker concedes. Its standout numbers are tempo: it opens at initiative 49 and cruises at SPD 52, both high — a tree that genuinely acts early and keeps acting early, which almost no other tree does. See stats.
By Lv 100 it hardens toward a wall: DEF rises to 55 on wood density, HP to 190, and ATK to 25. Retreat climbs to 23 Sun as it roots in, and even this fast tree's tempo has sunk to roughly its floor by the cap — so its speed edge is a young-and-mid-game asset that fades as it matures into a tank.
As a broadleaf tree it is in the Competitor group: strong (x1.5) into Ruderal cards, weak (x0.667) into Specialists, even against other Competitors. Poison is its main threat, since it ignores armor. See weaknesses & resistances.
Ruizia cordata is a defensive, buffer-only card, and a rare one, so it is as much a family-tree collection piece as a battler. On the board its niche is unusual: a wall that also moves fast, so it can land the opening hit and keep initiative against quicker foes while still soaking damage — bench it to feed the overshield and swap it in as a durable front-liner. It has no attacker mode, so don't plan around invasive aggression. It is not edible, so fertilizer banks x1.25 XP rather than coins. As a bulky tree its power edge dominates from a low level, crossing over around Lv 33 native (Lv 36 on the neutral base line).
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.