Salvia officinalis
A soft perennial herb that poisons, cruises hard in long fights, and can cheat one death - a European native or a wide invader.
Common sage is a low, soft Perennial herb that fights as a poisoning grinder: it chips with poison, speeds up as fights drag on, and carries a built-in second chance. It is native to Europe and invasive across Africa, East Asia, Eastern and Western North America, and South America, so the arena can field it as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its high invasive ATK makes it a real threat despite paper-thin armor. See nativity.
Its starter attack, Taproot Anchor, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 28 damage as a native and 32 as an invasive, leaving poison on the target. The free once-per-battle ability, Alkaloid Reservoir, arrives at level 25: Empties a season of alkaloids into the foe — saturating Poison. The advanced attack, Bitter End, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (28 native / 32 invasive) as a plain, harder strike. Most of your sages sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Sage 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. Its attacks apply poison, but the plant itself is non-toxic to the touch - no contact recoil and no hazard ring, so nothing punishes an attacker merely for hitting it. 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 20 native versus 32 invasive - a large invasive step up. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (36), but every turn after runs on its higher SPD (40), so it is out-paced on turn 1 and relentless once a fight settles. Retreat costs 11 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, sage swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 36 / 66 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 - a soft herb gains health, never armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 21 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so even its once-relentless SPD lags anything young. Leveling buys HP, damage, and a matured Resprout, not a wall.
As a perennial herb, common sage 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 an aggressive poisoner that gets better the longer it stays in. As an invasive its high ATK plus poison ticks make it a strong attacker; as a native it is a decent buffer that still threatens damage. 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 slow but cruises hard, with its bulk taking over around level 27 as a native (about level 28 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.