Shepherd's needle

Overview

Shepherd's needle (Scandix pecten-veneris) is an annual forb, a fast, fragile pioneer in battle terms. It is native to Africa, East Asia, Europe and South Asia, where it plays as a defensive buffer, and invasive in Eastern North America, Western North America, Oceania and South America, where it turns aggressor. Read across the fight it is even off the mark and only a little faster as the fight settles.

Moves

The kit fills in as the card levels — most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 used for the numbers here.

• Insect Alliance (unlocks at Level 1) is the starter attack: Calls in insect allies — the foe's whole bench sickens. It deals 32 as a native defender and 35 as an invasive attacker. It costs 2 Sun.
• Ruderal Rush (unlocks at Level 25) is the free once-per-battle ability: Weedy haste — a burst of speed, kept for the match. It costs no Sun and deals no damage — it is pure utility.
• Seed Grenade (unlocks at Level 40) is the advanced attack: Bursts its pods across the foe's whole bench. It deals 32 native and 35 invasive. It costs 6 Sun.

Abilities

This card keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category's pool and locked in once and for all — everything else the pool offered was dropped.

• From Level 10, Duff Stuff raises its effective DEF by half the combined DEF of its living benched ruderal allies (annual forbs, grasses, aquatic plants and bulbs), recomputed as the fight goes on — genuine armor, but only if you field a ruderal-heavy bench, and it fades as those allies faint.
• From Level 68, Ballistic Dispersal fires when the plant is knocked out — it flings seed that chips every enemy for about 4% of their maximum HP as it falls.

Features

It carries no special keyword traits — no innate toxin, thorns, carnivory or succulence — so it plays as a straight annual forb. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climbing one, so it does not take a Moss Pole. For field gear, a native copy leaning into the defender role wants a Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment to firm up its otherwise thin DEF; an attacker copy would rather spend the slot on the fertilizer that suits its role, and a Cloche is worth holding if you expect a poison-heavy opponent. See nativity for how region sets its role and abilities for the trait model.

Stats

Read at the snapshot level of 40, where every move is unlocked: 103 HP (native, including the roughly 15% cushion), 2 DEF, tempo of 31 opening / 34 sustained, and a 16 Sun retreat cost. Its Sun bar caps at 120 and refills in real time; from Level 52 it also regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a Level 85 capstone makes the starter free. Its DEF is soft (2 at the snapshot level), the low annual forb band, so it leans on health and recovery rather than armor. As a native defender it gains a roughly 15% HP cushion (103 HP at the snapshot level) and, while benched, projects a green overshield bar onto whatever card is active for you. As an invasive attacker its ATK identity (35, against 26 for the native form) is built from how widely it spreads plus an introduced-range term, and it pays "Faustian" self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack — a cost that grows as it levels — while conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. Note the two roles diverge only as the card matures: at Level 1 an invasive reads the same ATK as its native self, and the attacking edge is deferred onto the higher-level caps. See stats for the full model.

At Level 100

Grown to the cap, its HP swells to 190 but its DEF barely leaves the soft band it started in (3) — biomass without armor, the signature of a soft-bodied annual forb. The retreat cost rises to 33 Sun, and the inverted tempo that made it quick when young has fallen to roughly 1% of cap. It ends the climb as a big health pool that still takes hits on the chin, so it wants recovery and positioning rather than a trading war.

Weaknesses & Resistances

By category it belongs to the Ruderal succession group. On the type wheel, Ruderal deals extra damage to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes) and takes extra from Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees); a strong matchup lands at ×1.5 and a resisted one at ×0.667. Everything off those two edges — including the Weird categories — is neutral. See weaknesses and resistances.

Gameplay uses

Play the native copy as a bench buffer and health sponge, and the invasive copy as an attacker that races to trade before the Faustian bench cost adds up. In absolute terms this is a fragile card: a fine coin-earner and collection piece in single-player, but it wants backup on the bench rather than carrying a fight alone. It is edible with a resolved edible part (leaf), so feeding it the matching nitrogen fertilizer pays ×1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. Leveling steadily trades falling turn-order speed for rising bulk and attack: it fights as a fast skirmisher up to about Level 22, after which its power takes over — it is monotonically stronger the higher you level it, so there is never a reason to hold it back. The Total power panel below charts this trade-off for each stance it can hold.