Sesbania drummondii
A native-only Fabaceae shrub that snarls and poisons foes through its moves, and often arrives with free nitrogen.
The poison bean is a shrub (Shrub) that plays as a native buffer with a nagging, attrition-based kit. It is native to eastern and western North America and to South America, and is invasive nowhere in the current arena regions, so it fills the native-only role — a bench cushion and a mid-armor holder, not a dedicated attacker. Despite the common name it is not tagged toxic in-game, and it holds no contact-poison trait; its poison comes from a move, not from being bitten.
It opens with Snarl at Lv 1 for 2 Sun: Snarls the foe up in thorny growth — it can't pull loose. As a native it deals about 27, and it pins the foe in place. Its free once-per-battle ability, Shrubland Sere, unlocks at Lv 25 for no Sun: Settles the slope: heal 35%, and the foe withers. Its advanced attack, Thorn in the Side, arrives at Lv 40 for 6 Sun and deals about 30: A thorn that festers — Poison the foe. That Poison is damage-over-time, so it bypasses the overshield and ignores DEF — the card's real path to chipping down a tank. No move carries an initiative rider.
It keeps two always-on traits. Marcescence arrives at Lv 10: below half HP the shrub holds its dead leaves and gains +4 DEF, so it gets harder to finish exactly when it is hurt. Drupe Mast stacks on at Lv 68: whenever any card faints, it heals your benched plants by 8% of their maximum HP — a mast crop feeding your bench through a long fight. Below Lv 68 only Marcescence is online.
It carries no special trait keywords, and as a shrub it is not a climber, so it takes no Moss Pole. Ordinary field gear fits; a Ca/Mg amendment adds flat DEF on top of its shrub band. Being native, it wants gear that supports a bench-buffer role.
Read at Lv 40, where every move is unlocked, it has 103 HP (native +15% cushion included), 11 DEF (mid-tier shrub armor) and 19 ATK. On tempo it is the slow-starter, strong-cruiser shape: its opening initiative (41) trails its sustained SPD (43), so it tends to move second on turn 1 but pulls ahead from turn 2 onward. Retreat costs 13 Sun. Benched, it projects a thin green HP overshield (it is a Least-Concern species) onto your active. See stats.
Matured, its HP swells to 190 and its ATK to 33, while DEF settles at 21 — a shrub firms up but never reaches a tree's wall. Retreat rises to 26 Sun as it roots in, and the inverted tempo sinks toward its floor, so its turn-2 edge fades with age. A grown poison bean is a chip-and-outlast holder rather than a heavy hitter.
As a shrub it is in the Competitor succession group: strong (×1.5) into Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) and on the losing side against Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes).
It plays as a patient native buffer that leans on the Poison from Thorn in the Side and the extra DEF from Marcescence to grind bulkier foes down, while feeding your bench through Drupe Mast. As a legume (Fabaceae), one in four caught in the wild arrives with a Nitrogen amendment already applied — a free head start worth roughly 300 coins — though it sits in a soil slot and decomposes after about a month, so it is an economy freebie, not combat power. It is not edible, so fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP for growth rather than coins. It is a serviceable support and collection piece more than a standout attacker: it fights as a quick-fading skirmisher until about Lv 29, after which its bulk and attrition take over.
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.