Sorghum halepense
A fast, hard-hitting grass whose wilt aura and bench chip make it a strong aggressor, playing either role — an Old World native or an invader across the Americas and Oceania.
Johnsongrass is a fast Grass that fights as an aggressive, high-tempo attacker. It is native to Africa, East Asia, Europe and South Asia, and invasive across eastern and western North America, Oceania and South America, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker (see nativity). Its invasive form is a real threat: high speed, high attack, and traits that wear down the whole enemy team.
Its starter attack, Carpet, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, landing an armor-ignoring hit that ramps up, cutting through defensive walls. The free once-per-battle ability, Plagioclimax, arrives at level 25: Holds the sward short — the foe stalls and withers. The advanced attack, Turf War, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (48 native / 53 invasive) and splashes damage onto the enemy bench as well as the active. Most of your copies sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn.
It keeps two always-on traits. Allelopathy arrives at full strength on the level 10 riser, laying a wilt aura on the enemy active that grinds it down each turn. Spore-drift arrives on the level 68 riser and chips the enemy bench, extending the pressure to their whole team. See Abilities.
It carries no thorn or toxin keywords, so nothing recoils onto an attacker; its pressure comes from its aura and splash statuses instead. It is non-toxic, with no hazard ring. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear shores up its paper-thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes an already dangerous attack.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 40 invasive — a very wide gap, so the invasive form hits far harder. DEF is just 1, at the floor of the grass band, so it has essentially no armor. Its tempo is even and high: turn 1 runs on its initiative (56) and every turn after on its SPD (56), both among the fastest values you will see, so it usually acts first throughout a fight. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, it climbs to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 46 / 83 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 1 — a grass gains health, never armor, so it stays fragile despite its output. Retreat rises to 24 Sun and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so even this speedster ends up acting late once fully grown. Maturing buys a huge attacker that folds to a solid hit.
As a grass it is in the Ruderal succession group. It hits Specialist plants for ×1.5 and is struck for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Competitor plants, which hit it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Other Ruderals and the off-wheel Weird group are neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
This is primarily an invasive attacker: lead with it, cut through walls with its armor-ignoring starter, and let the wilt aura and bench chip erode the whole enemy team before it is caught. As a native it can pressure the enemy active while buffing your bench, but its low armor means it wants to be striking, not soaking. Its value is also economic: it is inedible, so any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP toward leveling. As a native it fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 39, and as an invasive the crossover to bulk comes around level 39 — keep leveling it.
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.