Stylosanthes guianensis
A soft-bodied legume that plays either arena role — a native buffer or an invasive attacker — opening with a poison and clinging on with Resprout.
Brazilian lucerne is a soft Perennial herb that plays either arena role — a native buffer or an invasive attacker. It opens with a poison and clings to life through Resprout, but its paper-thin armor means it wins by attrition, not by sitting and trading blows. It is native across Eastern and Western North America and South America, and invasive through Africa, East Asia, Oceania, and South Asia, so the arena can field it either way.
Its starter attack, Bitter Sap, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage as a native and 33 as an invasive, and leaving the target poisoned. The free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, arrives at level 25: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Herbaceous Assault, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (32 native / 35 invasive) as a straightforward hit. Most of your lucerne sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Brazilian lucerne keeps one always-on trait, Resprout. It arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 riser — a real difference for most of the card's life. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health, but as a sustain trait it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a lucky reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Brazilian lucerne is non-toxic — no contact recoil and no poison rider of its own beyond what its opener applies. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear offsets its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 Brazilian lucerne reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 34 invasive — a solid gap that makes the invasive form the real hitter. DEF is just 2, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (41) and every turn after on its SPD (41), which match, so it is neither a fast opener nor a fast cruiser. Retreat costs 13 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, Brazilian lucerne swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 44 / 69 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 3 — as a soft herb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 26 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature lucerne acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing also finally brings Resprout to full strength.
As a perennial herb, Brazilian lucerne sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Brazilian lucerne as a poison-first attrition piece: lead with its opener to poison the enemy active, then heal and hope Resprout buys an extra turn. As an invasive its higher ATK makes the poison-and-pressure plan bite harder; as a native it is a softer buffer that still taxes anyone it poisons. Its armor is paper, so it never wants to sit and trade. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP toward growth rather than coins — and as a legume, about one in four caught wild arrives with a free Nitrogen amendment, an economy head start that decomposes after a month. It plays as an even-tempo skirmisher leaning harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 29 as a native and 30 as an invasive — but it is always stronger at higher levels, so there is no reason to hold it back.
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.