Symphoricarpos albus
A firm-DEF shrub with self-heal moves and hardened leaves — a durable buffer that grinds down attackers; unremarkable on offence.
Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) is a Shrub in Supplant — a thicket-forming shrub. It carries no native or invasive range on record, so in every arena it plays as a neutral card, taking neither the native health cushion nor the invasive attacker's edge.
Numbers below are read at Level 40, where every move in its kit has unlocked.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. The starter attack, Drupe Drop, is available from Level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing 26 as a native and 28 as an invasive: Drops fruit — also nicks the bench.
The free ability, Shrubland Sere (Level 25), costs no Sun because it is once per battle: Settles the slope: heal 35%, and the foe withers.
The advanced attack, Hedge Fund (Level 40, 6 Sun), deals 29 native and 31 invasive: Draws on its reserves — heal 30%. None of its moves carry the initiative rider, so it never seizes first strike — turn order runs purely on its tempo stats (see Stats). Most cards you meet are well below this Level 40 snapshot and unlock their kit slot by slot.
Every card keeps at most two always-on traits, drawn from its category pool with the rest dropped for good. This one keeps two, and both are working traits — there are no inert abilities in the game:
Each arrives at full strength on the riser shown, so for much of the card's climb it plays with only the earlier of the two; the second joins late.
It carries no Toxin or Thorns trait, so biting it inflicts no chemical or thorn recoil on an attacker. As a firmer-bodied shrub it still values a Cloche against status and a Calcium/Magnesium amendment to push its DEF further, with Mulch for the economy. It is not a climber, so a Moss Pole does nothing for it. See field gear and nativity for how region sets a card's role.
Read at the Level 40 snapshot, its DEF is 10 and it retreats for 12 Sun — a shrub hardens into a firm mid band, well past a weed but short of a tree. Turn 1 is ordered by its initiative (38) and every turn after by its SPD (38); its opening and sustained tempo sit level, so its turn order holds steady through a fight. With no native or invasive posting it plays neutral: no +15% native HP cushion and no invasive attacker term on ATK, so its health and attack sit between the two extremes the tokens show — a native card would read 103 HP and 22 ATK, an invasive one 89 HP and 29 ATK. Because it is never benched as a native, it projects no green overshield bar for allies. See stats.
By Level 100 its firm mid armor has grown into real DEF at 20, with HP toward 190. Retreat rises to 22 Sun and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap — it ends a tough, slow body that trades blows rather than racing.
It is a Competitor on the succession wheel: it crowds out Ruderals (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs), hitting them ×1.5 and resisting their blows, but is outlasted by Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes), which turn that ×1.5 against it. The Weird categories (carrion-aroids, carnivores, mycotrophs and vascular parasites) sit off the wheel and trade neutrally with it. See weaknesses & resistances and categories.
A durable buffer: hardened leaves cut incoming damage, Shrubland Sere and Hedge Fund both heal it mid-fight, and Drupe Mast feeds the bench when it falls. Its damage is ordinary, so it wins by outlasting rather than out-hitting — a solid, unspectacular wall to grind behind. With no wild range it never gets a native cushion or an invasive edge, so lean on its kit and traits rather than a nativity role. It has no resolved edible part, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — a growth boost, not an income stream. On the total-power curve its neutral crossover falls around Level 28: below it the card leans on its turn-order edge, above it on bulk and attack — and it only grows stronger as it levels (its raw Level 100 stat sum is 204, a size readout, not a win rank).
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.