Taraxacum campylodes
A perennial herb that poisons with its opener and heals through long fights — a Eurasian and North American native or a South Asian invader.
Common dandelion is a low, hardy Perennial herb that fights as a self-healing staller: cheap hits, a poisoning opener, and a mid-fight mend. It is native across Europe and Eastern North America and invasive in South Asia, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is a reliable, unspectacular support card whose disruption and durability outweigh its light damage.
Its starter attack, Rhizome Creep, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 27 damage as a native and 27 as an invasive and leaving the target poisoned with its bitter sap. The free once-per-battle ability, Stabilization, arrives at level 25: Pins the ground down — the foe stalls, and can't break away. — a mid-fight mend that stretches its longevity. The advanced attack, Perennial Problem, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (40 native / 40 invasive) and draws on its deep roots for a heavier blow. Most of your dandelions sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Common dandelion keeps a single always-on trait, Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health — but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Common dandelion carries no trait keywords, and it is non-toxic — so although its starter applies Poison to the enemy, striking the dandelion itself poisons no attacker; there is no contact recoil. (The poison is an offensive move effect, not a defensive trait; see statuses for how it ticks.) Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment — suits its stalling game; as an invasive, offensive gear makes its poison and pressure count.
At level 40 common dandelion reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 17 native versus 18 invasive. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on poison and healing instead. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (29) and every turn after on its SPD (33), which sit close together, so it is neither a fast opener nor a fast cruiser. Retreat costs 12 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 each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, common dandelion swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 30 / 32 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 24 Sun as it roots in, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so it acts last against almost anything younger.
As a perennial herb, common dandelion 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 common dandelion as a disruptive staller: lead with it to poison the enemy active and heal through the exchange, or bench it as a native buffer for the HP cushion and overshield. Its damage is modest, so it works better as support than as a finisher. On economy, this card has no resolved edible part, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP as a growth boost rather than paying coins. It fights as an even-tempo staller whose bulk grows with level, crossing over around level 22 as a native and 26 as an invasive — but it is always stronger at higher levels in raw stats, 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.