Hybrid yew

Overview

The Hybrid yew is a conifer in Supplant. It is native nowhere in the game's regions but invasive in Europe, so it plays purely as an attacker.

Moves

Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Deathshadow is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Resin Seal, unlocks at level 25: Seals the wound with resin: heal 40%. The advanced attack, Forest Fire, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Takes the whole stand with it — the foe burns, and so does its own bench.

Its attacks land for about 28 (starter) and 36 (advanced) at the snapshot level.

Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (19) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (19) decides every turn after. The two are close on this card, so it neither dominates nor loses the tempo battle outright. See turn order for how the two interact.

Abilities

It reads undefined from level 10, and a second passive, Network, stacks on at level 68.

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Network. While this plant sits on your bench it lends the active card a gold Sun-overshield bar — a reserve that is only spent once the base Sun bar runs dry. It is a support perk it plays for any active, native or invasive, so its real value shows when it is benched, not fighting.

Features

For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag.

Stats

At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 103, DEF 23, with a retreat cost of 14 Sun and tempo pips of 19 initiative / 19 SPD. Its DEF is conifer-grade wall, hardening with level on its wood density; damage is diminishing armor, not flat subtraction, and only poison bypasses it. As an invasive its ATK is the story: it rises toward 29 as it matures, and it pays "Faustian" self-damage to its own bench on every damaging hit. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.

At Level 100

It hardens into a wall — DEF rising to about 53 on wood density and HP toward 190. A slow, very durable endgame body. Retreat rises to 27 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.

Weaknesses & Resistances

In the succession wheel it is a Specialist. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs). Against its own group and the off-wheel "Weird" categories it is neutral. See the type chart.

Gameplay uses

Its only role is the invasive attacker: field it to push damage, accepting the Faustian bench self-damage and the 2 prizes it concedes on a knockout. Conifers are walls: high wood-density DEF and deep HP make this a genuinely strong front-line card — slow, but very hard to shift, and its 60% heals help it grind. It is inedible in the game's economy, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful as level fodder, not as a coin source. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 6, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, so there is never a reason to hold it back.