Taxus wallichiana
Himalayan yew (Taxus wallichiana) is a specialist conifer in Supplant — a native-only buffer whose game role is set out below.
The Himalayan yew is a slow-growing, highly toxic evergreen conifer. In battle it is a Conifer — a Specialist on the succession chart. It is native to East Asia, Oceania and South Asia and invasive nowhere, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker version of this card.
Its starter attack, Needle Smother, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 26 damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Old-Growth Stand, unlocks at Lv 25: Ancient and immovable: heal 70%, and the foe is pinned. The advanced attack, Sappy Ending (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 28.
From Lv 10 it carries Toxin, so striking it Poisons the attacker (dosed by its toxicity tier); this fires in player-versus-player battles too, and a Sulfur amendment does not neutralise it. At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Needle Duff, whose acidic litter chips about 2% of the opposing active's maximum HP each checkup, ignoring DEF and the overshield.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment suits it, adding flat DEF on top of its already-firm armour. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 21 ATK with 23 DEF. As a native it carries a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. On defence, its DEF is genuinely wall-like for its level and climbs further with age. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 19 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 19 — making it steady in both the opening and the sustained phases of a fight. Retreating it costs 14 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 it has hardened into a wall: HP up to 190 native and DEF to 53 from its wood density, with attack at 37. Retreat rises to 27 Sun as an older, more rooted plant is harder to pull back, and its inverted tempo has sunk to a sliver — it no longer wins turn order. Maturing buys it durability and reach at the cost of the speed it had as a seedling.
On the succession chart a Conifer is a Specialist. Specialist plants hit Competitor categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Ruderal categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
This is one of the better defensive cards in its cohort: firm conifer DEF that climbs toward a wall, a genuinely dangerous Toxin recoil, and a heal-and-pin ability. Its own attacks also carry a Poison rider from its toxicity. Play it as a native wall that punishes anything that touches it. It has no resolved edible part, so fertilising it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful for levelling.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 3, after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
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.