Thuja occidentalis
A hard-hitting conifer that opens fast and heals through fights, playing either role — an Eastern North American native or a wide invader.
White Cedar is a well-armored Conifer that fights as a fast-opening, self-mending tree with real bite for a conifer. It is native to Eastern North America and invasive across East Asia, Europe, and South Asia, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is one of the stronger cards in this set: sturdy, aggressive, and hard to grind down.
Its starter attack, Blazing Pitch, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage as a native and 32 as an invasive — a plain hit with no rider. The free once-per-battle ability, Old-Growth Stand, arrives at level 25: Ancient and immovable: heal 70%, and the foe is pinned. It raises the plant's attack for the fight. The advanced attack, Resin Flood, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (24 native / 26 invasive); it both mends the plant and can bind the target, pinning it in place. Most of your cedars sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn.
White Cedar keeps two always-on abilities. Photosynthesis arrives on the level 10 riser and heals the plant while it stands in sun, but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a frequent bonus rather than a guarantee. At level 68 it gains Network, a canopy-tree trait: while benched it projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto your active plant, protecting the front line from the sidelines.
White Cedar carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin chemistry — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic: no contact recoil and no poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear (a Cloche, a Ca/Mg amendment for extra DEF) suits its wall game; as an invasive, lean into offense to press its strong attack.
At level 40 White Cedar reads 140 HP as a native and 122 as an invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 31 invasive — the invasive form is a notable step up (native ATK 25 to invasive ATK 32). DEF is 17, sitting in the conifer band, one of the sturdier defensive tiers in the game. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on a high initiative (22), but every turn after runs on a much lower SPD (7), so it leads the opening exchange and is out-paced afterward. Retreat costs 20 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, 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, White Cedar swells to 276 HP native / 240 invasive and 44 / 61 ATK, and as a conifer its DEF climbs to 37 — it becomes an armored wall that hits hard for its class. Retreat rises to 44 Sun as it roots deeper, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so it acts last against almost anything young. Maturing trades its opening speed for durability and damage.
As a conifer, White Cedar is in the Specialist succession group. It hits Competitor plants for ×1.5 and is struck for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), which hit it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Specialists and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play White Cedar as a native wall or an invasive bruiser. As a native the HP cushion, bench overshield, and sun-healing make it a strong buffer that also fights back; as an invasive its higher ATK and bind on the advanced move let it pressure and pin, at the cost of chipping its own bench. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward leveling rather than coins. It fights as a fast opener early and settles into an armored bruiser as it levels, crossing over around level 1 as a native and 1 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.