Thuja plicata
A sturdy, self-mending conifer that plays either arena role — a Western North American native or a European invader.
Western Red cedar is a large, well-armored Conifer that fights as a durable, self-mending wall: middling attacks, steady armor, and a habit of healing in the sun. It is native to Western North America and invasive across Europe, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is a solid, unspectacular card whose real strength is staying alive rather than hitting hard.
Its starter attack, Needle Smother, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 25 damage as a native and 28 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 mends the plant, reinforcing its stalling game. The advanced attack, Serotiny Surprise, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (28 native / 30 invasive), another straightforward strike. Most of your cedars sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn — it wins by outlasting.
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, adding a layer of protection from the sidelines.
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, general defensive field gear (a Cloche, a Ca/Mg amendment for extra DEF) suits its wall game; as an invasive, lean into offense to make its aggression count.
At level 40 cedar reads 140 HP as a native and 122 as an invasive, with ATK of 20 native versus 27 invasive — the invasive form trades some bulk for a real ATK bump (native ATK 20 up to invasive ATK 26). DEF is 17, sitting in the conifer band, one of the sturdier defensive tiers in the game, so it shrugs off chip damage. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (7) and every turn after on its SPD (7), which sit at the same value, so it is neither a fast opener nor a fast cruiser. 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, cedar swells to 276 HP native / 240 invasive and 36 / 53 ATK, and as a conifer its DEF climbs to 37 — it becomes a genuinely armored wall, not just a bag of health. Retreat rises to 44 Sun as it roots deeper, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature cedar acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys durability at the cost of speed.
As a conifer, 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 cedar as a patient wall that soaks hits and mends between them. As a native it is a fine buffer — the HP cushion, bench overshield, and sun-healing keep a fragile hitter alive — while as an invasive it turns that bulk into pressure with a stronger ATK. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward leveling rather than coins, making it a steady growth investment. It fights as an even-tempo skirmisher early and leans harder on its armor 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.