Tussilago farfara
A perennial-herb that is a mild buffer where native and a hard-hitting racer where invasive, with a bolt payoff for long fights.
Coltsfoot is a perennial-herb: a soft, fast card that plays very differently by nativity. It is native to Africa, East Asia, Europe and South Asia — where it is a buffer with a +15% HP cushion and a bench overshield — and invasive in eastern and western North America and Oceania, where it becomes a hard-hitting attacker. Which role you get is set by the arena region.
Its starter, Steady Growth (Level 1, 2 Sun), deals 36 as a native buffer and 39 as an invasive attacker — A reliable, even strike. The free ability, Chronosequence (25), is Time on its side: +3 ATK and speed, kept. The advanced attack, Winterkill (40, 6 Sun), deals 28 native / 31 invasive and Kills it back to the ground — it withers and can't heal. See Moves.
From Level 10 it carries Bitter Principle: striking it Withers the attacker, cutting its ATK — a chemical retaliation that fires on every damaging hit it takes. At Level 68 Vernalization Memory stacks on: from turn three onward it gains a flat ATK boost, a cold-then-bolt payoff that rewards drawn-out fights. Neither is a heal.
No thorns or toxin keyword. Not Moss-Pole-eligible. With very low DEF a Calcium/Magnesium field gear amendment helps most; inedible, so nutrients bank XP.
At Level 40 it reads 103 HP / 28 ATK as native and 89 HP / 37 ATK as invasive — a real attack jump when invasive, since the invasive edge is built from how widely it spreads. Its DEF is just 1, and retreat is 12 Sun. Its opening initiative is 24 and sustained SPD is 43: an average starter that pulls ahead as the fight runs on. As an invasive it also pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack (growing with level) and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out.
By Level 100 HP reaches 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK 51 / 74, but DEF stays paper-thin at 1 — a soft herb gains biomass and attack, never armor. Retreat climbs to 22 Sun and its early speed fades. The invasive version becomes a real glass cannon; the native stays a soft buffer.
As a Competitor it hits ruderals for 1.5x and is resisted to 0.667x by Specialists; neutral against other Competitors and Weird. See the succession wheel.
Play it to its region: as a native, bench it for the overshield and let Bitter Principle punish attackers; as an invasive, field it as a fast racer that hits hard and hits harder from turn three, accepting the bench self-damage as the cost. It is inedible, so fertilizer banks 1.25x XP. Effective in single-player as an invasive coin-earner, but frail enough that it needs a wall behind it. It skirmishes on speed until about Level 21 (native) or 23 (invasive), after which its power leads.
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.