Vaccinium angustifolium
A low, hardy shrub that plays either arena role, healing through fights with a modest but real invasive attack edge.
Early lowbush blueberry is a low, hardy Shrub that fights as a durable trader with a little more armor than a herb. It is native to Eastern North America and invasive in East Asia, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is a solid, middle-of-the-road card: no flashy tricks, but a shrub frame and a healing option make it a dependable body on either team. See nativity.
Its starter attack, Berry, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage as a native and 30 as an invasive — a plain hit with no rider. The free once-per-battle ability, Chaparral Climax, arrives at level 25: Owns the dry hillside: heal 60% and +4 ATK. Its advanced attack, Briar Cage, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (22 native / 22 invasive) and saps the target, withering it as it strikes. Most of your specimens sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. See moves.
Early lowbush blueberry holds a working trait on each riser. Sclerophylly (level 10) is the firm little leaf doing defensive work — a flat 3 damage off every direct hit, applied after the ATK-versus-DEF ratio, so it counts most against a stream of small strikes. Sapromyophily (level 68) turns the low mat into a decoy: wherever the engine picks one victim out of a group — Seed Rain, a forced swap, an incoming spore-drift — this card takes it instead of an ally. See Abilities.
It carries no trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it, and it is non-toxic with no hazard ring. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear such as a Cloche or a Ca/Mg amendment suits its trading game; as an invasive, lean into offense to make its aggression count.
At level 40 it reads 121 HP as a native and 106 as an invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 25 invasive — the invasive edge is real but slight here. DEF is 10, mid in the shrub band, so it has a little genuine armor, more than a soft herb. Its tempo is uneven: turn 1 runs on a modest initiative (19), so it is out-paced off the mark, but every turn after runs on a higher SPD (34), so it grows relentless in a long fight. Retreat costs 13 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects 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 it swells to 233 HP native / 203 invasive and 45 / 45 ATK, and as a shrub its DEF climbs to 20 — a moderate wall, not a fortress, but enough to blunt lesser hitters. Retreat rises to 26 Sun and its tempo sinks to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature bush acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing buys both bulk and armor, at the cost of speed.
As a shrub it sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and is struck for only x0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which hit it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
As a native, play it as a bench buffer whose shrub armor and HP cushion keep a fragile hitter alive while it trades and heals. As an invasive, push it forward as a mid-tier attacker: the ATK bump and the withering advance let it grind down bulkier foes, though it is no burst threat. Either way it is a reliable, unexciting body. Its value is also economic: it is inedible, so any nutrient banks x1.25 XP rather than coins, feeding steady growth. It fights as a slow-opening skirmisher whose bulk takes over as it levels, crossing over around level 10 — but it is always stronger in raw stats higher up, so never 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.