Verbesina encelioides
A fast annual forb that accelerates over a fight and leaves a Seedling behind when it dies — a disposable, wide-ranging invader.
Golden crownbeard is a Annual forb — a fast, disposable annual that trades body for tempo and refuses to stay dead. It is native to eastern and western North America and South America and invasive across Africa, East Asia, Europe, Oceania and South Asia, so it plays a light home role and a wide-ranging attacker role abroad.
Its starter, Insect Alliance, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, deals 32 native / 35 invasive, and sickens the foe's whole bench. The free ability Germination Flush opens at level 25: The seed bank breaks at once: +4 ATK, kept for the match. The advanced attack Arrowseed unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun, deals 38 native / 42 invasive, and festers after it lands. No move carries an initiative rider.
It keeps two always-on traits. From level 10 it holds Rapid Cycling, gaining +1 SPD per checkup up to a +5 cap — it accelerates the longer the fight runs. From level 68 it adds Reseed: the first time it is knocked out in a match, it leaves a fresh Seedling token in its place — a reduced body with no kit that cannot be captured. Reseed is a one-per-match effect, not a random save; the parent genuinely dies (and, as an invasive, concedes its prize) before the Seedling steps up.
No combat keyword, and as an annual forb it is not Moss-Pole-eligible. It leans on speed and its bench-sickening opener, so field gear that presses status or sharpens its invasive attack fits the aggressive plan it wants.
At level 40: HP 103 native / 89 invasive, ATK 26 native / 36 invasive, DEF 1 — a soft ruderal body. Its invasive ATK is notably higher, the introduced-range term at work. On tempo it is fast: a solid opening initiative (37) and a high sustained speed (53) that Rapid Cycling only pushes further, so it usually acts first and keeps doing so. As a native it gets the +15% HP cushion and bench overshield; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage per attack and concedes 2 prizes on knockout.
By level 100 HP reaches 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK 48 / 72, while DEF stays at its soft floor of 1. Retreat rises to 23 Sun and tempo settles near 1% of cap — though Rapid Cycling still tops it up in-fight. It remains a glass-cannon racer that wins by speed and its Reseed insurance, never by soaking hits.
Annual-forb is in the Ruderal group: it beats Specialists (succulent, conifer, fern, epiphyte) for ×1.5 and loses to Competitors (perennial-herb, vine, shrub, broadleaf-tree), taking ×1.5 from them and only ×0.667 from the Specialists it beats. Neutral against other Ruderals and the Weird categories.
Play it as an aggressive, expendable attacker: race with its speed, sicken the enemy bench on the way in, and treat the Seedling from Reseed as a free extra body that soaks one more hit. It is fragile, so do not expect it to trade — it wants to be first and fast. It is not edible, so fertilizer banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins. It is a tempo-favored skirmisher until about level 31 at home (or 33 abroad); even past that it stays speed-reliant given how little bulk it gains. Each plant runs one Sun bar (cap 120, refilling +1 every 15 minutes). The starter attack costs 2 Sun, the advanced attack 6, and the ability is free — it is priced by being usable only once per battle. Retreating to the bench costs 12 Sun, and an empty bar attack-locks the card until it refills. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and at level 85 a capstone makes the starter free and drops the advanced attack to 2 Sun.
See nativity, moves, abilities, stats, statuses, field gear, weaknesses & resistances, the Battle Lab and the category guide for the mechanics referenced here.
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.