Viburnum macrocephalum
A native-only East Asian shrub with modest armor and a withering advanced attack that blunts every hit and heals the bench when it falls.
Chinese snowball is a sturdy Shrub that fights as a slow, middling blocker. It is native to East Asia, and the arena only ever casts it as a native buffer for your bench; no invasive attacker card exists, so it is a support piece, not a finisher. It brings a little more armor than most soft cards but hits softly, so it is a durable filler rather than a standout.
Its starter attack, Snarl, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and lands a plain hit for about 27 damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Nurse Shrub, arrives at level 25: Shelters the whole bench — evens their health, and calls the fallen back. It is a self-heal. The advanced attack, Blackthorn Barrage, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun and both hits and saps the target for about 40 damage, wearing it down over time. Most of your specimens sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See moves.
Chinese snowball runs a trait on both risers. Sclerophylly (level 10) takes a flat 3 off every direct hit. Drupe Mast (level 68) turns its knockout into a bench-wide heal worth 8% of max HP to each surviving ally. See Abilities.
It carries no trait keywords and no toxin, so it shows no hazard ring and its contact deals no recoil or poison; it is non-toxic. 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 leans into its blocker role and its slightly higher DEF.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP and 17 ATK. DEF is 11, in the mid shrub band, so it soaks hits better than a soft herb but is far from a wall. Tempo is slow and front-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (22) and later turns on its SPD (21), both low, so it usually acts late. Retreat costs 13 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. Link Stats.
Matured to level 100, it swells to 190 HP and 30 ATK, and its DEF climbs to 23 — a shrub keeps building real armor as it levels, so a mature specimen is genuinely hard to chip down even though its damage stays low. Retreat rises to 26 Sun and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so it acts near-last. Maturing buys durability at the cost of ever being fast.
As a shrub it is in the Competitor group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and takes only x0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it as a patient native wall: park it in front to soak damage while its bench overshield protects a stronger hitter, and use the withering advanced attack to grind down bulky foes it cannot out-hit. Its value is also economic: it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward levels. It fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 9, then its bulk takes over and it settles into a wall, so leveling it only helps.
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.