Viburnum plicatum
A slow, self-healing perennial herb that opens with poison and can cling to life late, playing either arena role but soft throughout.
Japanese snowball is a low Perennial herb that fights as a slow, self-healing poisoner. It is native to East Asia and invasive in Eastern and Western North America, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. It is a middling-to-weak card: it sustains itself but does little damage and never gains armor.
Its starter attack, Taproot Anchor, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for about 27 native / 30 invasive, leaving poison on the target. The free once-per-battle ability, Stabilization, arrives at level 25: Pins the ground down — the foe stalls, and can't break away. — it mends the plant. The advanced attack, Tonic, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (33 native / 35 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your snowballs sit below level 40, where only the starter is live. None of its moves carry an initiative rider.
Japanese snowball keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout comes in at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve. See Abilities.
Snowball carries no trait keywords, so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. Its poison comes from a move, not the plant — it is non-toxic, with no contact hazard ring and no passive poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear suits it; as an invasive, offensive gear presses its damage.
At level 40 snowball reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive, with ATK of 19 native versus 26 invasive — the invasive form hits harder, though neither number is large. DEF is just 2, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is even but low: turn 1 runs on initiative (21) and every turn after on SPD (21), which sit at the same value, so it is slow both off the mark and in a long fight. Retreat costs 13 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a bench HP overshield; as an invasive it pays self-damage to its own bench per attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, snowball swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 33 / 50 ATK, but DEF only reaches 3 — a soft herb gains health and almost no armor, so it stays fragile against any real hitter. Retreat rises to 25 Sun and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature one acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb, snowball is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants, which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play snowball as a patient staller: land poison, mend through the ability and the advanced attack, and grind the fight out while the status ticks. As a native it is a passable buffer; as an invasive its harder punch helps, but its low damage and thin armor keep it a support-tier attacker. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster leveling. It fights as a slow, even-tempo skirmisher early and leans on its modest bulk later, crossing over around level 9 as a native and 12 as an invasive — always worth leveling.
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.