Every plant carries two always-on trait slots that fill in as it levels, plus a free "ability" move it can fire once per battle.
The ability is a special move slot that unlocks at level 25 and costs 0 Sun — but you get exactly one use per battle. It sits alongside the level-1 starter attack (2 Sun) and the level-40 advanced attack (6 Sun). Spend it when it swings a fight, because there is no second cast.
Always-on traits are not handed out all at once. Every plant has exactly two trait slots, and they unlock at fixed levels:
Each riser holds exactly one trait, drawn from the plant's category pool. What you end up with depends on how many traits that plant is eligible for:
Sapromyophily is the one exception to the halving, because it has no magnitude to halve: a young one holds the foe's focus only while the plant is above half HP, and a matured one always holds.
Two traits skip the draw and claim a riser outright. A non-photosynthetic feeder's Sun Siphon always takes the first (its capacity is what matures, so it weak-fills across both risers). And a genuinely toxic or deadly species has Toxin floored onto a riser as a safety guarantee — which is why a toxic plant often carries one fewer category trait than its pool would suggest.
Every category has live traits. All 16 pools carry them, so there is no such thing as a plant with no always-on ability, and nothing in the roster is decorative. A card's own two traits are named on its trait wedge and on its wiki page.
These are the long-standing, board-shaping passives. Most fire at each checkup (the end-of-turn tick).
| Passive | What it does | Pools |
|---|---|---|
| Photosynthesis | Heal ~1.5% max HP and cleanse 1 status each checkup (60%) — only in a sunny arena. | succulent, conifer |
| Allelopathy | Wilt aura: Withers the enemy active by 4 ATK each checkup, stacking toward the −12 Wither cap. | grass, vine, aquatic |
| Spore-burst | On being KO'd, Poisons the killer (2 stacks). | fern |
| Ptaquiloside | When struck, Poisons the attacker — the chemical mirror of Thorns. | fern |
| Haustorial Drain | On being KO'd, the enemy active loses ~5% max HP straight to base HP (bypasses the overshield). | vascular-parasite |
| Resprout | Survive the first lethal hit once (60%), at 25% HP, shedding statuses. | perennial-herb, bulb |
| Reseed | On KO, leave a weak Seedling token (30% HP/ATK, no moves, can't be captured). | annual-forb |
| Network | Projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto the active and amplifies the network cluster ×1.25. | broadleaf-tree, conifer |
| Mycorrhiza | Heal one injured benched ally ~4% max HP each checkup (60%, ×1.25 with Mulch). | broadleaf-tree |
| Spore-drift | Chip one random benched foe for ~0.25×ATK each checkup. | fern, plus curated dispersers |
| Sapromyophily | Taunt. Wherever the engine picks one victim out of a group — Seed Rain, a shove's forced swap, an incoming spore-drift — a Sapromyophily card in that group takes it instead of an ally. | shrub, carnivorous, epiphyte, carrion-aroid |
| Sun Siphon | A non-photosynthetic feeder draws Sun off its own bench (mycotroph) or its host (parasite). | mycotroph, vascular-parasite |
| Decay-feed | +4 ATK whenever any card is KO'd, match-permanent. | carnivorous |
| Duff Stuff | While active, effective DEF rises by half the summed DEF of your alive benched ruderals — recomputed live, so it fades as they faint. | auto-added to every ruderal pool: annual-forb, grass, aquatic, bulb |
Sapromyophily still has nothing to decide against a lone wild plant — there is only one target — so it earns its keep on a full bench, in the arena.
On top of the classics, each pool carries a handful of species-flavoured traits. There are far too many to list here, but every one is an instance of a small set of shapes:
| Shape | When it fires | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Regen / cleanse | Each checkup, on the carrier | Velamen Radicum, Rhizome Mat, CAM Idling, Mycelial Tap |
| Chip / drain / burn | Each checkup, on the enemy active | Needle Duff, Peat Acidification, Thermogenesis, Haustorial Bridge |
| Bench reach | Each checkup, on your own bench | Network Parasitism (drains an ally) |
| Regen aura | Passive, on the enemy active | Nutrient Stripping (the foe heals for half) |
| Retaliation | When the carrier is struck | Raphide Crystals, Tannin Load, Thiaminase, Pitfall Slick, Silica Phytoliths |
| On-KO | When something faints | Ballistic Dispersal, Serotinous Cones, Drupe Mast, Structural Load |
| Stat shift | Read at the damage site, often conditional | Heartwood Core, Waxy Cuticle, Marcescence, Apical Dominance, Holoparasitic Lock |
| Revive | A seeded chance to cling on at low HP | Soil Seed Bank, Epicormic Buds, Turion Dormancy, Corm Reserve, Subterranean Dormancy |
| Immunity | Always on — refuses one status outright | Buttress Roots / Deep Taproot / Canopy Anchorage (Bound), Anoxic Tolerance (Poison), Lignotuber (Burn), Waterlogged (Burn), Canopy Gap (spread + splash), Achlorophylly (weather) |
| Reserve | Always on — the plant supplies its own overshield bar | Caudex Reserve, Tank Reservoir, Tussock Crown (HP), Perennating Reserve (Sun) |
A few carry a cost or a second clause. Lignotuber does not merely refuse Burn — a chaparral shrub is released by fire, so it heals when a Burn is applied. Waterlogged refuses Burn and all HP-stealing, but the same saturated tissue cannot be healed at all. Holoparasitic Lock buys +6 ATK by refusing every item heal. Bulliform Collapse trades 2 SPD for 4 DEF below half HP.
Not every tick lands. Five sustaining effects — Photosynthesis, Succulence, and Mycorrhiza heals, Carnivory lifesteal, and Resprout — fire on a 60% chance each time they would otherwise trigger, so a heal or a saved life is never a sure thing.
The roster's own revive traits post their own odds instead, traded against how much HP they bring you back at: Soil Seed Bank saves half the time but only to 15% HP, while Epicormic Buds saves 35% of the time to 35% HP.
Everything else — every checkup regen, retaliation, on-KO, stat shift, immunity and reserve in the roster — is guaranteed, with one exception: a retaliation trait that Binds whoever struck it (Thigmotropic Coil, Pitfall Slick) rolls the Bind at 75%, once per hit, so a multi-hit attacker is far more likely to end up Bound than a single-hit one. The retaliation's poison, wilt, blight and chip riders have no roll. And every chance in the game is fixed and seeded (a given battle always resolves it the same way, so replays match), not a live coin flip.
Passives fire regardless of nativity, but nativity decides which perks stack on top. Only the green HP overshield segments are native-projected; the rest are open to any card.
| Effect | Native-gated? |
|---|---|
| Green HP overshield segments | Yes — only benched natives project them |
| Network's gold Sun overshield | No — any nativity grants it |
| Reserve traits' own bar (Caudex, Tank, Tussock, Perennating) | No — the plant supplies its own |
| Mycorrhiza bench heal | No — heals any injured ally |
| Reseed Seedling token | Neutral — no native perks |
See field gear for the Mulch and NPK amendments that amplify these effects (or grant Sulfur's spore immunity), and statuses for the Wither, Poison, Burn, and Blight your passives apply.