Carex cephalophora
A wiry grass that pools armour from its benched ruderals and chips the enemy bench, playing either arena role — an Eastern North American native or a European invader.
Oval headed sedge is a wiry Grass that fights as a bench-fed skirmisher, borrowing armour from the ruderals behind it while it wears down the enemy line. It is native to Eastern North America, where it serves as a native buffer, and invasive in Europe, where the arena fields it as an attacker. Its attack is middling and its opening speed is poor, so it does its work over a long fight rather than a quick one.
Its starter attack, Duffit, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 35 damage as a native and 35 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Pioneer Sward, arrives at level 25: Closes the turf: heal 30%, and the foe's whole bench withers. The advanced attack, C4 Overdrive, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (35 native / 35 invasive) and splashes part of its damage onto the enemy bench. Most of your sedge sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Oval headed sedge keeps two always-on traits. Duff Stuff arrives on the level 10 riser: while it is your active its effective DEF rises by half the combined DEF of your still-standing benched ruderals — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — recomputed every turn, so the cushion shrinks as those allies faint, and the donors keep their own armour. It is a real, always-on defence, not a chance effect. Spore Drift arrives on the level 68 riser: it chips away at the enemy bench each turn, wearing down the cards that have not yet stepped up. See Abilities.
Oval headed sedge is non-toxic: it holds no Toxin trait, so striking it costs an attacker nothing in contact recoil and it lays no poison. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium or magnesium amendment for a little DEF — helps offset its thin armour; as an invasive, offensive gear presses its attack. See statuses.
At level 40 oval headed sedge reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK edging up from 25 native to 25 invasive — a narrow gap. DEF is just 2, at the soft end of the grass band, so it takes hits with little armour of its own and depends on the pooled Duff Stuff bonus instead. Its tempo is badly lopsided: turn 1 runs on a very low initiative (13) and every turn after on its SPD (32), so it is out-paced off the mark but far steadier once a fight settles in. Retreat costs 16 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, oval headed sedge swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 46 / 46 ATK, while its DEF creeps only to 3 — as a soft grass it buys its bulk in health and barely any in armour, so it still leans on its bench for defence. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature sedge acts last against almost anything younger.
As a grass, oval headed sedge sits in the Ruderal succession group. It hits Specialist plants — succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes — for ×1.5 while taking only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Competitor plants — perennial herbs, shrubs and trees — which strike it for ×1.5 and shrug off its blows. Against other Ruderals and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play oval headed sedge behind a bench of other ruderals so Duff Stuff can prop up its armour, and expect to earn your damage over a long fight rather than an opening burst — its initiative is among the lowest here. As a native it is a fair buffer whose pooled defence lets it trade above its DEF; as an invasive its bench-splash and Spore Drift let it grind down a wider board, though it is a modest attacker overall. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as a slow-opening grinder that leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 11 as a native and 15 as an invasive — but it is always stronger at higher levels, so there is no reason to 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.