Card Categories

What a category decides

Your category is baked in at capture and sets four things:

• Move pool + trait pool. The category picks which moves and always-on passives a plant can carry. Every pool holds five to seven eligible traits, and each plant keeps two of them — one at level 10, one at level 68.
• DEF band. Category sets a plant's armor range — soft for weeds and herbs (~1–15), mid for shrubs (~20–35), hardest for trees (~100 × wood density). Position within a band comes from mature height; trees read their real density. See stats.
• Succession group. Category places a plant on the type-matchup wheel (below).
• Damage cap. A handful of aggressive spreaders (annual-forb, grass, vine, aquatic) have their advanced-attack power capped slightly lower — an invasive-leaning guardrail so they don't run away with a match.

Retreat cost and rooted-turns are no longer set by category — they scale with a plant's rootedness (root depth + above-ground mass) and its level (see stats).

Category also sets your succession group for the type-matchup wheel: Ruderal (annual-forb, grass, aquatic, bulb), Competitor (perennial-herb, vine, shrub, broadleaf-tree), Specialist (succulent, conifer, fern, epiphyte), or Weird (carrion-aroid, carnivorous, mycotroph, vascular-parasite). Groups beat each other ×1.5 / ×0.667; Weird sits out. Status immunities (see statuses) are separate.

The 16, at a glance

Each row lists the pool's headline passive first, then the rest of the traits it can draw. A plant keeps two of them — see abilities for how the two risers pick.

Category	Combat identity	Rest of the trait pool
annual-forb	Reseed: leaves a weak Seedling token on KO. Damage-capped.	Duff Stuff, Photoblastic, Rapid Cycling, Ephemeral Bolt, Ballistic Dispersal, Soil Seed Bank
perennial-herb	Resprout: survives one lethal hit at 25% HP.	Deep Taproot, Basal Rosette, Bitter Principle, Contractile Roots, Vernalization Memory
grass	Allelopathy: wilts the enemy active each checkup. Damage-capped.	Duff Stuff, Fungal Endophyte, Bulliform Collapse, Silica Phytoliths, Intercalary Meristem, Tussock Crown
succulent	Photosynthesis heal in sunny arenas; succulence regen in any weather.	Caudex Reserve, Crassulacean Acid Metabolism, Waxy Cuticle, Raphide Crystals, Root Sloughing
vine	Allelopathy wilt aura; climber, Moss Pole eligible. Damage-capped.	Thigmotropic Coil, Heteroblasty, Adventitious Roots, Apical Dominance, Structural Load
shrub	Sapromyophily: the dense thicket pulls the foe's focus onto it. Mid DEF band (~20–35).	Extrafloral Nectaries, Sclerophylly, Marcescence, Lignotuber, Drupe Mast
broadleaf-tree	Network Sun overshield + mycorrhiza bench heal. Hardest DEF (≈100 × wood density).	Buttress Roots, Tannin Load, Heartwood Core, Epicormic Buds, Canopy Gap
conifer	Network Sun overshield + sunny-weather photosynthesis. Hard DEF (≈100 × wood density).	Resin Canals, Xylem Tracheids, Evergreen Canopy, Serotinous Cones, Needle Duff
carnivorous	Carnivory lifesteal (~50%) + an innate self-fertilizer: permanent N/P/Ca-Mg burned as +ATK/+SPD/+DEF.	Sapromyophily, Decay-feed, Digestive Enzymes, Thigmonasty, Pitfall Slick, Peat Acidification
aquatic	Allelopathy wilt aura. Damage-capped.	Duff Stuff, Anoxic Tolerance, Aerenchyma, Heterophylly, Nutrient Stripping, Turion Dormancy, Waterlogged
fern	Spore-burst (poison the killer) + spore-drift bench chip.	Ptaquiloside, Circinate Vernation, Thiaminase, Rhizome Mat, Prothallial Reserve
bulb	Resprout: survives one lethal hit at 25% HP.	Duff Stuff, Perennating Reserve, Tunic Layers, Lycorine Load, Spring Ephemeral Burst, Contractile Pull
epiphyte	Sapromyophily taunt on a light, frail air-plant frame.	Canopy Anchorage, Tank Reservoir, Velamen Radicum, Peltate Trichomes, CAM Idling
carrion-aroid	Sapromyophily: the carrion mimic draws the attack onto itself.	Thermogenesis, Raphide Bundles, Putrescine Aura, Corm Reserve, Spathe Insulation
mycotroph	Sun Siphon: drains benched Sun for economy boosts. Always takes the level-10 riser.	Achlorophylly, Mycelial Tap, Ghost Pallor, Network Parasitism, Subterranean Dormancy
vascular-parasite	Haustorial-drain: on KO, drains ~5% of the enemy's max HP straight to base HP, bypassing the overshield.	Sun Siphon, Haustorial Bridge, Strigolactone Sensing, Viscotoxin Load, Xylem Tapping, Holoparasitic Lock

Spore-drift is the one trait that isn't purely category-sourced: it's appended off a species' dispersal mode, so windborne seeds, rhizomes and root-suckers carry it into pools this table never lists it under — and it competes for a riser there like anything else.

The mycotroph exception

Mycotrophs are the pool built around taking rather than giving: Sun Siphon claims their level-10 riser outright and drains Sun from your own bench, and the rest of their pool leans the same way — Network Parasitism drains a benched ally, Achlorophylly ignores the weather entirely (it has no chlorophyll to drive, so a drought can't suppress it), and Subterranean Dormancy is the game's most reliable revive at a 45% save. Nothing eats a mycotroph, so no fertilizer pays it coins — any N/P/K you give one converts to ×1.25 XP instead, levelling it faster (see field gear). Run them for value and attrition, not front-line staying power.

Native vs invasive

Nativity (full detail) rides on top of category — the same species swings between roles by arena region.

	Native (buffer)	Invasive (attacker)
Stat tilt	+15% HP cushion	Wider ATK ceiling, realized as it matures (dialed back if toxic)
Overshield	Projects HP segments to the active	None; pays self-damage each hit

Pick categories whose passives point outward (fern, broadleaf-tree, vascular-parasite) when playing native support; lean the damage-capped spreaders into invasive attacker roles. The taunt pools (shrub, epiphyte, carrion-aroid, carnivorous) do the opposite job — they soak the single-target picks an ally would otherwise eat. See combat overview and stats to tie it together.