Ipomoea coccinea
A soft, fast-climbing vine that leans on a persistent attack-sapping aura rather than bulk.
Red morning glory is a Vine — a soft, quick-spreading climbing weed that plays on control rather than muscle. It is native to eastern North America, where the arena casts it as a defensive buffer, and invasive across Africa, East Asia, Europe, South America and South Asia, where the same card becomes an attacker. In the succession wheel every vine is a Competitor. It carries little armor and a modest attack, so it earns its place through a lingering debuff and reach, not through winning slugging matches.
Its opening attack, Tangle, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun — Tangles the foe up in growth. It hits for 27 as a native and 28 as an invasive.
At Lv 25 it unlocks its free once-per-battle ability, Canopy Climb: Hauls itself into the light: heal 30% and +3 ATK. This deals no damage — it is a self-heal and a small attack buff, useful for pushing past a stall.
The advanced attack, Strangling Reach, arrives at Lv 40 for 6 Sun — Tendrils reach past the front line to throttle the whole bench. It reaches the whole enemy bench, hitting for 29 native / 31 invasive. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it wins turn order the ordinary way (see Turn order). Most of your copies will be well below the Lv 40 snapshot and will not yet have the full kit.
Read off its trait schedule, this card keeps two always-on traits. From Lv 10 it holds Allelopathy: every checkup it Withers the opposing active by −4 ATK, a Wilt that is recomputed rather than stacked (so it holds at −4, ceiling −12) and fades the moment the vine leaves the active slot. This is one of the game's most reliable debuffs — it works in both single-player and player-versus-player (PvP), and it fires every checkup, not on a chance.
From Lv 68 a second trait, Adventitious Roots, stacks on top: it regrows a small 2% of maximum HP each checkup. That is a steady trickle, not the coin-flip 60% sustain that heavier heals ride — it simply keeps ticking. Red morning glory is not toxic, so biting it carries no poison recoil.
As a vine this plant is Moss Pole eligible — isClimber resolves its growth habit to a climber, so a Moss Pole fits and is a natural pick. Beyond that, choose field gear by role: defensive warding when you are running it native as a buffer, offensive gear when it is the invasive attacker. It carries no thorns or toxin keyword, so it neither recoils on contact nor pays a chemical cost.
At the Lv 40 snapshot it reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK 24 native versus 29 invasive — the invasive edge is real but modest here. DEF is a soft 8, typical of a vine, and retreat costs 16 Sun. Its tempo is split: opening tempo (initiative) is 13 while sustained tempo (SPD) is 34, so it is a slow starter that speeds up — it tends to lose the first exchange and then out-paces from turn two onward (see Stats). Run native, it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a small green overshield bar onto your active (it is Least-Concern, so the bar is a sliver). Run invasive, it hits harder but pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out.
Maturing swells its HP to 190 native / 165 invasive, but its armor barely moves — DEF firms only to 15, keeping it a soft-bodied vine rather than a wall. Retreat climbs to 33 Sun as it becomes more rooted, and the inverted tempo sinks to roughly 1% of cap, so the mid-life speed advantage is gone by the endgame. Leveling buys biomass and reach; it does not buy toughness.
As a vine it belongs to the Competitor group. It hits Ruderal categories (annual-forb, grass, aquatic, bulb) for ×1.5 and is resisted, taking ×0.667, against Specialists (succulent, conifer, fern, epiphyte). Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird categories the matchup is neutral both ways.
This is a support card first. Its Allelopathy aura quietly strips attack off whatever it faces, turn after turn and in PvP too, which makes it a good partner for a heavier hitter on the bench even though it cannot close games alone — be honest with yourself that it is fragile and light on damage. Native, use it as a buffer that softens the enemy attacker while your bulk does the work; invasive, it is a debuffer that also chips the whole bench with its advanced reach. It is inedible, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — a growth boost, not an income stream. As a collection piece it fills out the Convolvulaceae line of your family tree. If you want one line on when it flips: it fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 11 native (Lv 14 invasive), after which its growing HP and attack take over — it is not stronger young, it simply leans on speed before then.
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.