Taxus baccata
A native-only European conifer that walls up behind heavy armor, projects a Sun overshield from the bench, and poisons attackers on contact.
European yew is a slow, heavily armored Conifer that fights as a wall: high DEF, a deadly contact recoil, and a bench ability that shields your active. It is native to Europe and has no invasive card, so the arena only ever fields it as a native buffer for your bench — there is no attacker version to play. It is one of the sturdier defensive cards you will find.
Its starter attack, Whomp, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 39 damage as a straightforward hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Old-Growth Stand, comes in at level 25: Ancient and immovable: heal 70%, and the foe is pinned. It raises the plant's own ATK. The advanced attack, Terpene Trap, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (25 damage) as a plain, harder hit. Most of your yew sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider.
Yew keeps a single always-on trait: Network. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Network arrives on the level 68 riser. As a canopy tree, it projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto your active from the bench — a defensive boost for whatever is fighting in front of it. It works from level 68 on with no half-strength phase and no coin-flip. See Abilities.
Yew holds the Toxin trait at the deadly tier: striking it Poisons the attacker hard, and that recoil fires in player-versus-player (PvP) too. Sulfur soil does not neutralize it, though a Cloche-warded attacker absorbs it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. Defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a Ca/Mg amendment — stacks onto its already strong armor.
At level 40 yew reads 140 HP and ATK 26 (this is a native-only card, so there is no invasive stat line). DEF is 24, high in the conifer band — the standout number here, and far above any soft herb. Its tempo is even but very slow: turn 1 runs on its initiative (11) and every turn after on its SPD (11), both low, so it acts late and stays there. Retreat costs 15 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects the Sun overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, yew becomes an armored wall: 276 HP and 47 ATK, with DEF climbing to 55 — a huge armor figure that lets it shrug off hits soft herbs never could. Retreat rises to 31 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so it always acts last; that is the trade a wall makes. Maturing buys it near-immovable durability at the cost of ever moving first.
As a conifer, yew is in the Specialist succession group. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs, broadleaf trees) for ×1.5 and is hit for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Specialists and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play yew as a defensive anchor: park it on the bench to feed the Sun overshield to your active, or send it in as a wall that soaks hits and poisons anything that touches it. Its low ATK and slow tempo mean it will not race anyone down — it wins by not dying. It is inedible, so feeding it any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins. It plays as a slow, armored buffer at every level; there is no fast-skirmisher phase, and no reason to hold it back from leveling into an even sturdier wall.
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.