Zelkova carpinifolia
A native-only broadleaf tree that plays as a heavy defensive wall with a bench-heal endgame.
Caucasian elm is a Broadleaf tree and plays as a heavy defensive wall. In the current regions it is native to Europe and invasive nowhere, so it is a native-only card: a buffer and a tank, with no attacker role to describe.
The starter, Raysteal, unlocks at Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals 30: Takes the light by force — strike and heal 10%. The free ability, Stand Replacement, unlocks at Lv 25: A fire that takes the whole stand — the foe burns, and so do its neighbours. It reaches the foe's neighbours, not just the active. The advanced attack, Crown Shade, unlocks at Lv 40 for 6 Sun and deals 32: Casts deep shade that saps the foe. As a native-only card these read at native power. Neither attack carries an initiative rider.
Buttress Roots arrives at Lv 10: a buttressed trunk cannot be pinned, so the card is immune to Bind for the whole match — it can never be locked in place or held out of a swap by a Bind effect. Mycorrhiza stacks on at Lv 68, and it is one of the sustain traits: each checkup it has a 60% chance to trigger, healing a benched ally through the shared root network. Because that is a coin-flip-plus chance, treat the bench heal as likely but not guaranteed rather than automatic. For most of a card's climb it holds only the Bind immunity; the nurse heal is an endgame layer. Both are working traits.
It holds no toxicity trait and no thorns trait. As a broadleaf tree it is not a Moss Pole climber. For field gear it wants defensive and support gear that plays to its wall-and-heal identity; there is no invasive attacker build for it. While benched, a native this rare projects a healthy HP overshield bar onto your active. See /wiki/abilities.
At Lv 40: HP 121 with the +15% native cushion, and DEF 32 — already firm. Because DEF is category-sourced from wood density and damage is the diminishing ATK/(ATK+DEF) curve, this is a genuine wall that blunts a lot of incoming damage. ATK is a modest 18; this card blocks and outlasts, it does not race to a kill. Opening tempo (Initiative) 51 is above sustained tempo (SPD) 34: a fairly quick opener that then cruises slower, typical of a big-bodied tree that lands an early hit and gets out-paced after. Retreat is a steep 19 Sun; a rooted tree does not reposition cheaply. See /wiki/stats.
By Lv 100 it hardens into a true wall: DEF climbs to 74 and HP to 233, while ATK reaches only 31. Retreat rises to 41 Sun and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so it will nearly always move last — it wins by absorbing, not by speed. This is the archetypal tree endgame: enormous durability, low offence.
Broadleaf tree sits in the Competitor group. It beats Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) at x1.5 and loses to Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) at x0.667; it is even against other Competitors and Weird cards. See /wiki/weaknesses-resistances.
This is a defensive anchor. Put it in front to soak damage while your hitters set up, and bench it behind a native to feed the HP overshield and, once mature, the Mycorrhiza heal. It is not a coin-farmer's attacker — its ATK is low and it has no invasive side — so its value is as a wall and a family-tree collection piece; as a rarer species it also pays a larger stewardship bounty when caught. It is not edible, so any fertilizer you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward growth rather than coins. Its bulk makes it power-favored from a low level; the exact crossover is Lv 23, but in practice it plays as a heavyweight almost throughout.
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.