Mandragora

The Mandragora is the Grell short range bruiser, a Tier 1.5 creature with 350 health that swings for 32 damage with full splash across a 1.25 radius. It sits between the swarm units and the heavy roster: durable enough to lead an engagement, cheap enough at 100 hexite and 25 flux to lose one.

Figures below describe the September 2026 Early Access build, the one carrying the identifier ZS.c36778, and they move with the weekly patch cadence. Roughly half the versus roster had a stat touched in the fortnight before that build was captured, so treat every number here as dated rather than permanent.

Stat Block

Weapons

Abilities

Upgrades

Conversion Costs

Infuse is the Grell conversion mechanic, paid out of the same top bar power pool as the Legion Reanimate and the Xol Replicate. It permanently raises a friendly unit's health, damage and regeneration for the rest of that unit's life. Since the balance pass of August 11, 2026 the bonus is +45%, down from +50%, and the cost multiplier rose from 0.045 to 0.05 so that it matches the Protectorate shield and the Legion Reanimate.

The Mandragora is eligible for all three conversions at an identical 6.5625 power each. Infusing one interacts well with Endorphic Frenzy: the +45% health raises the pool the attack speed ramp measures against, while the +45% damage applies to a weapon that already hits several targets per swing.

Role

Range 2.75 is not melee and not really ranged either. It is far enough that a Mandragora hits the front rank of an enemy formation without being in contact with it, and the 100 percent splash over 1.25 range means every one of those hits lands on more than one target. Against a swarm, which is what the Grell themselves field and what several other factions open with, a line of Mandragoras is the most efficient damage the faction has at that point in a match.

Endorphic Frenzy is the upgrade that changes how the unit is used. Twenty percent attack speed for every ten percent of missing health means a Mandragora at half health is attacking twice as fast, so the unit is at its most dangerous while it is dying. That turns a Mandragora into something a player commits fully rather than pulls back, and it pairs badly with Tunnel, which is an escape. A player generally builds toward one or the other.

The 1.78 second cooldown is slow. Eighteen damage per second is below what a Lasher does, and the Mandragora earns its supply through splash and health rather than through single target output.

Faction Context

Mandragoras come from the Broodwomb but are unlocked by the Young Canopy, which is also the structure that unlocks the Incubator. That places them exactly at the seam between the Grell opening and its middle game: taking a Young Canopy for Mandragoras is the same investment that opens the path to Harbingers, Keepers and Threshers.

Their second tier research sits at the Synapse Canopy, the structure that also handles second tier Incubator upgrades. The internal engine name for this creature is a different word from its display name, which is a reminder that older videos and community notes may use a name this build does not.

Tier and Armour Interactions

The Mandragora carries Medium armour with an armour value of 0. Medium became the most contested category in the build on August 11, 2026, when the harvester armour type was deleted and folded into it, and six units had their bonuses retuned onto Medium as a result. The Grell's own Skrell is one of them and carries +100% against Medium, which is a useful measure of how much a Mandragora dislikes meeting a weapon tuned for its category.

Savage Maw carries no armour type bonus at all. The Mandragora does flat damage to Light, Medium, Heavy, Building, Hero and None alike, and everything it gains against a formation it gains through splash rather than through the bonus table.

Counters

Strong Against

Weak To

Balance History

• The Mandragora's own stats were unchanged across the fortnight of patching before this build.

• August 11, 2026: the Infuse bonus that applies to this unit was cut from +50% to +45%, and the cost multiplier rose from 0.045 to 0.05.

Notes

• The roster record for this unit is COMPLETE.

• Tunnel appears twice, once as an ability and once as the Tier 1 upgrade that unlocks it. That is one effect gated behind research rather than two.

• Per unit numbers are drawn from a community maintained entity catalogue that the studio links from each of its own faction pages. It is the only place the full stat block is published, and it is not a studio document, so the figures are best read as careful community documentation of a build rather than as an official specification. Dated balance notes, by contrast, come straight from the studio patch posts.