Health

Health is a stat used by Leaders, Companions, Shades, and most enemies. When a card's health reaches 0 or less, it is destroyed and removed from the battle.

Damage and Loss of Health

The most common way for a card to lose health is to be hit by another card on the field with at least 1 attack. However, there are many other ways to lose health as well:

Attacking a card with Teeth,
Being hit by an Item with at least 1 attack,
Friendly fire damage, such as Bombom and Hazeblazer,
Having Shroom at the end of the turn,
Exploding or being hit by an explosion from Overburn,
Taking damage from the Explode ability or Sheepopper,
Triggering and losing health at end of turn via the Summoned ability,
Having Soulbound from Soulbound Skulls when another card with Soulbound is sacrificed,
Cards and effects that reduce maximum health, such as Nutshell Cake,
Charms that modify maximum health, such as the Moko Charm,
Equipping a Cursed Crown from the Tyrant Bell,
The Blood Bell.

If a card has Shell, the Shell is deducted before health when it takes damage, and excess damage will be dealt to its health. If the card has Block, the Block is deducted per instance of damage and no damage is dealt to Shell or health.

Healing

Just as cards can lose health by taking damage, certain cards and Charms can heal cards and allow them to survive more damage. There are two ways to recover health:

Cards and effects that "restore" health (e.g. Berry Basket) recover a card's missing health. This is capped at the card's maximum health, and excess healing has no effect. For instance, using the Berry Basket to heal a card at 5 out of 6 health brings it to 6 health. It will not bring the card to 7 health.

Cards and effects that "increase" health (e.g. Pinkberry Juice) raise a card's maximum health for the battle and restore that much health. For instance, using Pinkberry Juice on a card at 5 out of 6 health brings it to 9 out of 10 health.

Both of these count as "healing" that card, so effects that activate when healed, such as Heartforge and Lil' Berry, will activate in each case.

A card can also be healed by recalling it, which removes the card from the field and puts it into the discard pile. This recovers a flat 5 health and removes all debuffs from it, as though it were Cleansed (so effects like Frost are removed, but positive statuses like Frenzy are not). Spice is also removed, though this is confirmed to be a bug. Recalling a card does not activate on-heal effects. Cards with Hogheaded or Summoned cannot be recalled and thus cannot recover health or have statuses removed in this way.

Destruction

Once a card's health reaches 0 or less, it is immediately destroyed and removed from the battle. Effects that would activate when that card is hit will still activate, such as Teeth or an ability like Grumps's. However, if the card has a Reaction that would trigger when hit, the card is destroyed before it can react. If a card reaches 0 health while it is attacking, any abilities that would have activated when it triggered will not activate. For instance, if Booshu attacks an enemy but dies due to the enemy's Teeth, Booshu will not restore health to the team. However, any debuffs that would have been applied on hit will still be inflicted. For instance, if Loki attacks an enemy and dies from its Teeth, the enemy will still be Demonized. If a card dies that was in the middle of Frenzy attacks or that had a Reaction triggered multiple times, the card is destroyed before it can finish attacking.

Unique Interactions

Shades are special among cards in that their Summoned ability causes them to passively lose health. Whenever a Shade triggers, it will lose 1 health at the end of that turn. This reduction is to its current health and not max health, so it can be restored, but since it is not a source of direct damage it will ignore the Shade's Shell and Block. The Shade also does not lose more than 1 health if it triggers multiple times within the turn (most common with Frenzy).

A card's current or maximum health can be negative, mainly for the purpose of Berry Blade and Berry Sis. Both of these cards' abilities will interact as expected with negative health. If the Berry Blade hits an enemy at 2 health, the enemy's health will become -2 and the Berry Blade will restore 4 health. Likewise, if Berry Sis takes 50 damage from a hit and goes to -42 health, they will add 50 health to a random ally.

Although Shell and Block prevent damage, they do not prevent direct loss of health, such as by Leech or Nutshell Cake. While damage causes loss of health, loss of health is not necessarily damage. Direct loss of health completely bypasses Shell and Block, but since it is not damage, it also is not increased by Demonize or Bom. If a card loses health in this way and its health becomes 0 or less, it is immediately destroyed regardless of its Shell or Block. This also occurs if the card is in hand, so using the Nutshell Cake on a Companion in hand with 2 or less health will destroy them.

Cards and effects that interact with Health

Player effects that restore or change max health	Player effects that interact with health or healing	Enemy cards that restore, modify, or interact with health or healing
Berry Sis Big Berry Bonnie Booshu Van Jun Heartmist Station Berry Basket Berry Bell Berry Blade Demonheart Nutshell Cake Pinkberry Juice Balance Charm Cloudberry Charm Coldheart Charm Heart Charm Hog Charm Lamb Charm Moko Charm Raspberry Charm Strawberry Charm Truffle Charm	Firefist Leech Lil' Berry Monch Shade Wisp Heartforge	Berry Witch Earth Berry Plum Queen Globerry Truffle Woolly Drek Frost Guardian