Every NARUTO Card Game Keyword Confirmed So Far — All 13 Notations, Their Japanese Wording, and Every Card That Carries Them

With the July 29 reveal, sample card images appeared on the official “About NARUTO Card Game” page, making the keywords used in card effect text readable for the first time. This article collects every keyword currently visible on those cards.

An important caveat up front: no rulebook or comprehensive rules have been published. Everything below is a record of what is printed on the sample cards. The formal definition and processing of each keyword has not been announced, and the fine details may be clarified or changed when the rules are released.

Update (August 2): Every keyword now has its own page in our Keywords & Effect Notations section — including [Quick] and [Support Activated], newly confirmed at Gen Con 2026 — each with the list of cards that carry it.

Update (August 19 — full rewrite): This article originally listed 8 notations based on the seven sample cards published on July 29. Since then, the Gen Con 2026 demo cards and other reveals made many more card frames readable, so the list has been replaced with all 13 confirmed notations and the complete card list for each. The tally covers the 38 entries registered in our card database.

The full list of confirmed keywords — all 13 notations

Below are the 13 notations registered in src/data/keywords.json, grouped by category. “Cards” counts the cards in our card database where the notation is visible on the frame.

Abilities (2 notations)

Timing (8 notations)

Usage limits (1 notation)

Summoning and playing (2 notations)

[Support]12cards

[During Your Opponent's Attack]6cards

[On Summon]5cards

[Rush]4cards

[Summon Requirements]4cards

[Activate: Main]3cards

[Recovery]2cards

[Once Per Turn]2cards

[During Your Main]2cards

[Support Activated]2cards

[Quick]2cards

[When Attacking]1cards

[Your Turn]1cards

What the counts show: [Support] stands out at 12 cards, double the 6 of second-place [During Your Opponent’s Attack]. In other words, the effects on confirmed cards are centred on things activated from face-down supports. At the other end, two notations appear on a single card each ([When Attacking], [Your Turn]) — their real role will only become visible as more cards are revealed.

Let’s go through them by category.

1. Keywords that mark when an effect is used

[Activate: Main]

This prefixes effects you use proactively on your own turn. The Leader card Naruto Uzumaki (N-001) reads:

[Activate: Main] Flip 1 of your CHAKRA face-down and choose 1 Character: The chosen card gets +3 power during this turn.

The “Main” part suggests an effect activated during a specific timing such as your main phase, though the official phase names and turn structure remain unannounced. Note also the format: what comes before the colon is the cost, and what comes after is the effect.

[Once Per Turn]

A usage limit. The Leader card Sasuke Uchiha prints [Activate: Main] [Once Per Turn] side by side.

What stands out here is that Naruto’s [Activate: Main] does not carry [Once Per Turn]. Read literally, his +3 power effect could be used multiple times per turn as long as you can pay the Chakra. That ultimately depends on the comprehensive rules, so for now we record only the fact that the two Leaders are worded differently.

[Recovery]

Printed on both Leader cards:

[Recovery] If it is the second turn or later, rest this card and flip all of your CHAKRA face-up.

Since the Chakra card states “When using Chakra, turn this card face-down” (C-001), the relationship is clear: resting your Leader flips your spent, face-down Chakra back face-up all at once. The “second turn or later” condition suggests it cannot be used on the first player’s opening turn.

Note that we take this badge name from the English-version card image. The Japanese image is displayed too small to read the corresponding Japanese wording.

[During Your Opponent’s Attack]

A timing keyword for effects that interrupt the opponent’s turn, seen on the Character card Shikamaru Nara (N-008):

[Support] Shadow Possession Jutsu [During Your Opponent’s Attack] Summon this card and interrupt that attack.

This is a concrete example of the “Use Chakra to activate face down support cards. Unleash Ninjutsu to stop their attacks!” mechanic described on the official site — the substance behind the game’s tagline about ninja reading beneath the underneath.

[On Summon]

A triggered effect that fires when the card enters the field. It appears on the EX Character Gamabunta (N-005):

[On Summon] Summon 1 non-EX [Naruto Uzumaki], [Jiraiya], or [Minato Namikaze] Character from your trash.

Later reveals brought this to 5 cards, and confirmed it appears not only on EX Characters (N-003, N-005, N-014, N-022) but on the ordinary Character card Itachi Uchiha N-013 too.

[When Attacking] — first confirmed at Gen Con 2026

A trigger that fires when the card attacks. Among confirmed cards it appears only on Jugo N-019.

[When Attacking] Reveal the top card of your deck, and if the revealed card is “Sasuke Uchiha”, or {The Taka} type card other than an EX Character, summon that card.

Where [On Summon] fires the moment a card hits the field, this one attaches to the act of attacking itself. For every confirmed deck-top reveal effect, see the August 10 deck-top article.

[During Your Main] — first confirmed at Gen Con 2026

A timing on [Support] effects activated during your own main. Both confirmed cards turned out to be mass removal.

[Support] Rasengan
[During Your Main] K.O. all Characters. (Naruto Uzumaki N-004; Chidori: One Thousand Birds has identical text)

[Activate: Main] appears to mark activating a card already on the field, while [During Your Main] marks flipping a face-down support on your own turn — but the formal definitions of both are unannounced.

[Your Turn] — first confirmed at Gen Con 2026

A condition that applies continuously throughout your turn. Among confirmed cards it appears only on Minato Namikaze N-007.

[Your Turn] If this Character has 10 or more power, this Character gains [Rush].

All three of the above ([When Attacking], [During Your Main], [Your Turn]) were confirmed from the English demo cards handed out at Gen Con 2026 — see the first venue photos and the high-resolution scans.

[Support Activated] — first confirmed at Gen Con 2026

A trigger that responds to a support being activated. Both confirmed cards negate that card.

[Support] Lightning Blade
[Support Activated] Negate that card. Then, reduce your life by 2. (Kakashi Hatake N-009)

[Support] Koto Amatsukami
[Support Activated] Negate that card. Then, from this turn until the end of your next turn’s End Phase, you cannot turn your CHAKRA face-up. (Shisui Uchiha N-016)

Both pay a personal penalty in exchange for the negation — a pattern we compare against every other card in the August 19 article on what cards make you pay. Exactly what activations it can respond to (supports only, or more) is unannounced.

[Quick] — first confirmed at Gen Con 2026

Both confirmed cards use a format that puts the face-down card itself onto the field while resolving the effect.

[Support] Expansion Jutsu
[Quick] Choose 1 Character: Summon this card, and the chosen card’s power is doubled during this turn. (Choji Akimichi)

[Support] Water Transformation Jutsu
[Quick] Choose 1 Character: Summon this card, and the chosen card will not be affected by your opponent’s Support effects during this turn. (Suigetsu Hozuki N-021)

How far the interruption extends — whether it can be used on the opponent’s turn — is unannounced. If it works like “quick” notations in other TCGs it likely could, but the card frame alone cannot confirm that. For every confirmed route onto the field, see the summon routes roundup.

2. Ability keywords

[Rush]

The only confirmed keyword that is an ability a Character itself has ([Recovery] is used as the name of a Leader-only effect). It first appeared inside the effect text of the Character card Ino Yamanaka (N-011), and — helpfully — its meaning is printed in parentheses:

…your [Ino Yamanaka], [Shikamaru Nara], and [Choji Akimichi] all gain [Rush] and +5 power/+1 damage during this turn. (This card can attack on the turn in which it is summoned.)

So [Rush] = can attack on the turn it is summoned is defined right on the card. Conversely, that tells us characters normally cannot attack the turn they are summoned — a genuinely informative single card.

The text also confirms that a [Choji Akimichi] card exists. The fact that a trait-referencing payoff — assemble all three members of Team 10 and they all get stronger — shows up in the very first sample is worth noting.

3. Keywords restricting how a card is played

[Summon Requirements] and “Cannot be summoned normally”

Gamabunta (N-005) prints these two lines together:

Cannot be summoned normally. [Summon Requirements] Place 1 of your Characters with 10 or more power in your trash.

This is the official EX Character description — “Powerful Character cards that can be played once you reach certain play conditions” — made concrete. EX Characters come down outside the normal Chakra-cost route, paying with a character already on your field.

[Support]

On Shikamaru (N-008) this appears as [Support] plus a jutsu name (Shadow Possession Jutsu). The official site describes Chakra cards as “Cards required to activate Support cards like Ninjutsu,” so this looks like the heading for a support effect activated by paying Chakra.

In other words, a Character card may serve two purposes — a body to summon and a support effect — which would matter for both deck-building and in-game play.

At 12 cards it is the most common of the 13 notations — and those 12 are exactly the same cards that print a cost number on the frame. For how the guessing game plays out in practice, see reading face-down supports.

4. Game terms used in the effect text

Beyond the bracketed keywords, these terms show up in the text:

• Rest: turning a card sideways. Used in “You may rest this card to summon a Character card” (S-001) and in the Leaders’ [Recovery]
• Trash: the discard area. “Summon … from your trash,” “Place 1 … in your trash” (Gamabunta)
• Face-up / face-down: the state of Chakra. “When using Chakra, turn this card face-down” (C-001)
• Character / EX Character: referenced in text as “choose 1 Character,” “non-EX”
• Power / damage: the stats modified by effects. “+3 power,” “+5 power/+1 damage”

What we still do not know

Even with more text readable, the skeleton of the rules remains unannounced:

• The turn structure (phase names and order), and how [Activate: Main] and [During Your Main] differ in timing
• When rested cards become active again (for Summon cards and Leaders alike)
• Whether ability keywords other than [Rush] exist (it remains the only ability a Character itself carries)
• Whether [Quick] can also be used on the opponent’s turn
• The scope [Support Activated] can respond to (supports only, or other activations too)
• Formal definitions and resolution order (e.g. what happens when effects trigger simultaneously)
• The Japanese wording of [Recovery]
• The meaning of the circled “1” icon next to the card number

The Gen Con 2026 tutorial sessions (July 30 – August 2 local time) made a large number of demo card frames readable, taking the notation count from 8 to 13. The rulebook and comprehensive rules, however, still have no announced release date, so the processing details above wait on New York Comic Con 2026 in October and later reveals.

How to prepare before launch

Until formal definitions arrive, learning a way to read cards is more useful than memorising the wording. Break any keyword down into four questions: (1) when can it be used, (2) how many times, (3) what does it cost, and (4) what does it do. That habit transfers from any other TCG.

For broader preparation see our improvement roadmap, for term definitions the glossary, and for every card confirmed so far the card database. Our full breakdown of the system is in Reading the game system reveal.

We will update this article as new keywords are confirmed.