Ino Yamanaka (N-011) is the only non-Leader with [Activate: Main] — and the only card that demands two named cards at once

This is the third entry in our one-card analysis series. Today: Ino Yamanaka (N-011).

She has turned up repeatedly on this site as a supporting character — as the single exception in does it say “your”?, and as a route to “10 or more power” in the Gamabunta piece. We have never read the card itself as the main subject.

Read head-on, Ino is one of the genuinely odd cards in the revealed pool.

3Revealed cards with [Activate: Main]two of them are Leaders

1Cards requiring two names at onceonly Ino

HP 8Tied highest among 16 non-EX Characterswith N-007 and N-013

What this is based on: Ino’s card face comes from the sample image in the “Game Features” section of the official “About the NARUTO Card Game” page (SAMPLE watermark, NOT FOR SALE marking). By contrast, Choji Akimichi’s card face comes only from scans of the English-version demo card handed out at Gen Con 2026 (posted by an X user), and no Japanese version has been published. That is flagged wherever it matters below. Tallies are taken over the 38 entries in our card database. The official rulebook and card list are still unpublished, and anything speculative is marked as speculation.

1. Reading the frame

On the official site, this card is the example used to explain how you rest a Summon Card to put a Character onto the field.

Here is what the frame shows.

Field	Printed value
Card name	Ino Yamanaka
Card number	N-011
Card type	Character (CHARACTER)
Rarity	C
DMG	2
POW	5
HP	8
Chakra cost	no cost box at all
Traits	Special / Hidden Leaf Village / Team 10

The effect text runs two lines.

[Activate: Main] [Once Per Turn] If you have [Shikamaru Nara] and [Choji Akimichi] on the field, 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.)

The second line is not an effect — it is reminder text spelling out what [Rush] means. As noted in our keyword list, [Rush] is the only ability keyword whose meaning is printed on a card, and this is the card that prints it. Read the other way around, that single line confirms that Characters normally cannot attack on the turn they are summoned.

2. Three cards have [Activate: Main]; only this one is not a Leader

Searching all 38 revealed entries for [Activate: Main] returns three cards.

• N-001DMG1POW3LIFE15Naruto Uzumaki (N-001) — Leader
• N-012DMG1POW3LIFE15Sasuke Uchiha (N-012) — Leader
• N-011DMG2POW5HP8Ino Yamanaka (N-011) — Character

Ino is the only non-Leader with an activated ability. Every other revealed Character works through [On Summon], [When Attacking] or [Support] — that is, it either fires when something happens to it, or it is played face-down as a jutsu. Ino is the only one you can point at a moment of your own choosing.

Lined up against the two Leaders, the design intent is easy to see.

Yesterday’s piece on N-001 argued that the card is entirely about how you split five chakra, because N-001 is the only one that pays a resource. Ino and the Sasuke Leader pay nothing and are capped at [Once Per Turn] instead — and those two are the only revealed cards that print [Once Per Turn] at all.

3. No other revealed card asks for two names at once

Look at the condition again.

If you have [Shikamaru Nara] and [Choji Akimichi] on the field

Four revealed cards name other cards by name, but each of them names differently.

• N-005DMG2POW10HP8Gamabunta N-005 — pick one of three names in your trash (“or”)
• N-003DMG3POW11HP10Naruto Uzumaki N-003 — up to 1 [Naruto Uzumaki] from deck or trash
• N-019DMG2POW9HP7Jūgo N-019 — reveal the top card; summon it if it is [Sasuke Uchiha] or has {The Taka}
• N-011DMG2POW5HP8Ino Yamanaka N-011 — two cards must be there at the same time

Only Ino asks for “A and B.” The other three are written as “if you hit, you profit”; Ino does nothing at all until two specific cards are already on the field. In the revealed pool, that is the heaviest condition printed on any card.

Note also that she looks at your field. As set out in does it say “your”?, the revealed cards draw a consistent line — costs and your own zones always say “your”, effects that target Characters on the field never do — and Ino is the single exception where a Character on the field is scoped with “your”. That is precisely why her effect does not sweep up the opponent’s board.

4. What happens when the condition is met

Three things get handed out at once, to all three cards: [Rush], +5 power, +1 damage.

Caution: among the numbers below, Choji Akimichi’s printed stats (POW 7 / HP 3 / DMG 1) come from scans of the English-version Gen Con 2026 demo card, not from the official site. His card number is cut off in the image and remains unconfirmed.

Total power (before)18

Total power (after) +5 x 3 cards33

Total damage (before)4

Total damage (after) +1 x 3 cards7

The totals matter less than one specific consequence: all three land at “10 or more power.” As set out in the Rush and power-10 piece, the revealed pool prints that threshold in three places.

• N-007DMG2POW8HP8Minato Namikaze N-007 — gains [Rush] during your turn if its power is 10 or more
• N-005DMG2POW10HP8Gamabunta N-005 — [Summon Requirements]: trash 1 Character with 10 or more power
• N-003DMG3POW11HP10Naruto Uzumaki N-003 — [Summon Requirements]: trash 1 Character with 10 or more power

Ino’s +5 is the only revealed effect that lifts three cards over that line simultaneously.

Unconfirmed: whether a temporary power buff counts toward [Summon Requirements] is written nowhere. The same question is still open in the Gamabunta piece. If it counts, Ino is a launchpad for EX Characters; if it does not, she is a pure damage buff. That one ruling swings her evaluation a long way.

Equally unannounced is what it means for a Character already on the field to gain [Rush]. Read literally, Ino could be summoned and activate the same turn so all three swing — but Shikamaru and Choji must already be there, so in practice Ino arrives last and gives the order.

5. The missing cost box is not an omission

The first oddity on the frame is that there is no chakra cost box. That is not a printing slip; it follows a rule that holds across the revealed pool.

As set out in our count of what cards make you pay, all 12 revealed cards with a cost number also carry a [Support] line. In other words, the cost number is the price of firing the card as a jutsu from face-down, not the price of putting a Character onto the field. Putting Characters out is the Summon Card’s job — which is exactly what the quoted diagram above illustrates.

Flip that around and a Character with no [Support] line has no cost box. Four of the 16 revealed non-EX Characters are in that group.

All four are printed at DMG 2 with HP 7 or higher. Per the stat distribution, the revealed non-EX Characters run 11 cards at DMG 1 and 5 at DMG 2 — so four of the five DMG 2 cards sit in this “no cost box” group (the fifth is Sakura Haruno).

Speculation from here: a Character that cannot be held face-down as a jutsu looks to be compensated with higher baseline stats as a board presence. Nothing official has been said about stat design, and the sample is only 16 cards.

Within that group, Ino alone is printed at POW 5 — tough at HP 8, but bottom of the range in a fight, and she only catches up to the others after buffing herself by +5. Weak without the ability, in other words, by design.

6. Getting Team 10 onto the field

The condition is that two cards are already there. So how do they arrive? This is where it matters that both Shikamaru and Choji carry a [Support] line.

• N-008COST1DMG1POW6HP4Shikamaru Nara N-008 (CHAKRA 1)
  [Support] Shadow Possession Jutsu / [During Your Opponent’s Attack] Summon this card and interrupt that attack.
• COST1DMG1POW7HP3Choji Akimichi (CHAKRA 1, from the Gen Con demo card)
  [Support] Expansion Jutsu / [Quick] Choose 1 Character: Summon this card, and the chosen card’s power is doubled during this turn.

Both contain the phrase “Summon this card”. As set out in reading face-down Supports, a Support written this way does not go to the trash when fired — it reads as staying on the field as a Character.

So Team 10 has at least two assembly routes.

1. Rest a Summon Cardavailable to all three
2. Fire as a Support and stayShikamaru and Choji only
3. Ino's [Activate: Main][Once Per Turn], only once the condition holds

Shikamaru in particular arrives [During Your Opponent’s Attack], so your board can grow by one card on the opponent’s turn. By the time your own Main phase comes around, the condition may already be satisfied.

Ino, meanwhile, has no [Support] line, so her only route onto the field is via a Summon Card. The one who gives the order is the hardest of the three to deploy.

7. Only three revealed cards have {Team 10}

Finally, the traits: Special / Hidden Leaf Village / Team 10.

• Team 7 6cards（38%）
• The Taka 6cards（38%）
• Team 10 3cards（19%）
• Team 8 1cards（6%）

{Team 10} is carried by exactly three cards: Ino, Shikamaru and Choji. Per our trait roundup, the largest revealed trait is {Hidden Leaf Village} at 20 cards, and squad traits sit far below that.

The point worth noticing is that Ino’s effect does not reference {Team 10} at all. It references card names. Gamabunta did the same thing, but only because its three targets share no trait with it. Ino is different: the shared trait exists, and the card still spells out names.

Speculation from here: writing names means that if some future {Team 10} card is printed — Asuma, say — Ino’s effect does not widen to include it. Written as a trait, her reach would grow every time a card is added. Naming is the more future-proof way to write it. There is no official statement on this, and the maximum number of copies of one card allowed in a deck is itself unannounced.

8. Still unknown

• When the “if you have” condition is checked (only on activation, or again on resolution)
• What happens if the condition breaks mid-resolution (does the +5 vanish if Shikamaru is K.O.‘d?)
• Whether a temporary power buff counts for “10 or more power” in [Summon Requirements] (section 4)
• The order of Choji’s “power is doubled” and Ino’s “+5 power” (5 → 10 → +5, or 5 + 5 = 10 → 20?)
• What gaining [Rush] does for a Character already on the field
• The deck limit on copies of one card, which decides how hard three-of-a-kind really is
• Choji Akimichi’s card number and set (cut off in the image)

All of it waits on the official rulebook and card list. We will update the card database entry and this article as things are confirmed.

Summary

• Ino Yamanaka (N-011) is a C-rarity Character at DMG 2 / POW 5 / HP 8. HP 8 ties for the highest among the 16 revealed non-EX Characters
• Only three revealed cards carry [Activate: Main], and the other two are Leaders. Ino is the only non-Leader you can activate on your own schedule
• Her condition needs both [Shikamaru Nara] and [Choji Akimichi] on the field at once — a demand no other revealed card makes
• Meeting it grants [Rush] plus +5 power / +1 damage to all three, putting all three over “10 or more power” — though whether that counts for [Summon Requirements] is unconfirmed
• The frame has no cost box because she has no [Support] line. Four revealed non-EX Characters share that, and all four are DMG 2 with HP 7 or higher

Related articles

• Only three revealed Characters can pay Gamabunta (N-005) off their printed stats
• Naruto Uzumaki Leader (N-001) does not print [Once Per Turn] on its [Activate: Main]
• Does it say “your”? Re-reading 22 revealed cards by scope leaves exactly one exception — Ino Yamanaka
• Chakra is not the only thing you pay — seven kinds of cost across 38 revealed entries
• Only four revealed cards touch [Rush] — and “power 10” shows up as a line in three places