Only two revealed cards have [Support Activated] — Kakashi Hatake (N-009), the one timing that cuts into an opponent's jutsu, and the 2 Life it costs

This article is commentary and analysis by this site. To keep it distinct from official facts, reasoning and speculation are clearly labeled.

This is the eighth entry in our one-card analysis series. Today: Kakashi Hatake (N-009).

He shows up in our pieces as one half of a pair, every time — one of the two counters in the piece on “negate”, one of the two cards that touch Life in the piece on LIFE 15, one of five ways to stop an opponent in this morning’s Itachi Uchiha (N-013) piece.

Read head-on, Kakashi is one of only two revealed cards that cut into an opponent’s jutsu.

2 of 12Supports that react to an opponent's SupportKakashi and Shisui only

2 LifeThe price of the counterabout 13% of LIFE 15

POW 7Tied highest of the eight cost-1 Characterswith Choji Akimichi

What this is based on: Kakashi’s card face comes from photographs of the English-version demo card taken at Gen Con 2026 and posted by an X user. Neither the official site nor the official X account has published this card face, and no Japanese version of the text exists. The official Japanese wording of [Support Activated] is likewise unannounced — our card database follows the English [Support Activated] on the demo card. Because the source is not an official one, this article carries no quoted card image. Tallies are taken over the 38 entries in our card database — 24 with legible effect text, 20 Characters with legible stats. The official rulebook and card list are still unpublished, and anything speculative is marked as speculation.

1. Reading the frame

Field	Printed value
Card name	Kakashi Hatake
Card number	N-009
Card type	Character (CHARACTER)
Rarity	R
CHAKRA (cost)	1
DMG	1 (a stylized numeral with a lightning-bolt motif)
POW	7
HP	4
Traits	Lightning / Hidden Leaf Village / Team 7

The effect text runs two lines.

[Support] Lightning Blade [Support Activated] Negate that card. Then, reduce your life by 2.

The jutsu-name slot on line one reads Lightning Blade. As set out in the piece counting Support jutsu names, 10 of the 12 [Support] cards carry a jutsu name and two carry a line of dialogue (Sakura Haruno’s “Cha!” and Karin N-010’s “Hurry up and bite me!”); Kakashi is in the jutsu-name group.

Line two is the card. Everything turns on what “that card” refers to.

2. Sorting the 12 [Support] cards by when they fire

Twelve revealed cards carry a [Support] line. Here they are by the timing printed on line two.

[During Your Opponent’s Attack] (6) — Hinata Hyuga, Jiraiya N-006, Shikamaru Nara N-008, Karin N-010, Orochimaru, Sakura Haruno
[Support Activated] (2) — Kakashi Hatake N-009, Shisui Uchiha N-016
[Quick] (2) — Choji Akimichi, Suigetsu Hozuki N-021
[During Your Main] (2) — Naruto Uzumaki N-004, Sasuke Uchiha (Chidori)

Of those four groups, only [Support Activated] reacts to something the opponent did. The six [During Your Opponent’s Attack] cards also move on the other player’s turn, but what they answer is a step in the turn structure, not a card.

Kakashi and Shisui are the only two that cut in on the act of firing a face-down card.

Unconfirmed: How far [Support Activated] reaches — opponents’ Supports only, or your own too; whether two [Support Activated] cards can negate each other — is unannounced. The text points at its target with nothing but “that card”, so the card face supports neither reading.

3. The two are written with the identical sentence

As flagged in the piece on “negate”, these two match down to the syntax.

Kakashi Hatake N-009
[Support Activated] Negate that card. Then, reduce your life by 2.
Shisui Uchiha N-016
[Support Activated] Negate that card. Then, you cannot flip your CHAKRA face-up from this turn until the end phase of your next turn.

“Negate that card. Then,” is shared word for word. The only difference is what you pay afterwards.

	Negates	What you pay afterwards
N-009Kakashi Hatake N-009	that card	2 Life
N-016Shisui Uchiha N-016	that card	Cannot flip CHAKRA face-up (this turn → end phase of your next turn)

In the revealed pool, every counter is written so that you lose something too. Not one card negates an opposing jutsu for free.

From here this is speculation: This looks like the constraint many TCGs place on counterspells — do not make “the card that does nothing while you hold it” too strong. With a sample of two, though, there is no telling whether that is a design rule or simply what happened to be in the demo decks.

4. What is 2 Life worth, in attacks?

Weigh Kakashi’s price against the numbers we have.

Both revealed Leaders (N-001 and N-012) print LIFE 15. So 2 Life is about 13.3% of the total.

Converting that into Character DMG — here is the spread across the 20 revealed Characters with legible stats.

DMG across the 20 revealed Characters with legible stats

DMG 111cards

DMG 27cards

DMG 3 both EX Characters2cards

At the most common DMG 1 that is two attacks; at DMG 2 it is one. Against the highest revealed DMG 3 (Naruto Uzumaki N-003, Sasuke Uchiha N-014) it is less than a single swing. So Kakashi’s price is roughly “let two small attacks through”.

Unconfirmed: That said, how a Leader’s LIFE actually goes down — by the DMG value on a successful attack, or by 1 per attack — is unannounced. We left the same question open in the LIFE 15 piece, and until it is answered the conversion above is not settled. It assumes the DMG value is subtracted from LIFE directly.

Note also that only two revealed cards touch Life at all: Karin N-010 gains 2, Kakashi loses 2 — the same number, in opposite directions, as covered in yesterday’s Karin piece. If the two can share a deck, Karin pays Kakashi’s bill back. (Karin is {The Taka} and Kakashi is {Team 7}, and whether the Leader’s colour constrains construction is unannounced.)

5. POW 7 / HP 4 — the most aggressive split at cost 1

Kakashi is a counter, but he is also a POW 7 body if you play him. Here are all eight revealed cost-1 Characters.

Card	DMG / POW / HP	POW+HP
Kakashi Hatake N-009	1 / 7 / 4	11
N-016Shisui Uchiha N-016	1 / 5 / 6	11
Choji Akimichi	1 / 7 / 3	10
N-008Shikamaru Nara N-008	1 / 6 / 4	10
Sakura Haruno	2 / 6 / 4	10
Hinata Hyuga	1 / 5 / 5	10
N-021Suigetsu Hozuki N-021	1 / 5 / 5	10
N-010Karin N-010	1 / 4 / 6	10

POW 7 ties for the highest at cost 1 (with Choji Akimichi), and POW+HP 11 is the highest total too (with Shisui Uchiha N-016). Within that shared 11, Kakashi is the offensive split (7/4) and Shisui the defensive one (5/6) — exact opposites.

The two [Support Activated] cards dividing the same total in opposite directions is the same reading as the Karin piece, where the same “total 10” was pushed as far toward defence as it goes.

From here this is speculation: A counter spends a long time sitting in hand, so it hurts to be stuck with a weak body when the moment passes. POW 7 looks like insurance for the games where you never get to counter anything — but there is no official statement.

6. Of the six {Team 7} cards, only Kakashi has {Lightning}

Kakashi’s traits are Lightning / Hidden Leaf Village / Team 7. Cross-referencing the traits round-up:

Six revealed cards carry {Team 7}.

Kakashi is the only {Lightning} member of Team 7. Eight revealed cards carry {Lightning}; the other seven are Minato Namikaze N-007, the Sasuke side (N-012, N-014, Chidori Sasuke) and three cards from the official ARTWORK gallery.

Unconfirmed: As set out in the Leader piece, the official site describes Character cards as “cards that can be built around your Leader’s colour and form the basis of battle”, so the existence of a colour system is confirmed. But where colour is printed on the card face is unannounced, and whether the leading entries in the trait line — {Wind}, {Fire}, {Lightning} and so on — are that colour has never been stated officially (the official side describes them only as traits).

From here this is speculation: If the first trait is the colour, then the question becomes whether a {Lightning} Kakashi can go in a {Wind} Naruto Leader deck. In the source material he is Team 7’s squad leader, and the {Team 7} trait is right there on both cards — but the premise itself is unconfirmed, so there is no saying either way.

7. Still unknown

How far [Support Activated] reaches (opponents’ Supports only, or your own as well)
What “that card” means (the Support itself, or its effect)
What happens when two [Support Activated] cards collide (can Shisui negate Kakashi?)
Where a negated Support goes (the trash, or back face-down)
How a Leader’s LIFE goes down (by DMG value, or 1 per attack) — the number that fixes what 2 Life is worth
Where “colour” is printed on the card face (whether the first trait is the colour is itself unannounced), and how far colour constrains construction
The official Japanese wording of [Support Activated] — only the English demo card has been seen

All of these wait on the official rulebook and card list. We will update the card database page and this article as they land.

Summary

Kakashi Hatake (N-009) is a Character card at rarity R with CHAKRA 1 / DMG 1 / POW 7 / HP 4
Exactly two revealed cards carry [Support Activated] (Kakashi and Shisui N-016) — the only timing among the 12 [Support] cards that answers an opponent activating a Support
Both read “Negate that card. Then, …”, and only the price differs: 2 Life for Kakashi, locked CHAKRA for Shisui
2 Life is about 13.3% of LIFE 15, or two attacks at the most common DMG 1 (though how LIFE decreases is itself unannounced)
POW 7 ties highest at cost 1, and POW+HP 11 does too. Against Shisui’s identical 11 (5/6), Kakashi’s split runs the other way