Minato Namikaze (N-007) Stacks Four "Only" Labels — The Sole Known Effect That Checks Its Own Stats, and a Power of 8 That Falls 2 Short

This is the 11th article in our single-card analysis series. Today we read Minato Namikaze (N-007).

The effect text is a single line (plus a reminder note) — among the shortest of any known Character. And yet, set against the other 24, four separate “only” labels land on this card alone.

4"Only" labels that land on Minatotrigger, self-reference, {Wind}+{Lightning}, {Five Kage}

2 shortPower needed to switch Rush onprinted 8, condition is 10 or more

2 cardsKnown cards that can close that gap2 of the 3 power boosts reach him

About this article: Minato’s card face comes from high-resolution scan images of the English demo card handed out at Gen Con 2026, posted by an X user. Neither the official website nor the official X account has published this card face. The trigger wording [Your Turn] is taken from the English card; the official Japanese name for it is unpublished. Because the source is not an official one, this article does not include a quoted card image. All counts are taken from the 38 entries in our card database (24 with readable effect text, 20 Characters with readable stats).

1. Reading the card face

Item	Printed
Card name	Minato Namikaze
Card number	N-007
Card type	Character
Rarity	SR
Chakra cost	Could not be read from the images
DMG	2
POW	8
HP	8
Types	Wind / Lightning / Five Kage / Hidden Leaf Village

The effect text is this single line.

[Your Turn] If this Character has 10 or more power, this Character gains [Rush]. (This card can attack on the turn in which it is played.)

The second line is the reminder text for the Rush keyword, so this is effectively one line. No other known Character packs four “only” labels into that little text.

A note on the cost field. As our cost article recorded, we list Minato, Itachi Uchiha N-013 and Jugo N-019 as cards whose cost field could not be read from the images. That is not the same as confirming no cost is printed. These three share the trait of being non-EX Characters without a Support line, but three cards is too few to call it design.

2. Only #1 — the sole known card with the [Your Turn] trigger

Here is every trigger wording that appears across the 24 cards with readable text.

As listed in our keyword roundup, [Your Turn] has been confirmed on Minato and nowhere else.

And this trigger behaves unlike any of the others.

• [On Summon] / [When Attacking] — fire once, at a moment (triggered)
• [Activate: Main] — you choose to use it (activated)
• Support triggers — played from a face-down card
• [Your Turn] — persists on its own for as long as the condition holds

Minato’s effect is therefore the only known effect that is simply always there. It is also a different species from the “during this turn” and “during your opponent’s next turn” durations we catalogued in our effect duration article: it switches on and off by condition, not by deadline.

3. Only #2 — the sole known effect that checks its own stats

Look closer at the condition clause.

If this Character has 10 or more power

As counted in our article on “if” and “while” conditions, 5 known cards carry a condition evaluated when the effect resolves. Sort them by what they look at, and Minato stands apart.

The top card of the deck Itachi N-013, Jugo N-019, Manda N-0223cards

Cards on your own field Ino Yamanaka N-0111cards

Its own stats Minato Namikaze N-0071cards

• Looks at the top of the deck (3) — the outcome is unknown until you flip. The group we described as “the only known cards where luck enters the procedure” in our September 2 article
• Looks at your own field (1) — Ino Yamanaka N-011’s “if you have [Shikamaru Nara] and [Choji Akimichi].” As our Ino article noted, the only known condition demanding two names at once
• Looks at itself (1) — Minato Namikaze N-007

Minato is the only known card that writes “this Character’s” and reads its own stats. In our article on effect scope we counted which cards say “your”; Minato’s “this Character’s” is narrower still, pointing at one card — itself.

That phrasing has a property the other four lack: you can move the condition yourself. You cannot choose the top of your deck, and lining up two specific names invites disruption — but power can be added by effects. That is the next section.

4. Two short — and only 2 known cards can close the gap

Minato’s printed power is 8. The condition is 10 or more. Two short.

As set out in our article on Rush and the power-10 line, 3 known effects raise power. Sorted by whether they reach Minato:

Two of the three reach him. Only Ino N-011’s +5 misses, because its targets are the three names [Ino Yamanaka], [Shikamaru Nara] and [Choji Akimichi].

Both of the two that reach him clear the bar comfortably.

• N-001DMG1POW3LIFE15Naruto Leader N-001’s +3 → power 11. As our read of that Leader showed, its [Activate: Main] carries no [Once Per Turn]. It is +3 per Chakra, and only one activation is needed here
• COST1DMG1POW7HP3Choji Akimichi’s doubling → power 16. As our Choji article put it, the only known multiplication — the bigger the base power, the more it gains, and at power 8 Minato is the biggest non-EX beneficiary known

1. Summon Minatoprinted power 8 — condition not met
2. Apply +3 or doublingNaruto Leader N-001 / Choji Akimichi
3. Power reaches 10 or more11 or 16
4. [Your Turn] holds and Rush is grantedcan attack on the turn it was played

Speculation from here: This lineup reads as a card designed to swing on the turn it lands. Without Rush, the turn it arrives it does nothing. Raising power would normally mean “win the combat,” but for Minato raising it unlocks the action itself — a two-stage design. That said, the rule governing why a Character cannot attack the turn it arrives (summoning sickness) is unpublished, so how much Rush is worth cannot be confirmed.

Unconfirmed: And the biggest premise of all — whether “10 or more power” includes power added by effects — is written nowhere. If the check reads only the printed value, Minato’s Rush never switches on with any currently known card. We noted the same caveat in our August 20 article. This waits on the rulebook.

5. Only #3 and #4 — the one card with both {Wind} and {Lightning}, and the one with {Five Kage}

Minato’s four types are {Wind}, {Lightning}, {Five Kage} and {Hidden Leaf Village}. Cross-checking against our full types article:

Only Minato carries both {Wind} and {Lightning}

{Wind} appears on 4 known cards, {Lightning} on 8.

Minato is the only name on both lists.

That may matter for the deckbuilding constraint we sketched in our Leader card article. Of the two known Leaders, Naruto N-001 has {Wind} and Sasuke N-012 has {Fire} and {Lightning}.

Speculation from here: If this game matches a Leader’s colours to the deck’s colours the way other Bandai card games do, then Minato, carrying both {Wind} and {Lightning}, would be the only known Character legal under either known Leader. But nothing official says whether {Wind} and {Lightning} are “colours” at all, or whether they constrain deckbuilding. As our types article noted, wordings such as {Special} do not look like colours, and we treat this as unconfirmed.

Only Minato carries {Five Kage}

{Five Kage} appears on exactly 1 known card: Minato. As we also noted in the Manda (N-022) article, the other single-card types are {Toad}, {Mount Myoboku}, {Hyuga Clan}, {Team 8}, {Hidden Sound Village}, {Snake} — and this {Five Kage}.

{Hidden Leaf Village}, meanwhile, is the most common known type at 20 cards. Minato therefore holds the widest and the narrowest type at the same time.

6. One of the three names Gamabunta calls

Minato has another face: the card that gets called by someone else.

Look at Gamabunta N-005’s On Summon.

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

As confirmed in our article on cards that name other cards, only 4 known cards quote a card name — and Minato is named by one of them.

Compare the three names on their card faces.

Of the three, only Minato has no Support and a noticeably larger body. Our Gamabunta article measured the value of “return 1 card from the trash”; Minato is the biggest body it can return.

Speculation from here: As our article on the trash zone confirmed, known cards put six cards’ worth into the trash but only two say anything about retrieving from it. Gamabunta’s Summon Requirement is “place 1 of your Characters with 10 or more power in your trash” — discard something big, return something else. Minato sits on both sides of that door, but at power 8 he cannot pay Gamabunta’s requirement on printed power, so he is the returning side, not the discarded side.

7. Reading the numbers — an even POW 8 / HP 8

Finally, the stats: DMG 2 / POW 8 / HP 8.

Among known non-EX Characters:

In the “three tiers” of our full stats article, the three cards totalling 16 (Jugo, Minato, Itachi) are the non-EX top tier. They are also exactly the three cards whose cost field could not be read — the overlap noted in section 1.

Of those three, only Minato has matching POW and HP, the “even split” we saw in the Suigetsu Hozuki (N-021) article — except Suigetsu was 5/5 and Minato is 8/8. DMG 2 is also in the upper band of known values.

The rarity is SR. Per our rarity article, the known SR cards are Minato, EX Naruto N-003, EX Sasuke N-014, Jiraiya N-006 and Orochimaru. Of the three non-EX SR cards, only Minato has no Support.

8. What is still unknown

• Whether “10 or more power” includes power added by effects (if not, Minato’s Rush never switches on with known cards)
• The official Japanese wording for [Your Turn] (ours is a reference translation from the English card)
• What happens if the condition breaks mid-turn (does Rush vanish the moment a “during this turn” boost expires, and what about an attack already made)
• Minato’s Chakra cost (unreadable in the images; not confirmed as absent)
• The rule for why a Character cannot attack the turn it arrives (this is what sets the value of Rush)
• Whether {Wind} and {Lightning} constrain deckbuilding as “colours”
• Whether any effect references {Five Kage}
• The Japanese card name and effect text (only the English demo card has been confirmed)

All await the official rulebook and card list. We will update the card database page and this article as they are published.

Summary

• Minato Namikaze (N-007) is a Character card, rarity SR, with DMG 2 / POW 8 / HP 8 and the {Wind}, {Lightning}, {Five Kage} and {Hidden Leaf Village} types
• He is the only known card with the [Your Turn] trigger — not triggered, not activated, not a Support, but the only effect that simply persists while its condition holds
• He is also the only known card whose effect conditions on “this Character’s” own stats. Of the 5 conditional cards, the only one whose condition you can move yourself
• Closing the gap from power 8 to 10 is possible with 2 of the 3 known power boosts (Naruto Leader N-001’s +3, Choji Akimichi’s doubling). Ino Yamanaka (N-011)‘s +5 names three {Team 10} Characters and misses him
• He is the only known card carrying both {Wind} and {Lightning}, and the only one with {Five Kage} — held alongside the most common type, {Hidden Leaf Village} (20 cards)
• He is one of the three names Gamabunta (N-005) calls, and the largest body of the three, and the only one without a Support

Related articles

• Manda (N-022) Has the Only Unconditional Summon Requirement Among the 4 Known EX Characters
• Only 4 Cards Touch Rush — And the “Power 10” Boundary That Shows Up in Three Places
• Five Known Cards Say “If” — Three of Them Decide It by Flipping the Top of the Deck
• Naruto Uzumaki Leader (N-001) Has No “Once Per Turn” on Its Activate: Main
• Choji Akimichi’s “Power Is Doubled” Is the Only Known Multiplication