Jiraiya (N-006) and Orochimaru Share an Effect Line Word for Word — Same Rarity, Same Cost, Same Type, With Power and HP Swapped 7/4 and 4/7

This is the 15th article in our single-card analysis series. Today we read Jiraiya (N-006).

This card appeared in our count of removal cards (August 18), in our article on the rested state (August 26), and in our list of Support jutsu names (August 21). Always as “one of two” — never as the subject.

Read head-on, it becomes clear how deliberately that pair was matched. The effect line does not differ by a single character.

1 pairKnown cards with an identical effect lineJiraiya N-006 and Orochimaru

7/4 ⇄ 4/7Power / HP of the two cardsBoth total 11

0Known cards that rest an opponent's CharacterThe premise is unannounced

About this article: Jiraiya’s card face comes from photos of the English demo card taken at the Gen Con 2026 venue (SAMPLE watermark, NOT FOR SALE marking). Neither the official website nor the official X account has published this card face or Japanese-language text. The Japanese effect text on our site follows the wording of previously revealed cards as our own reference rendering, and the Support name is a reference rendering from the English “Fire Style: Toad Flame Bombs” back to the corresponding technique in the original work. Because the source is not an image published officially, 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). The official rulebook and card list are still unpublished, and we clearly separate speculation from confirmed fact.

1. Reading the card face

Item	Printed
Card name	Jiraiya
Card number	N-006
Card type	Character
Rarity	SR
Chakra cost	2
DMG	1
POW	7
HP	4
Types	Fire / The Legendary Sannin / Hidden Leaf Village

The card has two lines of text.

[Support] Fire Style: Toad Flame Bombs [During Your Opponent’s Attack] Choose up to 2 rested Characters: K.O. the chosen cards.

The DMG value “1” is printed as a stylized numeral with a lightning-bolt motif — the same treatment seen on Minato Namikaze (N-007) and Sasuke Uchiha Leader (N-012). Its meaning is unannounced.

2. The second line matches Orochimaru exactly

Cross-check all 24 readable effect texts against one another and exactly one pair has an identical effect line.

The only differences are the jutsu name and the fact that power and HP are swapped.

And the swap is a clean mirror. Jiraiya is 7/4, Orochimaru is 4/7. Both total 11, and both share DMG 1.

Only two known cards carry the {The Legendary Sannin} type — these two (the art version of Tsunade carries {Special} and {Hidden Leaf Village}, not {The Legendary Sannin}).

This part is speculation: it looks like the same effect handed out in two bodies, one leaning offensive and one defensive. The two Gen Con demo decks split into a “Naruto side” and a “Sasuke side”; Jiraiya is {Fire} {Hidden Leaf Village} and Orochimaru is {Special} {Hidden Sound Village}. The natural reading is that the same jutsu slot was placed into both decks under each deck’s own affiliation — but there is no official statement.

3. Power 7 is the ceiling for Characters that carry a Support

What do those numbers mean? Split the 20 known Characters by whether the card face carries a [Support] line and three clean tiers appear.

With Support (totals 9–11) Jiraiya sits at the ceiling of 1112cards

No Support, non-EX (totals 13–16)4cards

EX Characters (totals 18–21)4cards

Jiraiya’s 7+4=11 is the ceiling for the 12 Support-carrying cards (the others at 11 are Kakashi Hatake N-009, Shisui Uchiha N-016 and Orochimaru).

Look at power on its own and it stands out further.

Power among the 12 Support carriers	Cards
7 (highest)	Jiraiya N-006 / Choji Akimichi / Kakashi Hatake N-009
6	Shikamaru Nara N-008 / Sakura Haruno
5	Hinata Hyuga / Naruto Uzumaki N-004 / Shisui Uchiha N-016 / Suigetsu Hozuki N-021
4	Karin N-010 / Sasuke Uchiha (Chidori) / Orochimaru

Our stat overview (August 7) framed it as “the flexibility of being playable face-down is paid for with lower board numbers.” Within that constraint, Jiraiya takes the attacking number. The price is HP 4, near the bottom of the known range (only Choji Akimichi’s HP 3 is lower), so he dies easily once he is on the board.

4. “Choose up to 2” is the only known multi-target removal

On to the effect itself. Six known cards carry a K.O. effect, and they split three ways by how many targets you pick.

• K.O. all Characters (N-004, Chidori) 2cards（33%）
• Choose up to 2 (N-006, Orochimaru) 2cards（33%）
• Choose 1 (Hinata Hyuga, N-014) 2cards（33%）

“All” is not a choice — everything goes, on both sides (among the seven cards we counted as board clearers in the removal article (August 18), these six K.O. effects all lack any “of yours” restriction). “Choose 1” is single-target removal.

Selecting, and selecting two, belongs to Jiraiya and Orochimaru alone.

Lined up against cost — the angle of our article on how costs are paid (August 19) — the correspondence is tidy.

Widen it to all 12 known cards with a readable cost and another pattern appears without exceptions.

Only four known cards cost 2, and every one of them carries a K.O. effect.

This part is speculation: with a sample of 12 there is no way to be certain, but paying two Chakra does look designed as the price of clearing the board. Chakra is capped at five, so a cost-2 card can only be played twice in a turn.

5. The hit condition is still floating in mid-air

This is Jiraiya’s real problem. The effect targets rested Characters.

Here is the conclusion of our count of the rested state (August 26) verbatim: five known cards mention “rest”, and they split into two roles.

And all three on the resting side say “this card” — meaning your own Leader and your own Summon card.

No known card rests an opponent’s Character.

Jiraiya’s effect triggers [During Your Opponent’s Attack], so if there is a rule that an attacking Character becomes rested, it hits cleanly. Most TCGs work that way, so the odds seem good — but:

This part is unconfirmed: no card says that an attacking Character becomes rested. The four-phase structure read off the official playmat says nothing about how the rested state arises either. The reminder text on Ino Yamanaka (N-011) — “(This card can attack on the turn in which it is summoned.)” — tells us Characters normally cannot attack the turn they arrive, but that is a separate matter. How many cards this pair can actually K.O. in play cannot be calculated until the rulebook appears.

There is a second gap: who “up to 2” can point at is not written either. With no “of yours” restriction, the text as printed lets you select your own rested Characters. There is rarely a reason to K.O. your own board during the opponent’s attack — but since the Summon Requirements on all four known EX Characters read “place 1 of your Characters in your trash”, this game demonstrably has situations where shrinking your own board is worth doing.

6. Jiraiya has a second job

Jiraiya is also named by another card.

Gamabunta (N-005) [On Summon] Summon 1 non-EX [Naruto Uzumaki], [Jiraiya], or [Minato Namikaze] Character from your trash.

As our count of cards that name other cards (August 28) found, seven characters are named by name across the known cards. Jiraiya is one of them.

That means a Jiraiya spent face-down as a Support has a route back onto the field from the trash. As our trash article established, only two known cards bring anything back from the trash to the field — N-005 and N-003 — and one of them names Jiraiya.

Gamabunta carries {Water} {Toad} {Mount Myoboku}, and Jiraiya’s Support is “Fire Style: Toad Flame Bombs”. The relationship from the original work lands directly as a reference between cards.

This part is speculation: that gives a single Jiraiya three uses — set face-down for the K.O., played to the field to attack, or fished out of the trash by Gamabunta. As our face-down Support article (August 6) set out, setting a card as a Support or playing it as a Character appears to be a one-time choice per copy, which makes that three-way decision a heavy one. The detailed rules for setting and retrieving are unannounced.

7. The only one of the four known {Fire} cards that is not an Uchiha

Finally, the type box. Four known cards carry {Fire}.

Card	Types
Jiraiya N-006	Fire / The Legendary Sannin / Hidden Leaf Village
N-012Sasuke Uchiha Leader N-012	Fire / Lightning / Uchiha Clan / The Taka
N-013Itachi Uchiha N-013	Fire / Illusion / Uchiha Clan / Akatsuki
N-014EX Sasuke N-014	Fire / Lightning / Uchiha Clan / The Taka

Three of the four are Uchiha Clan. Jiraiya is the exception.

The official site explains that “Character cards can be built to match the color of your Leader” (see the glossary entry on color), so a Leader-anchored color system is confirmed to exist. And the only known Leader carrying {Fire} is Sasuke Uchiha (N-012).

This part is unconfirmed: nothing official says that the leading word in the type box — {Fire}, {Lightning} and so on — is the color. As our types article (August 3) noted, cards like Hinata Hyuga lead with {Hyuga Clan} and carry no attribute-like word at all, so the mapping is not straightforward. The number and names of colors are unannounced too. If the leading word were the color, Jiraiya would make the odd-looking pairing of a Hidden Leaf shinobi in a Sasuke Uchiha deck — but nothing currently supports reading it that way.

8. What we still do not know

• How a Character becomes rested (whether attacking rests it is unannounced, so the hit rate cannot be calculated)
• Whether “up to 2” can include your own Characters (there is no “of yours” restriction)
• Where [During Your Opponent’s Attack] slots into attack resolution (whether a K.O.‘d attacker’s attack stops)
• The procedure for setting Supports face-down (how many can be set, where a used one goes)
• The Japanese card name, effect text and jutsu name (only the English demo card is confirmed)
• What the “color” system actually is (whether {Fire} is a color, and how many colors exist)

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

Summary

• Jiraiya (N-006) is a Character card, rarity SR: cost 2 / DMG 1 / POW 7 / HP 4, types {Fire} {The Legendary Sannin} {Hidden Leaf Village}
• His effect line matches Orochimaru word for word. It is the only exact effect-line match among the 24 readable texts, and the English wording is identical too
• The two match on rarity, cost, DMG and the {The Legendary Sannin} type, with POW/HP swapped 7/4 against 4/7 (both totalling 11). They are also the only two known cards with that type
• “Choose up to 2” is the only known removal that selects more than one target. The six K.O. cards split two “all”, two “up to 2” and two “choose 1”
• Of the 12 known cards with a readable cost, four cost 2 — and all four carry a K.O. effect. No exceptions
• But no known card rests an opponent’s Character. The premise the effect depends on is still unannounced
• Jiraiya is one of the three names called out by Gamabunta (N-005), giving him a route back from the trash

Related articles

• Sasuke Uchiha Leader (N-012) Is the Only Known Card That Says “Draw”
• 6 of the 7 Removal Effects Come From Face-Down Supports — Cost 1 Hits One, Cost 2 Hits Two or More, No Exceptions
• Five Revealed Cards Say “Rest” — Two of Them K.O. Rested Characters, Yet Nothing Revealed So Far Actually Rests a Character
• Only three revealed Characters can pay Gamabunta (N-005) off their printed stats — and all three are EX Characters
• All 12 Supports Carry a Jutsu Name — But Only One Has Its Japanese Name Confirmed on an Official Card