Orochimaru is the only card that names a village other than the Hidden Leaf — three "Hidden Village" types exist among the 38 known entries, and both of the non-Leaf ones are Orochimaru cards

Part 21 of our one-card analysis series. Today: Orochimaru.

This card has shown up in tables before — in the removal count (Aug 18), the rested-state piece (Aug 26) and the Jiraiya (N-006) read (Sep 22). Every time, though, it was “the other card with Jiraiya’s text”, never the subject.

The effect text was settled on September 22, so today we look squarely at the type line and the stat box. There we found something no other card among the 38 known entries has.

3"Hidden ... Village" types that existAcross 38 known entries

2Non-Leaf village entriesBoth are Orochimaru cards

4Lowest POW among the five SR cardsOrochimaru. Next is Jiraiya's 7

About this article: Orochimaru’s card face comes from high-resolution scan images of the English demo card distributed at Gen Con 2026 (SAMPLE watermark, NOT FOR SALE marking; posted by an X user). Neither the official website nor the official X account has published this card face or its Japanese-language text. The Japanese name and effect text on our site are our own reference rendering following previously revealed cards, and the Support name is a reference rendering from the English “Striking Shadow Snake” 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. The card number is also cut off in the images and unconfirmed. All counts come from the 38 entries in our card database (24 with readable effect text, 20 Characters with both POW and HP readable).

1. Reading the card face

Item	Printed
Card name	Orochimaru
Card number	Unconfirmed (cut off in the images)
Card type	Character
Rarity	SR
Chakra cost	2
DMG	1
POW	4
HP	7
Types	Special / The Legendary Sannin / Hidden Sound Village

The card has two lines of text.

[Support] Striking Shadow Snake [During Your Opponent’s Attack] Choose up to 2 rested Characters: K.O. the chosen cards.

That the second line matches Jiraiya (N-006) exactly, that the pair’s POW/HP are mirrored at 7/4 and 4/7, and that “up to 2” is the only multi-target removal known — all of that was established in the September 22 Jiraiya article. We treat it as given here and turn to the type line and stat box.

2. Only three “Hidden … Village” types exist

Start with the third word of the type line: {Hidden Sound Village}.

The trait inventory (Aug 3) listed types by category. Pull out just the villages and recount, and across the 38 known entries only three “Hidden … Village” types appear.

Hidden Leaf Village20

Hidden Sound Village Orochimaru (this article)1

Hidden Rain Village Orochimaru (artwork version)1

There are only two non-Leaf village entries, and both of them are “Orochimaru” cards.

The artwork version is an image on the official site, so the existence of a {Hidden Rain Village} type is officially published information. That two non-Leaf villages are known, and that both attach to Orochimaru, follows directly from the card database as it stands.

Note that Gamabunta (N-005)‘s {Mt. Myoboku} is a mountain, not a village — the only non-ninja-village place name among the known cards.

3. Orochimaru is the only character whose village is swapped between versions

As the roster piece (Aug 9) laid out, several characters appear on multiple known cards. So we cross-checked the village printed on every character with two or more cards.

Orochimaru is the only known pair where the same character’s village is rewritten as a different village.

Sasuke’s pattern — a village on one version, none on another — is an omission, and it fits the same box as the “the leading type changes between versions” observation from the August 9 article. Orochimaru alone has a different value in the same slot.

Speculation from here: in the original work, Orochimaru leaves the Hidden Leaf, founds the Hidden Sound Village and is also involved with the Hidden Rain Village. Two cards with two different villages look like versions written for different points in the story. But nothing official explains what the village type means, or whether a card’s village marks a period. The artwork version is one of the ARTWORK gallery pieces with no stats or effect text published, so we cannot even confirm whether the two are separate cards or two renderings of one.

4. No known effect references a village type

For deck building the question is whether grouping by village will matter. Nothing is known here yet.

Of the 24 readable effect texts, only three name a type at all, and they reference just two types between them.

Card	Type referenced
N-013Itachi Uchiha N-013	{Uchiha Clan}
N-014Sasuke Uchiha EX N-014	{Taka}
N-019Jugo N-019	{Taka}

Only {Uchiha Clan} and {Taka} are referenced. No known effect references a village type at all.

The situation described in the August 3 article — “only two types are referenced by effects” — is unchanged today, because not one new card has been published since. Whether anything will group around {Hidden Sound Village} waits on the rulebook and card list.

5. POW 4 is the lowest known value — and the rarity is SR

To the stat box. Among the 20 Characters with both POW and HP readable, Orochimaru’s POW 4 is the lowest value.

POW	Cards
4	Orochimaru, Karin N-010, Chidori Sasuke Uchiha
5	Hinata Hyuga, Suigetsu Hozuki N-021, Shisui Uchiha N-016, Ino Yamanaka N-011, Naruto Uzumaki N-004

What makes that notable is the rarity. Five known cards are SR, and their POW values line up like this.

The five SR cards run 11 / 10 / 8 / 7 / 4. Only Orochimaru sits in the low single digits, three below the next lowest.

The rarity tally (Aug 17) found that the average POW of the C cards exceeds that of the R cards — higher rarity does not mean bigger stats. Orochimaru is the clearest case of it: Jiraiya, on the same rarity, the same cost 2, with an effect line that does not differ by a single character, has POW 7 against Orochimaru’s 4.

6. HP exceeds POW by +3 — the largest margin, tied

What is large instead is HP. Take HP minus POW across the 20 and Orochimaru’s +3 ties for the largest.

And all three POW-4 cards have HP above POW (Orochimaru 4/7, Karin 4/6, Chidori Sasuke 4/5).

Unconfirmed: how POW and HP are actually used in battle is not settled, because the official rulebook is unpublished. As of the attack-cards piece (Aug 23), whether POW is the comparison value when attacking and HP the damage a card can absorb remains inference. So whether “low POW, high HP” is a defensive design cannot be asserted from the card face alone.

7. {The Legendary Sannin} appears on two cards — the third Sannin does not have it

The second word of the type line, {The Legendary Sannin}, appears on exactly two known cards.

Card	Types
N-006Jiraiya N-006	Fire / The Legendary Sannin / Hidden Leaf Village
Orochimaru	Special / The Legendary Sannin / Hidden Sound Village

The part not to miss is that a card for the third Sannin is known too.

Tsunade (artwork version): Special / Hidden Leaf Village

Tsunade’s card does not carry {The Legendary Sannin}. The one piece in the official site’s ARTWORK gallery shows a type line of just those two words.

So all three Sannin have a published card, yet only two carry the type. No stats or effect text are published for Tsunade’s card — it is one of the “12 cards where only the name and types are readable” counted in the August 9 article. Whether the type line is abbreviated there, or really is only those two words, is unknown.

8. Orochimaru is the only SR whose card number is unconfirmed

Finally, what we cannot confirm. Of the five SR cards, Orochimaru is the only one whose number is unreadable (the other four are N-003, N-006, N-007 and N-014).

As set out in the card numbering piece (Sep 7), the known N-0xx range still has N-002, N-015, N-017, N-018 and N-020 blank.

Speculation: Orochimaru’s number could fall into one of those blanks, but there is not a single piece of evidence pointing to which. Whether the blanks even represent unpublished cards, rather than a numbering scheme with gaps, has been unconfirmed since the September 7 article. No assertion is possible.

9. What we still do not know

• The card number (cut off in the images; which blank it fills is also unknown)
• Whether {Hidden Sound Village} or {Hidden Rain Village} are ever referenced by effects (no known effect references a village)
• How village types tie to “colour” or affiliation (no official explanation, including what {Special} means)
• Whether this is the same card as the artwork-version Orochimaru (that version has no published stats or effect)
• Whether Tsunade’s card really lacks {The Legendary Sannin} (the type line may be abbreviated)
• The Japanese card name, effect text and jutsu name (only the English demo card is confirmed)
• Which product it appears in (unannounced)

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

• Orochimaru is a Character card, rarity SR: cost 2 / DMG 1 / POW 4 / HP 7, types {Special} {The Legendary Sannin} {Hidden Sound Village}
• Across the 38 known entries only three “Hidden … Village” types appear (Leaf 20, Sound 1, Rain 1), and both non-Leaf ones are Orochimaru cards
• He is the only character whose village is swapped for a different village between versions. Naruto, Sakura and Jiraiya stay on Hidden Leaf; Sasuke and Itachi have no village printed
• No known effect references a village type. Only {Uchiha Clan} and {Taka} are referenced at all
• POW 4 is the lowest among the 20 (tied with Karin and Chidori Sasuke), yet the rarity is SR. The five SR cards run 11 / 10 / 8 / 7 / 4, three above Orochimaru at the next step
• HP minus POW of +3 ties for the largest margin among the 20 (the other is Ino Yamanaka, N-011)
• {The Legendary Sannin} appears on two cards only, and Tsunade’s artwork version does not have it

Related articles

• Jiraiya (N-006) and Orochimaru have effect lines that do not differ by a single character
• Every type (trait) in the NARUTO Card Game — what effects reference, and the axes of a deck
• Twenty known characters — why there are six “Naruto Uzumaki” cards, and the type lines that change per version
• Rarity comes in four grades, L / SR / R / C — line up the 18 known cards and C outaverages R
• Card numbers run N-001 to N-022 — with five blanks, and exactly five cards whose number is unreadable
• Five cards say “rested” — yet not one known card can put a Character to rest