Deck Building Tips

We still don't have a full set to write real deck-building ratios or curves from - between the Naruto Red and Sasuke Blue Gen Con demo decks we've now seen 21 named cards with full text (check out Starter Decks for the full lists), but that's two preconstructed decks, not the format. If you haven't already, it's worth checking out What Goes in a Deck? in our How to Play guide first, so you know what a deck is actually made of before we get into strategy here.

What We Do Know

Your Leader's color decides your whole deck. Every card you play - Characters, EX Characters, all of it - has to match your Leader's color, so picking a Leader is really the first deck-building decision you'll make, not an afterthought. Only two colors have been shown publicly so far - Naruto's red and Sasuke's blue - so real color-pair and archetype analysis will have to wait for more of the card pool.

Deck size is fixed. You'll always be building toward 51 main deck cards, plus exactly 5 Chakra cards and 1 Summon card - so unlike some TCGs, there's no flexibility in how many Chakra or Summon cards you run.

Characters seem to have real synergy built in. At least one sample card we've seen only gets its bonus effect when specific other characters are also on the field - a early sign that team composition, not just raw power, is going to matter once deck-building is really possible.

EX Characters come with conditions. They're stronger, but you can't just slot them in - you'll need to actually meet whatever requirement unlocks them, so they're more of a payoff than a guaranteed inclusion.

Early Deck-building Signals

We don't have enough of the card pool to call real archetypes yet, but the two Gen Con demo decklists already hint at a few patterns worth watching:

Support cards carry a printed Chakra cost (CHAKRA 1, CHAKRA 2), which works a lot like a mana curve - cheaper Support gets played more often, pricier Support tends to swing the game harder.

Both decks are built around one marquee board-wipe Support (Naruto's Rasengan, Sasuke's Chidori - both K.O. all Characters). That hints decks may be designed around a single centerpiece effect rather than a pile of smaller ones.

EX Characters cost you trashing your own Characters to summon, so a deck likely wants a few cheap, expendable bodies purely as EX fuel - not just cards you're happy attacking with.

Chakra doesn't refresh on its own; recovering it costs your Leader's attack for the turn (see How to Play). That's a real fork for deck-building: lean aggressive and keep swinging with your Leader, or lean into Support and Chakra-heavy plays and accept your Leader sits out most turns.

Cards that let you Special Summon beyond your 1-per-turn Normal Summon (like chaining Shikamaru into Choji) look like a real payoff to build toward, not just an occasional bonus.

About Starter Decks

Bandai hasn't confirmed a retail starter deck product yet, but we already have a real look at what a two-deck matchup looks like: the Naruto Red and Sasuke Blue decks used for Gen Con 2026 tutorial sessions. Whether these ship as-is at retail, get reworked, or stay exclusive to tutorial events is still unknown - see our Starter Decks guide for the full decklists and card text.

Check back as more of the card pool gets revealed - that's when the real ratios, curve, and synergy breakdowns will go up here.