How to Play the Naruto Mythos TCG

Welcome to Naruto Mythos TCG

In Naruto Mythos TCG you and your opponent play as rival Kage, sending out your best shinobi to take on missions across the four rounds of the game. There's no Life Points to chip away at and no Village to defend — instead, you're competing for Mission Points. Whoever has racked up the most by the end of Round 4 wins.

It's a refreshingly different take on the trading card game formula. Rounds are tight, every decision matters, and bluffing your opponent with face-down "hidden" characters is a huge part of the fun. Best of all, decks are only 30 cards, so it's quick to build, quick to learn, and quick to play.

What You'll Need to Play

Naruto Mythos is built so that two starter packs is all you really need to get a full game going. Here's the kit list:

• A 30-card personal deck — your collection of Character cards. A starter deck is the easiest entry point.
• 3 Mission cards chosen separately from your personal deck. These are kept aside until setup.
• Tokens for tracking Chakra Points, Mission Points and Power, plus one shared Edge token. Any small objects, dice or cubes will do if you don't have the official ones.
• An opponent — Naruto Mythos is a 2-player game.

The Two Card Types

Naruto Mythos keeps things wonderfully simple — there are only two types of card you'll ever play with.

A handful of Character cards from across the Naruto Mythos TCG roster

Reading a Character Card

Every Character card packs a fair amount of information into a small space. Once you know where to look, the rest of the game becomes much easier.

Every part of a Character card and what it does

• Character Name — only one Character with the same name can be assigned to any single mission on your side at a time.
• Version — a descriptor that distinguishes different printings of the same character (e.g. "Genin of the Leaf Village" vs "Sage Mode").
• Chakra Cost — what you pay to play the card face-up.
• Power — how much that character contributes to winning a mission.
• Effect — abilities with timing icons (Instant or Continuous). Instant effects trigger once when the character is played. Continuous effects are always on while the character is face-up.
• Keywords & Faction — labels other cards may interact with.
• Rarity — how often you'll find the card in booster packs.

Reading a Mission Card

Mission cards are the prizes you're fighting over. Each one has a title, a base point value and (often) an effect that triggers either while it's in play or when it's scored.

A Mission card up close

Mission Ranks — D, C, B and A

A mission's rank depends on the round it enters play, and the rank gives bonus points on top of the printed value:

• D-rank — appears in Round 1, +1 bonus point.
• C-rank — appears in Round 2, +2 bonus points.
• B-rank — appears in Round 3, +3 bonus points.
• A-rank — appears in Round 4, +4 bonus points.

Each round adds a tougher, higher-scoring mission to the field

Tokens & The Edge

Naruto Mythos uses just a small handful of tokens to track everything that's going on:

Chakra, Mission Points and the Edge token

• Chakra Points — your turn-by-turn resource for paying Character costs. Any leftover Chakra is discarded at the end of each round.
• Mission Points — your score. The player with the most after Round 4 wins.
• Power Tokens — any spare token can be used as a Power token. Each one on a Character adds +1 Power. They're cleared at the end of every round.
• Edge Token — there's only one. Whoever has it goes first next round and wins all ties during scoring. We'll explain how it changes hands shortly.

Setting Up the Game

Once you've both got your decks ready, setting up takes about a minute:

1. Decide who goes first. Flip a coin, roll a die — whatever you like. The winner takes the Edge token.
2. Build the Mission deck. Each player shuffles their 3 Mission cards face-down and randomly picks 2. The four chosen Mission cards are then shuffled together to form the shared Mission deck for this game. Your unused Mission card stays face-down to one side and is not used.
3. Shuffle and draw. Both players shuffle their personal deck and draw 5 cards.
4. Mulligan (optional). If you don't like your hand you can return all 5 cards, reshuffle and draw a fresh hand. You only get one mulligan, so use it wisely.

The Four Rounds — How a Round Plays Out

Every game of Naruto Mythos lasts exactly four rounds. Each round goes through four phases in this order: Start → Action → Mission Evaluation → End.

1. Start Phase

• Reveal the top card of the Mission deck and place it face-up between both players. It joins any missions already on the table.
• Each player gains 5 Chakra, plus +1 Chakra for every character they have on the field (including hidden ones).
• Each player draws 2 cards.

2. Action Phase

The player with the Edge token takes the first turn. On your turn you must do one of the following:

• Play a Character face-up to a mission, paying its full Chakra cost and applying its effect.
• Play a Character face-down (hidden) to a mission, paying just 1 Chakra regardless of the card's printed cost. Hidden characters have 0 Power and 0 cost as far as other effects are concerned.
• Reveal a previously-hidden character by paying its full printed Chakra cost. This counts as playing the character, and triggers any Ambush effects it has.
• Pass. Once you pass, you're out for the rest of the round. The first player to pass each round gains (or keeps) the Edge token. Once one player has passed, the other can keep playing characters until they choose to pass too.

3. Mission Evaluation Phase

Now the missions get scored, starting with the lowest rank (D) and working up. For each mission:

• Add up the total Power of every Character each player has assigned to that mission.
• The player with the most Power wins it. You need at least 1 Power to win a mission — you can't claim it with an empty side.
• Ties go to whichever player currently holds the Edge token.
• The winner scores the printed Mission Points + the rank bonus, then activates any Score effects on the mission card or their Characters assigned to it.

4. End Phase

If that was Round 4, the game's over — total up the scores and crown a winner. Otherwise, both players discard any leftover Chakra and remove any Power tokens from their Characters, then a new round begins.

Playing Characters in Detail

Characters are the heart of Naruto Mythos. There are three things you can do with them on your turn — and the third one is the secret to most of the game's mind games.

Face-up

The straightforward option. Pay the full Chakra cost, place the card face-up on a mission and trigger any of its Main effects (the ones with the Instant icon).

Hidden

Drop the card face-down on a mission for just 1 Chakra. You don't have to commit to its real cost yet, your opponent doesn't know who it is, and it doesn't add any Power until you reveal it. You can always sneak a peek at your own hidden cards.

Reveal a Hidden Character

On a later turn you can flip a hidden character face-up by paying its full printed Chakra cost. This counts as "playing" the character, so it triggers all its Main effects and any Ambush effects (which only fire when revealed from hidden, never when played face-up directly).

Upgrades

You can't have two Characters with the same name on the same mission — but you can upgrade. Play a higher-cost Character with the same name on top of an existing one and you only pay the difference in Chakra cost. Upgrade effects only fire when used this way. The upgraded card replaces the lower one entirely (cover it up), and any Power tokens already on it carry over.

How You Win

After the End Phase of Round 4, both players add up every Mission Point they've scored across the game. The highest total wins. If it's a tie, the player holding the Edge token at that moment is the winner — yet another reason that little token matters.

• Round 1 — score 1 mission (D-rank).
• Round 2 — score 2 missions (D and C ranks).
• Round 3 — score 3 missions (D, C and B).
• Round 4 — score 4 missions (D, C, B and A).

Notice how the same D-rank mission gets fought over four times in a single game. A player who can lock down the lower-rank missions early can build up a huge lead, while the higher-rank A-mission in Round 4 can completely flip the result on its head.

Building Your First Deck

If you're not playing with a starter deck out of the box, building your own is refreshingly simple:

• Minimum 30 cards in your personal deck (Characters only).
• Up to 2 copies of any single version of a character. Different versions of the same character (e.g. Genin Naruto and Sage Mode Naruto) count as different cards, so you can stack them up.
• Art variants of the same coded card don't count as a different version — they're still capped at 2 between them.
• Pick 3 Mission cards separately from your deck. You'll bring them to the table but only 2 of your 3 actually end up in the shared Mission deck during setup, so pick missions that all suit your style.

Top Tips for New Players

• Don't burn all your Chakra in Round 1. The D-rank mission is only worth 2 points. You're often better off saving cards for the bigger A-rank scrap in Round 4.
• Use hidden plays liberally. One Chakra to threaten any mission is one of the best deals in the game.
• Track the Edge token. Whoever has it wins ties and goes first — that's worth more than it sounds.
• Pass at the right time. Passing first hands you the Edge token but locks you out of the round. Sometimes that swap is worth it, sometimes it isn't.
• Plan your Chakra around your hand. Leftover Chakra is wasted at the end of each round, so spend it all if you can.
• Mind the Score effects. Some Character effects only trigger when their mission is won. Stack those Characters where you're most likely to actually score the mission.

Frequently Asked Questions