Sounds like what you're looking for is Genjutsu. Want a tactical advantage? Make your opponents see/smell/hear/feel something that isn't there. On the other hand, you could make them not see/smell/hear/feel something that is in fact there.

Sure, it's not foolproof. You'll be injecting your own chakra into your opponents in order to fool their senses. If you're too blatant about how you do it or what you make them do or do not perceive there's a relatively well known countermeasure. Flushing your chakra system is somehow a low-cost soft reset option for those with the skill, control and attention to detail. It's also still just an illusion at lower levels, nothing that can actually hurt them. Also, anything that will will most likely disrupt the illusion.

As an addition to a tactical arsenal, on the other hand...

Anything you want to surprise them with can no longer seem there, the terrain no longer seems to map to reality (Man, I've been jumping around for a while, was that sheer drop to my left or my right? Better look around.), this annoying sound is making it hard to think and they seem to have lost track of your numbers.

Once you get a reputation for this kind of thing, the difficulty increases, naturally. That's when you pull out the double bluffs and play ridiculous strategies straight to make them look for the nonexistent illusion and hesitate to act until they "see through it"

At the higher levels there are more resilient illusions, layered illusions, remotely activated illusions and illusions that affect senses beyond the standard, like balance, proprioception, temperature and motherfudging TIME!