Commander Deck Tech: Go-Shintai of Life's Origin

Have you ever played against a shine?

These creatures (which don't have any creature types), have been in the game for some time now. So far, WotC released three cycles of these enchantments - you can read more about them in this article: “What are Shrines + Top 5 Best Shrines”.

However, it was only when Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty was released that we got a legendary shrine creature with five colors. Finally, we could build a deck that truly focuses on these enchantments with this commander.

In this article, we'll show you a Go-Shintai of Life's Origin list meant for casual matches. It brings several powerful enchantments to confuse your opponents with so many different effects on your board.

According to Magic: The Gathering lore, the origin of this Go-Shintai is quite sad: this shrine was created from the mortal remains of the dead Kami in the Jukai forest. To this day, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin wanders through Kamigawa, growing stronger as it is joined by the remains of other deceased Kami.

This dramatic story adds more beauty to this creature and its effect, considering that, with its activated ability, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin reanimates any enchantment in your graveyard. Its triggered ability also fills your board.

By the way, the fact it creates 1/1 colorless Shrine creatures interacts with the other Shrines on your board. They'll be significantly more powerful with this card as your commander. Before we delve a little deeper into this topic, let's see our Shrines and enchantments list!

Honden

The first Shrine cycle includes Honden of Cleansing Fire, for lifegain, Honden of Infinite Rage, to deal damage to a problematic creature or opponent, and Honden of Seeing Winds, to draw you cards.

Honden of Life's Web tokens are more interesting as blockers than Shrine tokens. Shrine tokens, as you must have realized when you read these card's effects, are more relevant on the board than Spirit tokens.

Depending on your board state, Honden of Nights Reach may deal with the cards on your opponent's hand, and force them to rely on their draws every turn.

Because of this cycle, this deck also includes Paradox Haze, which gives an extra upkeep step to the player you enchanted.

Sanctum

Sanctum of All is one of the strongest cards in this deck. You can use it both as a tutor and as a Panharmonicon for other Shrines. The abilities in this enchantment may get you closer to victory and will annoy your opponents quite a lot.

Besides this card, other Shrines that deserve a highlight are: Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest, which will give you mana of any color, Sanctum of Stone Fangs, which will attack your opponents' life totals, and Sanctum of Tranquil Light, which is by far one of the toughest cards to deal with. You can use its effect at any point, and. with this deck, you'll easily have five Shrines on the board to use this ability for just one white mana.

Go-Shintai

Unlike the other Shrines we've seen so far, the cards in Go-Shintai of Life's Origin's cycle are enchantment creatures. To activate their effects, you need to use one colorless mana.

Even if you have to use more resources to activate their effects, they're so strong that this isn't a disadvantage.

For instance, with Go-Shintai of Boundless Vigor, you'll give +1/+1 counters to a Shrine you target based on the number of Shrines you control. Even if you only cast just your commander and this Shrine, at your end step you'll have at least +1/+1 counters: one from your commander, one from Go-Shintai of Boundless Vigor, and one for each of the 1/1 Shrine tokens created when these creatures entered the board.

This is an interesting detail regarding Go-Shintai of Life's Origin: the creature above creates a token for it and other Shrines that aren't tokens and enter the board under your control. As a result, each Shrine you cast with your commander on the board creates a token. In the case of "Go-Shintais", we can think of them as "one cast, two creatures".

Depending on your board, Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty is a removal for any unprotected creature, or any creature that doesn't have Indestructible, and Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose may fill your board with tokens.

One of the best mana base options for a five-color deck in Commander is the Gate base. If you use this mana base in your deck, it is important to keep in mind that Gond Gate is essential to make your lands work like you want to. This Gate will make all your Gates enter your board untapped.

The ramp we'll use in this decklist to get our Gates are:

This list also has other cards that create mana, but aren't necessarily related to Gates, like Spelunking. This card will make all your lands go on your board untapped. We also have Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, which lets us play extra lands every turn.

Besides, this Gate base includes one of this deck's win conditions: Maze’s End. This Gate states that "if you control ten or more Gates with different names, you win the game". As this is a Commander deck, you'll never have Gates with the same name, and you'll easily have ten of them on your board.

If you'd like to test out other mana bases in this deck, take a look at our article covering the top 10 best budget mana bases for Commander.

If you have an Omniscience on your board, you'll certainly need more card draw. The card we chose to draw extra cards are:

Out of all these cards, one of the coolest is Sythis, Harvest's Hand because it draws you another card, and also gives you a life point any time you cast an enchantment.

This isn't a responsive deck, or a deck that interacts with your opponent's boards quite heavily, but this doesn't mean your opponents won't try to interact with your board.

While Destiny Spinner will protect your spells from being countered by your opponents, Greater Auramancy and Sterling Grove will protect whatever is on the board. Sphere of Safety will make your opponents pay whenever they want to attack you.

Nine Lives + Solemnity

This is combo is quite famous. It works like this:

- Nine Lives protects you from any damage dealt to you, and, in exchange, you'll have to add an Incarnation counter on Nine Lives for each instance of damage.

- As for Solemnity, it states players can't get any counters or put them on artifacts, creatures, enchantments, and lands.

- As a result, you won't put any counters on Nine Lives, and you'll be able to stop all damage dealt to you by your opponents.

Use this combination wisely; if Nine Lives leaves your board, you'll lose the game.

The number of Shrines on your board is equivalent to how much advantage you have, so, we saved a few slots to add tutors to this list.

It's important to stress that, out of all of them in this list, Sanctum of All is the most valuable one. That is because it gets Shrines in your deck or graveyard any time it is your upkeep step, and puts them straight on your board.

Besides this Shrine, we have to highlight another creature:

Our Sous-Commander: Zur, Eternal Schemer

Most Shrines cost 3 or less, so Zur the Enchanter is considered an incredibly efficient sous-commander for this deck.

If you're lucky to start a game with this creature in your starting hand, you'll certainly get ahead quite early in the game.

Sagas are enchantments that usually get new abilities after your draw step. Their effects often vary quite a lot and may give you extra draws or even remove your opponent's cards - this way stopping them from building strong boards.

Typically, after their cycle ends, Sagas will go to your graveyard. However, with Go-Shintai of Life's Origin, you'll reanimate these enchantments whenever you want.

Go-Shintai of Life's Origin is the perfect commander for a deck that focuses on Shrines, but its effect, which reanimates enchantments, is also really useful and adds versatility to your decks.

If you got this card from a booster or are just thinking of building it, my advice is: build it, have fun, and explore everything the five colors in this Shrine offer you.

See you in the next article!