Shrines are an old Magic: the Gathering card type. They’ve been around since 2004 when they debuted in Champions of Kamigawa. Now they’re back in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. The set brings a cycle of mono-colored shrines. But more importantly, there’s a new Shrine Commander, Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin!
Because Shrines get stronger the more Shrines you have on the battlefield, the new support from Neon Dynasty is big news for any Shrine players.
And now that there is an official Shrine Commander, there will be an influx of Magic players eager to play the legendary enchantments.
***Watch out! The new Shrine support is already causing some of these cards’ prices to rise, as seen with Sanctum of All this week.***
Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin
Remember how I said Shrines get more powerful the more Shrines you have on the battlefield? Well, Go-Shintai makes Shrine tokens whenever a nontoken Shrine enters the battlefield. This makes every Shrine ability more potent. Imagine how many cards you can draw with Honden of the Seeing Winds.
And if an opponent manages to destroy one of your Shrines, Go-Shintai has an ability that can return any enchantment from your graveyard to that battlefield. This can even trigger its token-making ability!
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Neon Dynasty Shrines
Like, Go-Shintai, the rest of the Shrines in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty are creatures in addition to being enchantments.
Compared to the abilities of older Shrines which trigger in your upkeep or precombat main phase, the Neon Dynasty Shrines trigger at the beginning of your end step.
This is an improvement in some ways, as you don’t have to wait for a full turn cycle to pass to get use out of the Neon Dynasty Shrines. They’ll trigger on the turn you play them.
The new Shrine cards have super relevant abilities inside of a Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin Commander deck.
Boundless Vigor can put +1/+1 counters on any Shrine creature. This can make your Commander’s tokens absolutely massive.
Hidden Cruelty can destroy a creature every end step for just one generic mana.
And if you amass enough Shrines, Go-Shintai of Lost Wisdom can potentially mill your opponents out of the game.
The red Go-Shintai can kill planeswalkers. But more importantly, it can deal damage directly to your opponents. This can easily take people out of the game.
Lastly, Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose will make an army of Spirit tokens every endstep.
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