Commander Deck Tech: Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin
Another great set and another great time for a new Commander build. Kamigawa Neon Dynasty has brought some fantastic flavor and several Legends back into the mix. I cannot wait to see all the new cards being used, and the new Legendary creatures being put to work. For this week's article I chose Go-Shintai of Life's Origin which is a five color Enchantment / Shrine build. One crazy thing about this card is the amount of time it takes to find out what product you can open a Go-Shintai of Life's origin in. So far all I could find is that they come in Set Boosters. Since the set is brand new and released today there are not many copies out there and the price will come down. So hopefully you can either open one up yourself, or wait a few weeks to order one. The current price is roughly $30-$32.
This build is similar to my Sythis, Harvest's Hand build, but is five colors instead of two. This opens the door for more Enchantments and all kinds of different interactions and abilities. The main thing I wanted to do is stick to the flavor of Shrines, so I added all of them to the mix right away. The deck has 17 Shrines total including the commander.
One thing to note when just searching for Shrines is there was also one Shrine for every color printed in Odyssey, but they were all Enchantments and not with the Shrine Subtype. There was even a set of Artifact Shrines in New Phyrexia, but they were something entirely different and also did not have the Shrine subtype. Hopefully in the future we can see some new sets of Shrines!
So, the deck can win by utilizing the Shrines themselves which do all kinds of broken things once abilities stack, but what kind of support do we have? Well, how about we play all of the best Enchantments that we can. The top Enchantments in the deck are: Sylvan Library, Rhystic Study, and Smothering Tithe. However, we also have a new card coming to the mix that I felt fit the flavor in The Kami War. Other Enchantments which help support the theme while also annoying opponents are: Binding the Old Gods, Enchantress's Presence, Ghostly Prison, Greater Auramancy, Paradox Haze, Propaganda, Sphere of Safety, Sterling Grove, and The Eldest Reborn. I also had Phyrexian Arena in the top Enchantments in the deck, but decided to cut it due to the dual black in the mana cost. The card would still be fantastic in the build, but since it already had tons of card draw I thought it was not needed.
Not only does Go-Shintai of Life's Origin reanimate your Artifacts, but we also have several cards in the deck that do the same. We can also get back Enchantments with: Dance of the Manse, Open the Vaults, and Replenish. Keep in mind that Replenish is a near $100 dollar card and could easily be substituted for Brilliant Restoration. Originally I had Brilliant Restoration in the build but because of the Quad White in the casting cost, and it costing 3 more than Replenish I decided to cut it from the build. However it is a great card that would be fantastic on a more of a budget build for a similar deck.
We needed to add to the versatility of the deck by again protecting our board and having ways to deal with opponents cards. I added a copy of Cyclonic Rift because every Blue deck I play runs one. We are also running Heroic Intervention and Teferi's Protection to protect our board. For removal I am running Swords to Plowshares, Supreme Verdict, and Extinguish All Hope. The cool thing about Extinguish All Hope is it allows your Enchantment creatures to stay in play while taking out everything else. This is almost an unfair advantage if you can get it off, especially in the late game. This card is also on the edge of being cut due to having double black in the casting cost, but I wanted to playtest to see how it performs.
There are plenty of fantastic Creatures / Enchantment Creatures in the deck most of which will help you draw cards. There is some versatility within the creatures and the brokenness of Sakashima of a Thousand Faces. I also added Zur the Enchanter to the deck to see how it performed. The deck looks fun to play and should also be a little competitive. Not many Commander decks run tons of Enchantment removal so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. The biggest downfall of this deck is probably the cost of all the cards and the five color mana base. I went no budget restriction on the build and added several original dual Lands, shock Lands, fetch Lands, triomes, and more. Feel free to substitute dual lands for shocklands, and run more basics and less expensive uncommon non-basics. The biggest color percentages in order in the build are: Green, White, Blue, Black, and then Red.
I highly encourage you to build a shrine deck because of the amount of fun it will be and the amount of cards you will draw. The fun will be in all the interactions that occur and the triggered abilities that happen. I hope this build gives you some insight and a base into building your own shrine deck.
Until Next Time,
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