All 3 Shrine Commanders in Magic Ranked

Hei Bai, Forest Guardian | Illustration by Tapioca

Ah, shrines. You love ‘em, or you’re ambivalent about ‘em. But every Commander play group needs at least one player with a shrines deck. And with Avatar’s new shrines, now’s a good time to brush up on all the commanders that actually care about shrines.

It’s a quick one today, because frankly, there aren’t a lot of explicit shrine commanders, and most of them aren’t even all that good. But the good ones are very good, so gather around so that we can get started.

What Are Shrine Commanders in MTG?

Go-Shintai of Life's Origin | Illustration by Alexander Mokhov

Shrine commanders are legendary creatures that mention shrines in their rules text. As of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there are no eligible legendary vehicles or spacecraft that mention shrines.

Because all shrines are legendary permanents, specifically legendary enchantments, you can also use enchantress commanders, legends-matter commanders, and historic-matters commanders at the head of your shrine deck, but I won’t include them here aside from some honorable mentions.

Honorable Mentions

Among commanders that don’t explicitly care about shrines, you should consider 5-color commanders that care about enchantments or legendary permanents. Some classics include Sisay, Weatherlight Captain, Jodah, the Unifier, and Esika, God of the Tree / The Prismatic Bridge.

If you want to think outside the box (and reduce your colors), you can go for The Sixth Doctor with Romana II as its doctor’s companion, or any combination of commanders from the Blast from the Past Doctor Who precon that gives you a Bant () deck. You miss out on the red and black shrines, but that precon has several historic payoffs that you can leverage, and you can add Layla Hassan and Elena, Turk Recruit if you feel like mixing your franchises. For an in-universe Bant commander, Tuvasa the Sunlit can do the job.

I’ve even seen an Obeka, Splitter of Seconds deck that runs the shrines that trigger during your upkeep, but shrines feel like a secondary part of the upkeep trigger strategy rather than a focal point of the deck.

#3. Mono-Color Shrines

• Go-Shintai of Ancient Wars
• Go-Shintai of Boundless Vigor
• Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty
• Go-Shintai of Lost Wisdom
• Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose

The cycle of mono-color uncommon legendary shrines from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty aren’t viable commanders, period. Between the mono-color shrines from Champions of Kamigawa, Core Set 2021, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, you’ll top out at four shrines in those decks unless you can copy them somehow.

#2. Guru Pathik

Guru Pathik’s advantage over the mono-color shrines is that a second color allows it to run more shrines. It cares about lessons and sagas too, which feels rather mechanically unfocused, but it might fit the “old wise guy who knows a bunch and has seen some things” trope. Still, you can only run eight shrines as of TLA, so… yeah, still not great.

#1. Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin + Hei Bai, Forest Guardian

These really should be a 1 and 1A rather than a 1 and 2, which is why I’ve bundled them together.

Go-Shintai of Life's Origin and Hei Bai, Forest Guardian both cost 4 mana, and they both have WUBRG activated abilities. One gives you steady tokens as your shrines enter, while the other gives you more explosive board presence once you already have a number of shrines on the board. Plus, Hei Bai’s tokens are very evasive unless you’re facing a spirit deck or a commander like Quintorius, Loremaster that consistently pumps out spirit tokens.

Aside from that, one digs through the top of your library for shrines, while the other reanimates them. Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin and Hei Bai complement each other incredibly well, and you probably want them in the same deck regardless. You should definitely run them together at Pride events if they continue to let you play two commanders as though they had partner. Twice the rainbows for twice the fun!

Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin is marginally better than Hei Bai, Forest Guardian, in my opinion, but it’s vulnerable to enchantment removal while Hei Bai isn’t. But you can tailor your deck to whichever commander you run; Hei Bai can take advantage of flicker effects, which you could also use to trigger the Go-Shintai’s Shrine token generation. Either way, these shrine commanders both let you play every shrine in the game (including Sanctum of All), so they share the top spot.

How Many Shrines Should You Play in a Commander Deck?

Presuming that you run a 5-color shrine commander like Go-Shintai of Life's Origin or Hei Bai, Forest Guardian, you can afford to run every shrines. Many shrines care about the number of shrines you have, so you want to run as many as you can.

If Wizards releases more sets with more shrines, you probably won’t want to go beyond 30-35. You still need lands and mana rocks so that you can cast your shrines, and you’ll want enchantress cards like Satyr Enchanter and Sythis, Harvest's Hand for utility or Sterling Grove for protection. You’ll also want other staples like counterspells and interaction, plus protective spells. Some shrines’ abilities can double as removal, card draw, and so on, but you’ll still need cheaper spells to make your deck more consistent.

Keep in mind that shrine is an enchantment type, not a creature type, so creatures with changeling don’t count as shrines.

Commanding Conclusion

Shrine token | Illustration by Alexander Mokhov

You could argue that Go-Shintai of Life's Origin is among the reasons every Universes Beyond set gets a 5-color commander, like Tom Bombadil and Terra, Magical Adept for sagas, Ezio Auditore da Firenze for assassins, Cosmic Spider-Man for spiders… and Heroes in a Half Shell for mutants, ninjas, and turtles, I guess. What’s next? A 5-color vehicle commander?

Which of the mono-color Go-Shintais would you try to run in the command zone? Do you think we’ll go back to Kamigawa before we get another Universes Beyond set that gives us new shrines to play? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, stay safe! (And don’t plunder the idols… they belong in their shrines, not museums.)