All 22 Shrines in Magic Ranked

Last updated on November 19, 2025

Go-Shintai of Boundless Vigor | Illustration by Johannes Voss

The Avatar: The Last Airbender set brought shrines back into the spotlight, and I couldn’t be happier. Shrines have been part of Magic’s history since Champions of Kamigawa, and it’s always a pleasure to play with them—especially in Limited and Commander, where they can really shine.

Today, we rank every shrine released so far. Intrigued? Let’s dive in!

What Are Shrines in MTG?

Honden of Night's Reach | Illustration by Jim Nelson

A shrine in Magic is a legendary enchantment with the shrine subtype and scales based on the number of shrines you play.

For example, Honden of Seeing Winds triggers on your upkeep to draw a card for each shrine you control. Others deal damage based on the number of shrines you control, generate mana, gain you life, create creature tokens, etc. The trick is, because they’re all legendary, it’s hard to get multiple shrines on the battlefield at the same time. Short of using some shenanigans with cards like Mirror Box or Mirror Gallery, this requires you to have all different shrines on the battlefield together.

Historically, shrines were already tough to assemble in formats like Historic and Modern, and that challenge is still real today. Even with Avatar: The Last Airbender’s new shrines bringing the total to 22, dedicated shrine decks still struggle to compete in fast Constructed formats. They’re fun and definitely playable, but they’re fragile if your opponent removes a key piece.

Where shrines truly shine is in Commander and Limited, where you have more time to set up, more color flexibility, and plenty of early value to snowball into something big.

How Many Shrines Are There in MTG?

There are now 22 shrines in Magic, thanks to the original Kamigawa and Core Set cycles, plus the recent additions from Avatar: The Last Airbender. These shrines generally fall into four groups: the Hondens, the Sanctums, the Go-Shintai, and the Avatar shrines. Each of these groups were printed in different sets. They contain a full cycle with one shrine in each color, and they all have a few differences in how they work.

The Hondens were printed in Champions of Kamigawa and then reprinted in Eternal Masters. All five of these trigger during your upkeep. Thanks to Historic Anthology 3 they’re also available on MTG Arena.

The Sanctums appeared in Core Set 2021, featuring one in each color and a sixth that was all five colors. These have a more unique variety of effects including three that trigger at the beginning of the precombat main phase and two with activated abilities.

Each of the five mono-color Go-Shintai are enchantment creatures that have abilities that trigger in your end step. They also require you to pay for their triggers. The sixth Go-Shintai is a Commander-exclusive card with a 5-color color identity and a unique ability to make Shrine tokens.

The Avatar shrines—a five-card cycle themed around iconic locations from Avatar: The Last Airbender—add even more power and depth to shrine strategies, with effects that range from token creation to card draw, life drain, ramp, and permanent team buffs.

#22. Go-Shintai of Lost Wisdom

While the other blue shrines are exceptional, Go-Shintai of Lost Wisdom is the worst of the whole bunch. There aren’t a lot of situations where this amount of milling is enough for you to be interested.

It can become an effective win condition if you have a couple of other shrines in play in Limited, but it still takes quite a few turns before it starts to scare your opponent. Maybe if you had all 22 shrines in play at once you could get there with this, but then your other shrines would still be wrapping up much more quickly. Overall, Lost Wisdom is mostly just a blank card with the word “shrine” on it that you want to fill out your deck.

#21. Sanctum of Tranquil Light

This 1-mana shrine is sadly just too weak. Sanctum of Tranquil Light’s ability does count itself at least, so it starts out at 5 mana to tap any creature. That’s overcosted in Limited but not a terrible effect to have. You just wouldn’t want to have it on a permanent that doesn’t also have the option to attack and/or block.

When you have a deck with multiple shrines, being able to activate this for a lot cheaper and multiple times in a turn really dominates the board, and Tranquil Light can act in a similar way in Commander to help keep opposing threats from attacking you. Maybe use it as a deterrent and encourage players to attack each other instead of you.

#20. Southern Air Temple

When Southern Air Temple comes into play, your whole board becomes stronger with +1/+1 counters equal to the number of shrines you’ve collected. It’s a huge payoff for going wide, especially in creature-heavy shrine builds. After that initial boost, it keeps adding +1/+1 counters any time another shrine enters the battlefield, which makes your army grow bigger and scarier over time. It’s a fantastic way to turn passive shrine value into board pressure that can win games.

#19. Crescent Island Temple

Packing creature support into your shrine strategy, Crescent Island Temple gives you a whole team of red monks with prowess when it hits the battlefield. Even if you only control one shrine, it turns spells into combat tricks by making those monks stronger whenever you cast noncreature spells. Better yet, it keeps the monks coming whenever a new shrine arrives. This shrine plays perfectly in spellslinger decks that love to swarm the board and turn every spell into extra damage.

#18. Honden of Night's Reach

Honden of Night's Reach is the least exciting of the Hondens. Discarding cards is something that always sounds good but often plays out really poorly. Even if this is going to make an opponent discard their whole hand, the fact that it triggers on your upkeep means that, short of you having a Time Walk of some kind, you’re going to play this and then your opponent(s) have a whole turn to deploy the best cards in their hand so that it won’t hit them too badly.

I’ve only had Night’s Reach work out in a small handful of scenarios, but it’s usually just a shrine with no relevant text other than bolstering the effects of the other ones.

#17. The Spirit Oasis

One of the best draw engines for shrine-based decks, The Spirit Oasis rewards you instantly when it enters by letting you draw cards equal to your shrine count. As the game goes on and more shrines appear, it continues to feed your hand and give you more tools and answers. It’s especially strong in longer games where you can build a shrine network, ensuring you always have cards to play and tons of value every turn.

#16. Sanctum of Shattered Heights

Like the other sanctum with an activated ability, one of the biggest problems with Sanctum of Shattered Heights is that it doesn’t do anything for you until you’re able to activate it. But unlike all the other shrines that just trigger and do stuff each turn, Shattered Heights does nothing if you can’t pay the cost.

Discarding a shrine card is something you’re only likely to do in Limited when you have duplicates you can’t play, but even then you definitely prefer to discard lands. When you get to a point where this can kill several big creatures in Commander, you get a really big effect for not too much input. You’ll probably have a lot of excess lands if you’ve been drawing about 10 cards every turn off your blue shrines, too.

#15. Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty

A 2/2 deathtouch for 4 mana is always just fine, even if it’s a bit below the curve, so you’re already happy playing Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty. The trigger may start to target bigger and bigger creatures after a while, making this an incredibly threatening permanent.

It also turns out that decks with multiple shrines in them were very draftable in Neon Dynasty, so this one ended up being pretty good there. In Commander this just isn't going to cut it very often. Just like with Honden of Infinite Rage, creatures are often either too big or too plentiful for this to matter. Worse still, you can’t even combine it with other damage sources or double it to take down the same big creature.

#14. Go-Shintai of Boundless Vigor

Another one that’s a house in Limited but pretty much useless in Commander. Costing 2 mana is the biggest highlight on Go-Shintai of Boundless Vigor since it comes down very early in a Limited game and is searchable with an unbuffed Sisay, Weatherlight Captain.

Sadly, buffing one of your shrines with +1/+1 counters is just not something you’re looking to do. You won’t be doing very much attacking in this Commander deck so it isn’t something you care about most of the time.

#13. Go-Shintai of Ancient Wars

We’re starting to see a trend here, because while Go-Shintai of Ancient Wars is a great Limited card, it just doesn’t hold its own in Commander. It can eventually become a win condition of sorts, but Sanctum of Stone Fangs and Honden of Infinite Rage do the same thing a lot more efficiently. Moving on.

#12. Honden of Cleansing Fire

You might think that just gaining life isn’t a very valuable effect, and you’d usually be right. But you’re naturally going to be playing a slower deck and gaining life is still good against aggro decks, at least in Limited.

That being said, you aren't very likely to want Honden of Cleansing Fire on its own. But gaining 4-6 life per turn is going to win you games against most aggro decks once you have another shrine in play. This is admittedly one of the weaker shrines in Commander since you don’t usually have to worry about an aggro deck running you over on a multiplayer board.

#11. Honden of Infinite Rage

Honden of Infinite Rage pings for 1 damage each turn by itself, which is going to make a difference in any game of Limited. Killing a creature is the goal but you can tack on a burn spell to kill something bigger or use it to make one of your attacks more favorable. Things get really crazy when you start adding more shrines into the mix.

Hitting for 2-3 damage per turn starts threatening real creatures on the board and eventually threatens your opponent, too. This is one of the better shrines for Limited, but it doesn’t translate all that well to Commander. While creature removal in Commander is still important, this amount of damage is small-ball in a multiplayer environment.

What tends to happen is that this does very little throughout the game and then you get to 10 or more shrines in play and it basically becomes your win condition. It just does very little to help you get to that point.

#10. Kyoshi Island Plaza

Kyoshi Island Plaza is awesome in a shrine deck because it helps you to ramp lands directly onto the battlefield. When it enters, you search your library for basic lands equal to the number of shrines you already have, which means this card can quickly turn a small board into a huge mana advantage. It also keeps the value coming every time another shrine enters because it lets you fetch even more lands and grows your board without slowing down.

#9. Honden of Life's Web

I’ve always been a fan of cards like Honden of Life's Web that spot you free creature tokens every turn for little or no mana input. 1/1 spirit tokens are the barebones weakest kind of token they can give you, but they’re still very relevant.

This gives you a free chump blocker every turn in Limited, which basically just removes your opponent’s biggest non-flying, non-trampling creature from your combat math. The tokens can eventually switch to offense and win the game for you once you’ve stabilized your position. Throw in any other shrine and multiple tokens each turn overwhelms any opponent in very short order.

It plays out in much the same way in Commander, giving you a board full of chump blockers that can help keep you alive until you have about 100 of them and can start swinging. Maybe you can even include cards that pay you off for these tokens in your deck, like Aura Shards or something that sacrifices the spirits for value.

#8. Honden of Seeing Winds

Honden of Seeing Winds is by far one of the best shrines we have access to. Drawing cards is always good and it quickly becomes the best card on the board when it turns into an effect that draws three, four, or 10 cards each turn.

What really makes this tick in Limited is that it’s often going to be good enough by itself. One-sided Howling Mine effects are very powerful, and 5 mana isn’t that bad of a rate to get it at. If you’re drafting a format where the Hondens are available, Seeing Winds is the one that really pays you off.

#7. Northern Air Temple

Northern Air Temple jumps right into the action by draining each opponent for life equal to the number of shrines you have. It also gives you that much life back to set you up to stay in the game longer. Even after the first hit, it keeps draining opponents each time a new shrine shows up on your battlefield. It’s a great finisher piece for shrine decks that slowly squeezes the table while it boosts your survivability.

#6. Sanctum of Calm Waters

I know I didn’t ask for a cheaper reprint of Honden of Seeing Winds, but I’m very happy that we got it. Sanctum of Calm Waters is also one of the best shrines that we have.

It played out pretty well in Limited. You tended to win whenever you got this going alongside another shrine. It really shines in Commander as one of the shrines you want to see as early as possible.

If you can ever get this and the blue Honden out at the same time it truly is a joy to behold. It’s basically everything I ever want when I play Magic.

#5. Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose

With a very similar feeling to Honden of Life's Web, creating even one token every turn without spending any cards is a really powerful effect. You hope to be making a lot more than one in Commander (I made seven on my first try), but even just one a turn will do very nicely in Limited.

Start making multiples and you win the game very quickly. It doesn’t matter how big your opponent’s three good creatures are, your couple dozen 1/1s still attack for lethal.

#4. Sanctum of Stone Fangs

Another very cheap shrine that ends up being incredibly powerful all around.

Sanctum of Stone Fangs was an absolute beast of a card in Limited. I remember it being described as 2 mana for a 1/1 legendary creature that’s unblockable, has lifelink, can’t block, and doesn’t die to removal. You’d play it in a lot of Limited decks, and it doesn’t stop there. Any other shrines buff this into ranges that manage to keep you alive and kill your opponent at the same time, and the clock it provides gets you over the line a lot faster than your opponent probably realizes.

Stone Fangs serves a few purposes in Commander. It’s usually the deck’s main win condition since it hits all your opponents at once. As a 2-drop it’s one of a few shrines that's searchable with Sisay, Weatherlight Captain on an empty board, a scenario that came up a lot when I used Sisay as my commander.

All in all, Stone Fangs is a nice little package that ends up being a lot more powerful than it first looks.

#3. Sanctum of All

I had high hopes for the first 5-color shrine, and I think Sanctum of All really delivers. Let’s get this out of the way: It sucks in Limited. Five colors is prohibitively hard to cast and does absolutely nothing without a critical mass of other shrine cards in your deck. Maybe it could work in Cube if you put a lot of the shrines in there, but it was the most unplayable of unplayable cards I’ve ever seen (at least in M21).

Moving on, it’s of course ridiculous in Commander. Searching up a shrine each turn or getting one back from the graveyard is an incredibly powerful ability. It also triggers on your upkeep, so if you grab Sanctum of Calm Waters or Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest first then they immediately trigger at the start of your main phase. Doubling all your triggers when you get up to six shrines is obscenely powerful, though you’re already doing such powerful things at six shrines that doubling them feels a tad unnecessary.

#2. Go-Shintai of Life's Origin

My heart raced when I saw Go-Shintai of Life's Origin previewed. I had already built a shrine deck without any foresight that we’d get more in the future, let alone a legitimate shrine commander. My commander of choice was Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and then I switched it to Sisay, Weatherlight Captain when Golos got banned.

Now Go-Shintai of Life's Origin is almost certainly the best choice for the commander. The ability to buy back any shrine that’s gone to the graveyard is an effect that this deck was sorely lacking. And creating Shrine tokens is a really innovative way to boost the effects of shrines without needing too many of them on the battlefield.

#1. Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest

Now we’re cooking with gas!

Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest is my pick for the strongest shrine of them all. It tends to be a little bit lackluster in Limited, but it still basically works as a Manalith with a bit of upside which isn’t the worst card imaginable. But this is the first shrine I want to play in every Commander game.

First of all, your deck is always going to be five colors, so you need to prioritize mana fixing above all else. Second, getting your first shrine on the board immediately helps your synergies pop off. Finally, the best plays in a shrine Commander deck are possible with large chunks of mana to play around with, and Fruitful Harvest is one of the best engines available to give you all that mana upfront.

All the most disgusting and brutal plays that I’ve made with my deck have been made possible thanks to this one shrine.

The Best Shrine Payoffs

There are a number of cards that reference shrines directly, including Shrine Steward and Aang's Journey as tutors, Guru Pathik as another way to find them, and White Lotus Hideout for fixing. Chronicler of Worship also exists for Arena players.

Sanctum Weaver is the most powerful mana engine a shrine deck has access to, as it is with most enchantment decks. There’s a good chance you’ve never seen Honor-Worn Shaku before unless you’re a big Kamigawa fan or you’ve already done your own research into this strategy. This is another sweet mana engine, effectively allowing you to tap all your shrines for colorless mana.

Enchantment tutors are the bread and butter of a shrine deck, and since everything you want to find is an enchantment, Idyllic Tutor and Enlightened Tutor are perfect. They also encourage you to prioritize enchantments in your removal slots to give you more outs to search for, which is a nice deckbuilding level-up.

Enchantress has been a fan favorite deck in Magic for a long time. There’s no reason we can’t make good use of cards like Argothian Enchantress, Enchantress's Presence, and Sythis, Harvest's Hand here too. Sythis is the best option since the lifegain really helps you stay alive long enough to deploy all your shrines, but some combination of these is likely a must for the deck.

Finally we have another staple of Legacy enchantress decks. Sterling Grove does literally everything you could want a card to do in this deck. Granting shroud to all your shrines should protect them against everything other than mass enchantment removal, and you can go grab a key removal spell or new shrine using the second ability if you’re in a pinch. There are few archetype-specific cards as good as this.

There are two excellent shrine commanders that compete with one another but ultimately see play in the same decks: Go-Shintai of Life's Origin and Hei Bai, Forest Guardian. These are both hallmark legends for the entire shrine archetype, and are fairly interchangeable in the command zone.

Is Shrine a Creature Type?

No, “shrine” is only an enchantment type, not a creature type. The type lines on the Go-Shintai cards have led a lot of players to ask this question. “Legendary Enchantment Creature – Shrine” implies that shrine may be a creature type, because if it isn’t then what creature type are these?

The answer is that these shrines just don’t have a creature subtype. It’s not something that happens often, but it’s possible to have a creature in play with no creature subtypes. For example, morph and earthbending both create creatures with no subtypes.

Do Changelings Count as Shrines?

“Shrine” isn’t a creature type so changelings don’t count as shrines.

Are Shrines Good in General?

Shrines in Commander

First let’s look at Commander. I love shrines in Commander most of all, where you can just run all of them in your deck and dedicate the rest to supporting them.

What’s actually “good” in Commander is very relative to what cards you have access to and what your playgroup is like, but I’ve never failed to have fun and do silly things when playing my shrine deck at my local game stores. It does exactly the kinds of stupid things that Commander should be and is about, so they’re perfect here.

Shrines in Limited

Now let’s take a quick look at Limited. Many of the shrines are good enough to work in a Limited deck by themselves, so they don’t need much more work to become good cards. If you can ever put together a board with two or three shrines working together they start to do some really silly things that should win you games very quickly.

Shrines are not exceptionally powerful by any stretch. For example, Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty is a decent card, but it’s not something you'd be excited to get for your deck. Then again, if you could get a couple more shrines it starts to look more and more bonkers.

Wrap Up

Honden of Seeing Winds | Illustration by Martina Pilcerova

This latest batch of shrines brings something new to the table. They push a different playstyle, but one with a lot of potential, especially when you combine them with blink effects. Resetting the enchantment creatures from Neon Dynasty using cards like Thassa, Deep-Dwelling can retrigger your new Avatar shrines to turn small sparks of value into a steady engine.

What do you think? Are shrines a strategy you enjoy, and would you like to see Wizards explore them even more in the future? Let me know in the comments or over on the Draftsim Discord! Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed the content, be sure to follow us on social media so you never miss a thing.

Take care, and see you next time!