“No beast so fierce, but knows some touch of pity… But I know none… and therefore am no beast.”
Art:Go-Shintai of Life's Origin
by Alexander Mokhov
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin is an awesome commander and a fun way to build an enchantment-themed deck. I chose shrines for this list because I thought it was fun and flavorful. This deck falls into the midpower around a five or six, and we don’t play combos or loops in the deck. Make no mistake, even though we aren’t running any combos, we can have some very strong and explosive games. I have been testing this one at my LGS for a while, and this deck has some bad matchups but is a ton of fun, no matter who I am against. If you love enchantments and things to do in your upkeep, this is likely a deck for you. Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Go-Shintai of Life's Origin Shrines!
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Why Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin?
Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin can come down early and make a big impact, whether making creatures or recurring enchantments. It certainly is not easy to recur enchantments, but can be a great option if one of our key shrines falls to removal. The creature production can help position us well against aggressive decks or any creature-based strategy. Go-Shintai is not a requirement for the deck to function but is a strong complementary commander and something we will often cast as early as possible.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Creatures:
Some of my favorite creatures reduce the cost of a ton of our cards, like Jukai Naturalist
and Starfield Mystic
. These cards are cheap to cast, and discounts are quite strong at any game stage. Destiny Spinner
is a great way for us to play through some of the control strategies you see or any counter-heavy deck. Since many of our enchantments are legendary, we don’t get an insane amount of value out of Ondu Spiritdancer
. However, copying some of our other key enchantments can quickly get out of hand. Faeburrow Elder
can produce a crazy amount of mana but does require some buildup to take full advantage. We also have Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
, an enchantment creature and a great way to get ahead on mana. Doomwake Giant
is a little expensive at five mana, but we can harm our opponents greatly. Depending on our opponents’ deck, we can often wipe out their whole board. We also have the rest of the Go-Shintai cycle, which has big benefits for all of our shrines and can buff up our creatures and kill our opponents. This cycle is very strong.
Planeswalkers:
Calix, Destiny's Hand
is the perfect planeswalker for our deck. Being able to look ahead and grab a key enchantment is very strong. In addition, Calix has built-in removal and recursion. Four is not a lot for all of these key abilities whether we only use him once or twice before he dies or he stays out all game, he adds a ton of value to the deck.
Instants:
Almost all of our interaction and removal lies within our instants. We have some strong counterspells like the namesake Counterspell
, Arcane Denial
, and my personal favorite Disallow
, which can hit a variety of things. We also have some strong removal like Generous Gift
, Anguished Unmaking
and Path to Exile
which can be great ways to deal with opponents threats.
Sorceries:
We mostly use our sorcery package to ramp with awesome spells like Kodama's Reach
and Cultivate
, which can be great ways to grab some basics and get some of our more prevalent colors like green established. On the flip side, we have Farseek
and Skyshroud Claim
, which can grab nonbasics, and depending on what we need, we have a ton of options. Idyllic Tutor
is just a simple tutor that allows us to get some of our best enchantments whenever we want. Brilliant Restoration
is an expensive card but is a great way to rebuild after mass board destruction.
Artifacts:
The most important artifact in our deck is Chromatic Lantern
since we can have all our colors established for only three mana. We also have format staples like Arcane Signet
, Sol Ring
, and Fellwar Stone
, which are great pieces of mana acceleration. Thought Vessel
is kind of a tech card for the deck. I have recently been against many group hug pods, so I have slotted this in and found it successful. I will rarely turn down a mana rock, and no maximum hand size can also be great with some of the enchantments in our deck.
Enchantments:
My personal favorite enchantment is Paradox Haze
since nearly all of our enchantments trigger in our upkeep who is going to say no to double triggers?! We also have some ramp within our enchantments like Exploration
and Burgeoning
, as well as some straight-up mana producers like Abundant Growth
. We also have the entire Honden and Sanctum cycle, which can quickly get out of hand. My personal favorite Honden is Honden of Infinite Rage
, which is often a card I end games with. My favorite Sanctum is Sanctum of Calm Waters
, which gives us a ton of card advantage besides our enchantments. There is not a ton of card draw within the deck. Sigil of the Empty Throne
can be a great way to get some board presence out of all the enchantments we cast. The tokens we make are great on offense or defense.
Land Base:
Being in five-color means we have a pretty expensive/extensive landbase. For our landbase, I went with limited basics and many duals/fetches. Combine that with nearly every triome, and we can easily move quickly and establish our colors. That is the main goal within the landbase to be able to cast everything as soon as possible. We also have some artifacts/enchantments in the deck that help us get all of our colors established. We also have some strong utility lands like Hall of Heliod's Generosity
, a great piece of recursion that is very cheap to activate. While we don’t have any god cards The World Tree
is sweet since we can make all of our lands have a Prismatic Omen
once we hit six lands. I have been tinkering with this landbase for quite a while and found that this version is my favorite thus far.
Strengths of the Deck:
- There is a decent amount of interaction on the stack and the field
- Our commander is a strong piece of recursion
- Our enchantments can easily end the game on their own
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Very weak to enchantment hate
- We often don’t have a strong creature presence so can be weak against creature-heavy decks
- Not a ton of card draw
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
There are no infinite combos or loops in the deck. We typically end the game by generating creatures through our enchantments like Sigil of the Empty Throne or Honden of Life's Web
which can be strong pieces of creature production. Go-Shintai of Life's Origin can also be a great creature producer. We don’t need creatures to win, as we can close out games with cards like Honden of Infinite Rage and Sanctum of Stone Fangs
.
Conclusion:
Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin is a cool commander who can be built in many ways. I went the shrine route as it wasn’t combo-heavy, and I thought it was just a ton of fun. I had a lot of fun at my LGS with this deck. While I struggled against higher power decks, I found it fit pretty well around mid-power and would likely rank as a five or six. While our deck can certainly have games where we pop off and go quickly, we mostly play it slowly and try to get the shrine engine going! Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support.