Shrines decks are one of the more popular enchantress options, providing focus in deckbuilding. Whether you’re on Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin or Hei Bai, Forest Guardian, here are seven underrated cards that power up a Shrines deck.
ANNIE JOINS UP
This one might have passed you by if you weren’t huge on Outlaws of Thunder Junction, but Annie Joins Up is actually a really sweet amplifier card for Shrines decks. It will trigger your Go-Shintai or Hei Bai a second time, making another Shrine token or finding another Shrine to put into play. It also copies the triggered abilities of the other cards in the Go-Shintai shrine cycle from Neon Dynasty, potentially netting you a faster win by copying the burn on Go-Shintai of Ancient Wars or the token making of Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose.
Oh, and for good measure, it comes in and throws 5 damage at a creature, which means you immediately get something for your mana.
WILDSEAR, SCOURING MAW
While Annie Joining Up to a Shinto Shrine might stretch credulity, it’s a lot easier to see the almost Kaiju-esque Wildsear bounding through Kamigawa. Is it Kami, or Yokai? Who knows, and to most of y’all playing a Shrines deck, it’s what’s in the text box that’s most important anyways. Thankfully, Wildsear has a heater.
Enchantment spells you cast from your hand have cascade, which means that every time you lay down a Shrine or an Aura ramp spell or even another enchantment creature, you’re getting to double dip. This helps you accelerate toward your win conditions while putting up a chunky 6/6 trampler onto the field, ready to pressure or defend as needed.
YENNA, REDTOOTH REGENT
If you think about it, the Fae and the Kami have a lot in common. Yenna even more so, given she is what’s known on Eldraine as a “Werefox” – shifting into fox form. With foxes being messengers for some Kami, Yenna finds a natural home in a Shrines deck. What’s more, her ability synergizes with what you want to be doing.
The new Shrine cards from Avatar: The Last Airbender have powerful enter-the-battlefield abilities, making them ideal to copy with Yenna. Even if she didn’t already allow you to make a non-legendary copy, you’d still get the powerful EtB. As written, though, you just get to get a second copy of a Shrine, which is really powerful and cool.
When you’re not copying Shrines, you can use her to copy your aura based ramp or removal, letting you double dip. You even get to untap her and Scry 2 if you target an Aura, which lets you go on to copy a Shrine.
ENDURING VITALITY
Duskmourn had some really sweet Enchantment Creatures, and the Overlord cycle are also really great in Enchantress decks too (I love Overlord of the Hauntwoods here!). That said, it’s the Enduring Cycle that synergize great in a Shrines deck, as they survive a board wipe or removal giving much needed staying power.
Enduring Vitality has the text from Cryptolith Rite. For one more mana, you get a Rite that can attack and block, and survive dying the first time. Any Shrine tokens that Go-Shintai or your other Shrines make will be able to tap for mana, which allows you to accelerate, fast.
TRACE OF ABUNDANCE
Trace of Abundance might look a little unnecessary when you have access to cards like Utopia Sprawl, Fertile Ground and Buried in the Garden, but hear me out. Trace of Abundance protects a land you control, making it ideal to preserve the most powerful land cards in your deck.
Five color decks love lands like Field of the Dead, and enchantress decks love a good Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Opponents, incidentally, love to blow those cards up with land destruction like Ghost Quarter or Generous Gift. Slotting this little aura onto that lands keeps it nice and safe.
SUMMON: YOJIMBO
Triggers Enchantress card draw? Check. Removal? Check. Ghostly Prison? Check. Maybe refunds you? Check.
Oh, and it’s massively on theme. Summon: Yojimbo is just a really good Commander card, and it’s a slam dunk fit into Shrines decks.
GIFTS UNGIVEN
So, with the recent unbanning of Gifts Ungiven, why not put it to use? This lovely printing from Double Masters fits right at home in a Shrines deck, given the Kamigawa artwork.
What can you do with it? Well, given your Commander of Go-Shintai has a recursion ability stapled on, it makes Gifts Ungiven a really exciting card to play with. If you haven’t yet drawn any of Northern Air Temple, Sanctum of Stone Fangs, Honden of Infinite Rage or Go-Shintai of Ancient Wars, it helps getting some of these win-condition Shrines into play. You can grab another recursion spell like Eerie Interlude or Brilliant Restoration along with it, setting you up to always benefit from this spell, or you could use it to get an Enchantress engine or removal.
END STEP
If you’ve ever thought about playing a Shrines Enchantress deck, there’s never been a better time. To find out more about the latest Shrine cards in the Avatar set, you can check out our article. What’s your favorite synergy card for Shrines?
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.