Pattern Recognition #227 - Shrines

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

10 February 2022

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Hello everyone! This is Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series as written by myself, berryjon. I am something of an Old Fogey who has been around the block quite a few times where Magic is concerned, as as such, I use this series to talk about the various aspects of this game, be it deck design, card construction, mechanics chat, in-universe characters and history. Or whatever happens to cross my mind this week. Please, feel free to dissent in the comments below the article, add suggestions or just plain correct me! I am a Smart Ass, so I can take it.

Kamigawa! Setting of Legends, Spirits and one of the most popular sets that people have clamored for a revisit to, but Wizards knew that they would need to rebuild the setting from the ground up. But we're not here to talk about the set, the block or the setting in general. No, I want to talk about the subject most nearest and dearest to my heart from Kamigawa. Or close enough to matter.

Let's talk the Shrines.

In the beginning, or at least for this subject, and not in the days of Alpha, but rather in Champions of Kamigawa, Wizards printed a horizontal cycle of cards at Uncommon that were known as the Shrine cycle for their subtype, and not the Honden cycle for their names. The Honden of Cleansing Fire, Honden of Infinite Rage, Honden of Life's Web, the Honden of Night's Reach and the Honden of Seeing Winds. These five cards were late reprinted in Eternal Masters, and digitally as part of Historic Anthology 3.

Starting out, these five cards were part of the Legendary Matters nature of the Kamigawa block, and as such, they themselves were Legendary, and the cards were written to reflect that. Each Honden performed an action at the beginning of your upkeep, and these abilities were scaled to the number of Shrines you had in play. In theory, using the Shrines to their fullest potential meant having a full deck, and given that Kamigawa's mana fixing was... Pre-Ravnica in terms of non-existence, this was seen a rather large amount of effort to go into what was essentially a gimmick deck.

Well, that and Mirror Gallery. There was, for a small time, an attempt at a mono- deck that tried to exploit multiple Legendaries in with the Gallery, and the deck ran 4 Hondens with the idea that a single Honden would do one damage, two Honden would do Four damage, Three would deal Nine, and all four Hondens of Infinite Rage at the same time would deal 16 damage. The theory was that multiple Honden would provide a consistent source of damage over the game, allowing you to keep up the pressure even when your draws ran out.

The only other Honden to see as much play was the Honden of Seeing Winds, because despite it's high cost, free card draws are never to be turned down unless doing so would kill you. Other than that, they existed, and were used to ramp up the numbers of the more relevant Hondens when the Mirror Gallery wasn't in play, or Cloning effects weren't viable.

Shrines existed like this for many, many years. They were a fringe concept, and a gimmick most certainly. But they also became part and parcel of the myth of Kamigawa. Now, I'm not going to delve too deep into that topic as it's a whole thing on its own. But the Shrines entered into the game's cultural zeitgeist where Kamigawa was concerned. An example of Legendaries that were fun to play with and around with, didn't break the game over their knees, and because they checked other Shrines, well, why not make more Shrines?

It got to the point where people wanted Shrines even outside of Kamigawa, asking, but never expecting, for them to get into things like Commander Products (where their Legendary status was less relevant) or Horizons sets where they could fill out the Uncommons without issue. Things like that. Think of it as one of those low-key constant requests that kept Kamigawa in the back of the minds of people at Wizards, and casual enough that people weren't disappointed when they didn't get what they wanted.

Then came Core 2021. And we got another Shrine cycle. And people who were an Old Fogey like me were overjoyed by it! For in that set, we got five more uncommon, but still Legendary Shrines. However, unlike the previous cycle, these Shrines didn't just activate during your upkeep. The one, Sanctum of Tranquil Light, has an activated ability whose cost is reduced by the number of Shrines you control, while its counterpart, the Sanctum of Shattered Heights allowed you to discard a land or any of your redundant Shrines to deal damage to a Creature or Planeswalker equal to the Shrines you controlled. A nice backup to the Honden, being able to go off at Instant speed as long as you had the necessary cards in hand to discard to the ability.

But the real gem was the first proper Shrine. At R1, the Sanctum of All allowed you to fetch out a Shrine during your upkeep, including pulling one from your graveyard if that's what you want. This Sanctum also had the additional caveat of doubling your triggered abilities of your Shrines. And to be clear; this is a Triggered Ability, not an activated one. Including itself. But of curse, this first required having 6 or more Shrines in play, which in Standard, meant one of each. But in Modern or larger formats, there were now a total of 11 Shrines in the game. Assuming you could get them.

And for those of you wondering, 5C GoodStuff Shrines was a viable archetype in Standard, and I should look into spending some Wildcards for a Historic Build. Maybe. I'm not sure yet.

But moving on, we got Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. And we, the players, knew there were going to be Shrines in the set. The Go-Shintai cycle returned to the original Honden and had all their abilities activate at the same time; at the beginning of your end-step. This nod to multiplayer formats, you could now pay at that time in order to put an ability on the stack. This timing allowed you to use your card before the inevitable boardwipe as the players take each of their turns.

Curiously, the Go-Shintai, Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose takes over from the original one in terms of token making as the two colours share that aspect. now hands out +1/+1 counters. And the Go-Shintai of Ancient Wars is another source of burn, nice and redundant with the other two.

But the real prize is the second Shrine. Oh, yes it is. Go-Shintai of Life's Origin, while nominally in casting cost, for Commander and Brawl, it is a full rainbow Commander. This card creates token Creature Shrines whenever another Shrine (including itself) enters the Battlefield. And with a total of 17 Shrines in the game now...

What I'm saying is that Wizards made this card as a Commander, and by Urza I know people are going to jank the heck out of it.

Which leads me to my friendly Rules Reminder. Shrine is not a Creature Type. Much like how Vehicle is an artifact type that can become a creature, these six Shrines and the token they make are Enchantment Creatures with the Shrine subtype for the Enchantment, but nothing for the creature. So there will be be no Bloodline Pretender synergies here! If you want them to have a creature type for whatever reason, such as for Coat of Arms, well, the recent printing of Maskwook Nexus has you covered.

Shrines are something of a gimmick in the game, but they're a gimmick that works. That they scale linearly with the number of Shrines you control while being paired with the inherent limitations of being Legendary in the first place means that their effects can be easily predicted and planned around by the controlling player and their opponents. In addition, aside from the five-colored ones, these cards are all Uncommon, which means that getting them isn't difficult and they don't flood out Sealed environments.

In a way, they're Slivers that don't break the game.

But I really think their popularity is because they are so deeply associated with the underdog block of Kamigawa. With that set, you can point to the Shrines, and go "This is something we need more of!" and know that in doing so you're not upsetting the larger balance of the game.

I'm certainly looking forward to how these new Shrines interact with the older ones, and I hope that their popularity will allow for more to be printed in the future. Maybe in non-Standard product? That can certainly be nice. Imagine a cycle of Shrines in the next Modern Horizons - or even Commander Legends product! I mean, we did get six new potential Commanders with the newest round of Shrines, and one which was designed specifically to be a Commander. Why not go all in?

I know that some of you are already planning on it, and to you, I wish you the best of luck. Just know I'm going to be packing Tranquility and Tempest of Light with a bit more regularity.

Join me next week when I go over the first two weeks of my Slow Grow Tournament. My card changes, my wins, my... checks notes .... lack of losses...

AM I WINNING!?!?

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!