BlackLegendary Enchantment Creature — ShrineGo-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty
Mana value4Rank#5,390
The Commander
Deathtouch
At the beginning of your end step, you may pay 
. When you do, destroy target creature with toughness X or less, where X is the number of Shrines you control.
Guide
Gameplan
You ramp into a critical mass of Shrines, using Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty's end-step removal to pick off creatures while your enchantment engine accrues value each upkeep. The deck plays a grindy attrition game, controlling the board with edicts and Shrine triggers until you assemble enough Shrines to drain or beat the table down.
Strengths
- Built-in repeatable removal that scales with your Shrine count and ignores indestructible-style toughness checks
- Deathtouch makes Go-Shintai a strong blocker and combat deterrent
- Enchantment-based engines are resilient and hard to disrupt with creature removal
- Mono-black gives access to tutors, recursion, and powerful card advantage
Weaknesses
- Slow to come online and reliant on amassing multiple Shrines
- Vulnerable to enchantment hate and board wipes that hit your Shrine package
- The end-step removal only kills one creature per turn and requires extra mana
- Mono-color means no access to counterspells or off-color enchantress effects
Key Cards
- Sanctum of Stone Fangs — A black Shrine that drains each opponent, adding to your Shrine count and your damage output.
- Honden of Night's Reach — Forces discard each upkeep, fueling attrition while boosting your Shrine total.
- Go-Shintai of Life's Origin — Reanimates Shrines from the graveyard each turn, providing massive recursion and resilience.
- Sanctum of Fragile Roots — Off-color identity—skip; instead run black ramp to fuel multiple end-step activations.
- Sphere of Safety — Taxes attackers based on your enchantment count, protecting you while you grind.
Upgrade Path
Add the cycle of Go-Shintai creatures and a Shrine reanimation package for resilience, plus enchantment tutors like Enlightened Tutor (note: white—use black tutors such as Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor instead). Improve mana with fast rocks and rituals to enable multiple end-step activations, and include protection like Sphere of Safety and recursion such as Phyrexian Reclamation to weather board wipes.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Incremental drain from Sanctum of Stone Fangs and other black Shrines
- ▸Grinding the table out of resources then closing with creatures or commander beats
- ▸Big mana sinks and overwhelming board state after stabilizing
Archetypes
- Shrines (Enchantress) — The commander is a Shrine that rewards stacking Shrines, the core tribal payoff.
- Control — Repeatable removal plus drain and discard Shrines let you grind opponents out of resources.
- Attrition/Midrange — Black's recursion and edicts pair with Shrine value engines for a long-game plan.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
