How does the Shrine deck work? The White one is the only 1-drop, and it essentially does nothing until there are a few more shrines in play. Seems like terrible design. Turn 1: White Shrine, Turn 2 Black shrine (Drain trigger), Turn 3 Drain trigger, you can't do anything else if you want to activate the white shrine... Seems bad.
Tbf, as early as turn 3 with a W and B shrine you already draining 2 a turn. If you are going some sort of Shrine Control deck, you're probably not wasting your mana on turn 3 to tap a creature anyway. That ability won't even be relevant until they have a creature worth using it on. I'm most likely not paying mana to tap down a Fervent Champion. In the early game I think its just more of a make your other shrines better. With three shrines it play its costs 3, at 4 shrines I'd think it much more useful.
In Abzan, you could play Sanctum of Tranquil Light, Sanctum of Stone Fangs, and Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest. This lets you cast spells with Harvest if you want, and save 3 mana for tapping down a creature. It also lets me cast a 7 drop on turn 4 assuming I hit all my land drops. If I use the Harvest to gain WWW, I can cast Shatter the Sky and still have 3 other mana to use that turn.
I think any Shrine deck I try will be at most 3 colors, and will include the black and white shrines, because against aggro 2 drain life a turn is a nice buffer, especially in conjunction with sweepers. Late game if they are empty-handed and in topdeck mode, the turn they draw a creature I can afford to pay 4 mana to tap it down. That will then get them to commit another top-decked creature and I can continue to board wipe them, all the while drawing cards from my combination of Sanctum of Stone Fangs and Dawn of Hope. Idk, it's a shaky foundation, but its something I'm going to test out. I face so many monored aggro decks on arena, I think a something in this vein could at least be worth a shot.
Also as a side note, in Historic my Mardu Lich's Mastery deck is going to love the Shrine package to draw 2 cards a turn.
The 5-color one seems to be as parasitic as it gets.
It does basically nothing if you dont go all in on shrines.
The green/blue/black ones might be worth playing, even for a deck that isnt all about shrines, as they curve quite nicely into each other and provide a substantial advantage that will win the game and allows you to do your regular stuff.
The white and red one look tremendously "limited" as they deal with creatures and do so in a way that is only really appealing in draft/sealed.
I think it's noteworthy to mention that the red shrine at least lets you ditch redundant shrines.
But also I swear this really stupid. They gave a shrine lord a "when ability triggers" but then they give you two shrines with activated abilities, not triggered abilities. They need to errata that.
But also I swear this really stupid. They gave a shrine lord a "when ability triggers" but then they give you two shrines with activated abilities, not triggered abilities. They need to errata that.
8 out of 10 Shrines having triggered abilities is still very useful for the Shrine lords ability.
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WOut of the ground,I rise to grace...W BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
But also I swear this really stupid. They gave a shrine lord a "when ability triggers" but then they give you two shrines with activated abilities, not triggered abilities. They need to errata that.
8 out of 10 Shrines having triggered abilities is still very useful for the Shrine lords ability.
Yeah 6/10s of that is Sultai that is doing the heavy lifting. Since they dediced to do activated abilities for the red and white one, they are litterally nonbos with their own lord. And the reasoning given was "we didn't want to repeat the same thing like the old shrines". So why not just make the white one have instead a "at the beginng of your upkeep, tap target creature with a converted mana of cost X or less, where X is the number of shrines you conrol" and also for the red one "at the beginning of your upkeep, you may discard a land card or shrine card. If you do, deal X damage to target creature or planeswalker, where X is equal to the number of Shrines you control."
Yeah 6/10s of that is Sultai that is doing the heavy lifting. Since they dediced to do activated abilities for the red and white one, they are litterally nonbos with their own lord. And the reasoning given was "we didn't want to repeat the same thing like the old shrines". So why not just make the white one have instead a "at the beginng of your upkeep, tap target creature with a converted mana of cost X or less, where X is the number of shrines you conrol" and also for the red one "at the beginning of your upkeep, you may discard a land card or shrine card. If you do, deal X damage to target creature or planeswalker, where X is equal to the number of Shrines you control."
Yeah, this sounds like a design fail, and they are just backtracking to justify it. Sanctum of All should have been worded as working with activated or triggered abilities of shrines to make all of them work.
THEY SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST AND I HAVE WANTED THESE TO GO ALONGSIDE MY HONDENS FOR A LIFETIME
I WANT MY RETURN TO KAMIGAWA in 2021 IMMEDIATELY
ALSO I WANT THESE INSTANTLY
I'm not gonna lie this is the first time I seen you Uber hyped for something that isn’t thero's not sea monster related
I did a spirit tribal a while back now I can defiantly put the hodens and these in it now.
Theros, Kamigawa, Lorwyn and Zendikar are my favorite planes
And I absolutely love and miss Kamigawa and welcome these glimpses of it through this amazing shrine cycle which I loved in the origina. Honden of Seeing Winds is one of my favorite cards
A cycle set on Kamigawa that legendary in a way that not only unnecessary but also in conflict with the card designs?
A cycle set on Kamigawa that will thus clog up your hand with unplayable cards?
A cycle where the white and red ones break the cycle design, and are far and away the worst of the bunch?
A we-build-it-for-you cycle where the deck you're supposed to build nonbos with itself?
People... this is self-parody. You're supposed to laugh.
"Conflicts with the cards designs" is a strong assumption, when mark explicitly talks about how they designed the shrines to be legendary first, and then figured out the way to make that matter.
The fact they are legendary is what makes them very crappy. No need for that restriction imho.
Well, about that..
yeah but that's not in standard, so i don't think its really relevant to anything
additionally, its not like these are going to see play in other formats where that is legal. these are relegated to the casual bin
I designed a cycle of Shrines for a custom set and had the Black and the green one working exactly as these, except it triggered during the upkeep (and the mana didn't empty from your pool until EoT). The others I designed are way off (blue was mill, red was Threaten CMC #shrine, white was exile CMC #Shrine).
My only complain is the triggers happening during the precombat main phase, which is kind of sad since my main enabler was Paradox Haze. Nice cards overall. Will build around for sure for kitchen table play.
One of the things with Shrines is in reality I don't think you can push them that hard, because if you do they'd be really obnoxious. They're enchantments that sit on the battlefield that decks won't be packing removal for.
As is 3 of these are fine. The white one's main use is it ups your shrine count for your other shrines for 1 mana, as its actual ability won't be usable until like T5. The red one is the worst as it's essentially a 3 mana do nothing, it's much easier to find time to play 1 mana do nothing than a 3 mana version.
I'm sure in limited you will see some games won off these as the black one is going to be a real hard engine to beat once you get it going. Any sort of defensive deck that can just play a couple of these and sit back draining the opponent for 2 every turn from a card type they are probably packing no removal for is going to be tough to beat. It also feels the sort of deck that when its open will be wide open as the black one is basically the payoff, there is little incentive to take most of them meaning you will probably be able to pick them up very easily if you're in the deck. The downside is there will be drafts where they simply aren't opened.
One of the things with Shrines is in reality I don't think you can push them that hard, because if you do they'd be really obnoxious. They're enchantments that sit on the battlefield that decks won't be packing removal for.
As is 3 of these are fine. The white one's main use is it ups your shrine count for your other shrines for 1 mana, as its actual ability won't be usable until like T5. The red one is the worst as it's essentially a 3 mana do nothing, it's much easier to find time to play 1 mana do nothing than a 3 mana version.
I'm sure in limited you will see some games won off these as the black one is going to be a real hard engine to beat once you get it going. Any sort of defensive deck that can just play a couple of these and sit back draining the opponent for 2 every turn from a card type they are probably packing no removal for is going to be tough to beat. It also feels the sort of deck that when its open will be wide open as the black one is basically the payoff, there is little incentive to take most of them meaning you will probably be able to pick them up very easily if you're in the deck. The downside is there will be drafts where they simply aren't opened.
Worth noting that if there's any sort of standard deck built around these, Sanctum of Shattered Heights is likely to be a large part of the engine of them. One of the main issues with building a constructed deck around Shrines is that you want to run 4 copies of, say, Sanctum of Stone Fangs to ensure that you draw them early enough to work. But that means you end up with multiple copies of a legendary that, as you note, your opponent is unlikely to be packing much removal for. So now you've got these extra shrines clogging up your hand, at which point Shattered Heights pipes up and goes "hey, wouldn't you prefer that those extra shrines and lands be 1 mana removal spells?". I'd be very surprised if a shrine based deck popped up that didn't include Red.
There almost certainly won't be a Standard deck around these as none of them affect the board the turn they come into play, you can't have that many do nothings in your deck, Magic simply isn't that durdly anymore. The manabase also really doesn't support playing more than 3 colour in Standard, so the idea you could play 5 colour shrines is also just wishful thinking.
Sanctum of Shattered Heights epitomises that. It likely does nothing the turn you play it. In theory it puts use to your excess shrines but you both need other shrines in play and endless resources to put any real work. On top of all that right now the most played deck is Temur Rec, a deck this card does absolutely nothing against.
Funny how the two shrines that are probably worst play-wise have the best art.
AW-wise it's easily W > R > G > B > U, but powerlevel-wise it's probably B > G > U > R > W.
I do hope that we return to Kamigawa at some point...
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Tbf, as early as turn 3 with a W and B shrine you already draining 2 a turn. If you are going some sort of Shrine Control deck, you're probably not wasting your mana on turn 3 to tap a creature anyway. That ability won't even be relevant until they have a creature worth using it on. I'm most likely not paying mana to tap down a Fervent Champion. In the early game I think its just more of a make your other shrines better. With three shrines it play its costs 3, at 4 shrines I'd think it much more useful.
In Abzan, you could play Sanctum of Tranquil Light, Sanctum of Stone Fangs, and Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest. This lets you cast spells with Harvest if you want, and save 3 mana for tapping down a creature. It also lets me cast a 7 drop on turn 4 assuming I hit all my land drops. If I use the Harvest to gain WWW, I can cast Shatter the Sky and still have 3 other mana to use that turn.
I think any Shrine deck I try will be at most 3 colors, and will include the black and white shrines, because against aggro 2 drain life a turn is a nice buffer, especially in conjunction with sweepers. Late game if they are empty-handed and in topdeck mode, the turn they draw a creature I can afford to pay 4 mana to tap it down. That will then get them to commit another top-decked creature and I can continue to board wipe them, all the while drawing cards from my combination of Sanctum of Stone Fangs and Dawn of Hope. Idk, it's a shaky foundation, but its something I'm going to test out. I face so many monored aggro decks on arena, I think a something in this vein could at least be worth a shot.
Also as a side note, in Historic my Mardu Lich's Mastery deck is going to love the Shrine package to draw 2 cards a turn.
I think it's noteworthy to mention that the red shrine at least lets you ditch redundant shrines.
W(W/U)U Ephara - Flash & Taxes W(W/U)U || B(B/G)G Meren - Circle of Life B(B/G)G
RGW Marath - Ever shifting Wilds RGW || (U/R)C(W/B) Breya - Artificial Dominion (U/R)C(W/B)
UBR Becket Brass - take what you can, give nothing back UBR
I don't know, the black one would be very obnoxious if you could just throw down multiples of some of these.
But also I swear this really stupid. They gave a shrine lord a "when ability triggers" but then they give you two shrines with activated abilities, not triggered abilities. They need to errata that.
8 out of 10 Shrines having triggered abilities is still very useful for the Shrine lords ability.
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
Is this...
Beautiful Haiku Kamigawa shrines?
As shrine tribal cards?
With...
With beautiful art?
THEY SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST AND I HAVE WANTED THESE TO GO ALONGSIDE MY HONDENS FOR A LIFETIME
I WANT MY RETURN TO KAMIGAWA in 2021 IMMEDIATELY
ALSO I WANT THESE INSTANTLY
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
I'm not gonna lie this is the first time I seen you Uber hyped for something that isn’t thero's not sea monster related
I did a spirit tribal a while back now I can defiantly put the hodens and these in it now.
Yeah, this sounds like a design fail, and they are just backtracking to justify it. Sanctum of All should have been worded as working with activated or triggered abilities of shrines to make all of them work.
And I absolutely love and miss Kamigawa and welcome these glimpses of it through this amazing shrine cycle which I loved in the origina. Honden of Seeing Winds is one of my favorite cards
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
A cycle set on Kamigawa that legendary in a way that not only unnecessary but also in conflict with the card designs?
A cycle set on Kamigawa that will thus clog up your hand with unplayable cards?
A cycle where the white and red ones break the cycle design, and are far and away the worst of the bunch?
A we-build-it-for-you cycle where the deck you're supposed to build nonbos with itself?
People... this is self-parody. You're supposed to laugh.
Legendary is amazing.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Well, about that..
Fully-powered 600-Card "Dream Cube" https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/dreamcube
450-Card "Artificer's Cube" https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/artificer
Cubing in Indianapolis...send me a PM!!
yeah but that's not in standard, so i don't think its really relevant to anything
additionally, its not like these are going to see play in other formats where that is legal. these are relegated to the casual bin
My only complain is the triggers happening during the precombat main phase, which is kind of sad since my main enabler was Paradox Haze. Nice cards overall. Will build around for sure for kitchen table play.
As is 3 of these are fine. The white one's main use is it ups your shrine count for your other shrines for 1 mana, as its actual ability won't be usable until like T5. The red one is the worst as it's essentially a 3 mana do nothing, it's much easier to find time to play 1 mana do nothing than a 3 mana version.
I'm sure in limited you will see some games won off these as the black one is going to be a real hard engine to beat once you get it going. Any sort of defensive deck that can just play a couple of these and sit back draining the opponent for 2 every turn from a card type they are probably packing no removal for is going to be tough to beat. It also feels the sort of deck that when its open will be wide open as the black one is basically the payoff, there is little incentive to take most of them meaning you will probably be able to pick them up very easily if you're in the deck. The downside is there will be drafts where they simply aren't opened.
Sanctum of Shattered Heights epitomises that. It likely does nothing the turn you play it. In theory it puts use to your excess shrines but you both need other shrines in play and endless resources to put any real work. On top of all that right now the most played deck is Temur Rec, a deck this card does absolutely nothing against.
AW-wise it's easily W > R > G > B > U, but powerlevel-wise it's probably B > G > U > R > W.
I do hope that we return to Kamigawa at some point...