Shrine

"Sanctum" redirects here. For the city of Sanctum, see Averru.

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Shrine
Enchantment Type
(Subtype for enchantment cards)
Introduced	Champions of Kamigawa
Last used	Avatar: The Last Airbender
Scryfall Statistics
cards
token creation cards
artworks

Shrine (Japanese: 祭 (さい) 殿 (でん) ; rōmaji: saiden) is an enchantment type.

Description

Shrine has no inherent rules-meaning, but each Shrine gets better and better as you control more and more Shrines. Shrines encourage multicolor decks, because they are all legendary, so a player can generally only access three per color on the battlefield at most. All members of the cycles have been uncommon. Each new cycle has a different trigger timing: the Hondens trigger during your upkeep, two Sanctums have activated abilities, and three trigger on the precombat main phase, and the Go-Shintai can be triggered with a mana payment during your end step.

History

Shrines were introduced in Champions of Kamigawa. There were five shrines printed in as an uncommon cycle of Hondens (HOHN-dehn). The name of each Honden corresponds to the name of a legendary spirit—Myojin—in the set, as well as being mentioned in the flavor text of the same-colored Zubera. Each Honden has flavor text mourning the change of allegiance of the spirits against the humans.

Many years later, Core Set 2021 featured six new Shrines named Sanctums. These were also depicted as being on Kamigawa. The five-color Sanctum of All has an upkeep Shrine searching effect that lets the other Sanctums trigger on the main phase. Each of the mono-colored Sanctums has flavor text formatted and written as a Haiku.

Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty featured a cycle of Shrines in the form of enchantment creatures named Go-Shintai. They all require paying at the beginning of your end step to activate their effects and have a classic colored keyword. The additional Shrine with a five-color identity, The Go-Shintai of Life's Origin, features Shrine-typal support, being able to create Shrine tokens. The mono-colored Go-Shintai are said to seek those of a certain disposition and grant them a boon.

Avatar: The Last Airbender brought back Shrines.

Honden cycle

• Honden of Cleansing Fire () — Gain two life for each Shrine you control.
• Honden of Seeing Winds () — Draw a card for each Shrine you control.
• Honden of Night's Reach () — Target opponent discards a card for each Shrine you control.
• Honden of Infinite Rage () — Deal damage to any target equal to the number of Shrines you control.
• Honden of Life's Web () — Create a 1/1 colorless Spirit token for each Shrine you control.

Sanctum cycle

• Sanctum of Tranquil Light () — : Tap target creature. This costs less for each Shrine you control.
• Sanctum of Calm Waters () — May draw a card for each Shrine you control, then discard a card if you did.
• Sanctum of Stone Fangs () — Each opponent loses life and you gain life equal to the number of Shrines you control.
• Sanctum of Shattered Heights () — , Discard a land or Shrine card: Deals damage to target creature or planeswalker equal to the number of Shrines you control.
• Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest () — Add mana of any one color equal to the number of Shrines you control
• Sanctum of All () — Searches Shrines and puts them onto the battlefield. It doubles Shrine triggers if you control six or more.

Go-Shintai cycle

• Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose () — Pay at the beginning of your endstep to put Spirit tokens for each Shrine you control.
• Go-Shintai of Lost Wisdom () — Pay at the beginning of your endstep to mill target player one card for each Shrine you control.
• Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty () — Pay at the beginning of your endstep to destroy target creature with toughness equal to or less than the number of Shrines you control.
• Go-Shintai of Ancient Wars () — Pay at the beginning of your endstep to deal damage to a player or planeswalker equal to the number of Shrines you control.
• Go-Shintai of Boundless Vigor () — Pay at the beginning of your endstep to put +1/+1 counters equal to the number of Shrines you control on a Shrine.
• Go-Shintai of Life's Origin () with a ability to put enchantments from the graveyard onto the battlefield and create 1/1 Shrine enchantment creature tokens when nontoken Shrines enter (including itself).

Avatar

• Southern Air Temple () — Put +1/+1 counters on each creature you control.

Rules

From the Comprehensive Rules (September 19, 2025—Marvel's Spider-Man)

• 205.3h Enchantments have their own unique set of subtypes; these subtypes are called enchantment types. The enchantment types are Aura (see rule 303.4), Background, Cartouche, Case (see rule 719), Class (see rule 716), Curse, Role (see rule 303.7), Room, Rune, Saga (see rule 714), Shard, and Shrine.

Rulings

• Each Shrine has an ability that counts the number of Shrines you control. These abilities include the Shrine they're printed on.
• Shrines count only enchantments with the subtype Shrine. Other cards with "shrine" in their name (such as Jungle Shrine, Luxa River Shrine, and Nantuko Shrine) don't count.

Trivia

• Since Shrine is an enchantment type, the Go-Shintai are the only creatures besides Nameless Race to have no creature type. This is partially due to the typeline already being long enough to compress the font.
• A honden is the inner part of the shrine to a kami, while a shintai is a physical object in which a kami resides. The "go-" prefix indicates that it is honored and sacred.
• Neon Dynasty's Shrine Steward and Alchemy's Chronicler of Worship interact with Shrines.

Tokens

Token name	Color	Type line	P/T	Text box	Source	Printings
Shrine		Enchantment Creature — Shrine	1/1		Go-Shintai of Life's Origin