commander · Go-Shintai of Life's Origin
20 Ways to Win (SLD).
A five-color alternate win condition deck from Secret Lair, led by Go-Shintai of Life's Origin — collect Shrine tokens and leverage ten different alternate victory cards from Maze's End to Felidar Sovereign.
The Commander
20 Ways to Win is Secret Lair's alternate-win-condition Commander deck and it delivers on the premise — the deck contains ten different ways to win the game that don't involve dealing combat damage. Go-Shintai of Life's Origin enables the five-color mana base and provides the Shrine tribal support. Tap all five colors and a mana to return any enchantment from your graveyard to play, and whenever he or another nontoken Shrine enters, you create a 1/1 Shrine token. The token build-up feeds alternate win conditions like Simic Ascendancy while the enchantment recursion retrieves any win-condition enchantment destroyed.
Go-Shintai of Life's Origin provides both Shrine synergy and enchantment recursion, making him the connective tissue between the deck's many win condition paths. The deck runs Monologue Tax to generate treasure while opponents play, Maze's End for the twenty-gate victory, and Helix Pinnacle to accumulate one hundred counters.
Key Cards
Felidar Sovereign
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have forty or more life, you win the game. A 4/6 with vigilance and lifelink that sets up its own win condition. In a deck with multiple life gain effects, Felidar Sovereign arrives and creates a clock — if you have forty or more life at your next upkeep, you win. Opponents must deal with both the 4/6 lifelink body and race your life total simultaneously. Combined with Oloro-style passive life gain, this condition is achievable by turn six or seven.
Maze's End
A land that enters tapped and taps for colorless. Pay three mana, tap, and return Maze's End to your hand: search for a Gate and put it onto the battlefield. If you control ten or more differently named Gates, you win the game. The deck runs a full Gate package enabling this path. In a five-color deck that needs fixing anyway, Gates provide the mana while counting toward the Maze's End victory. Opponents must find and destroy Maze's End or the Gates to prevent this win.
Simic Ascendancy
Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are placed on a creature you control, put that many growth counters on Simic Ascendancy. At the beginning of your upkeep, if Simic Ascendancy has twenty or more growth counters, you win. In a Go-Shintai deck generating Shrine tokens that accumulate counters through Forgotten Ancient and other counter-distribution effects, Simic Ascendancy grows steadily. The deck's five-color flexibility means counter-placing effects across all colors feed this win condition.
Approach of the Second Sun
Cast this spell. If it's the second time you've cast it this turn, you win. Otherwise, put it seventh from the top of your library. In a five-color deck with significant card draw and hand manipulation, casting Approach twice in the same turn is achievable — especially with draw effects to find it after it returns to the library. The deck includes extra turn spells and draw chains to set up a turn where you cast Approach, draw through to find it again, and resolve the win condition in one explosive turn.
Revel in Riches
Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, create a Treasure token. At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control ten or more Treasures, you win. In a four-player game where board wipes and combat kill creatures constantly, Revel in Riches generates Treasures at a high rate. Go-Shintai's color package includes board wipes that kill multiple opponents' creatures in one spell — each creature death contributes toward the ten Treasure threshold. The Treasures also provide mana acceleration as a fallback.
How to Play
The deck's strategy is breadth — present multiple win conditions simultaneously and threaten so many victory paths that opponents can't stop them all. Deploy Go-Shintai early to start the Shrine token accumulation and enchantment recursion. Revel in Riches goes down early and begins converting any creature deaths into Treasures. Simic Ascendancy starts accumulating counters from the Shrine token generation. Mid-game, drop Felidar Sovereign when your life total is high enough and Maze's End when the mana base includes enough Gates. The deck wins through whichever path opponents fail to address — there are simply too many simultaneous win conditions to interact with all of them at once.