MTG Salvation

I don't know how prevalent of a meme it is anymore, but back when I started playing EDH, there was a joke that a good "first EDH deck" was Ashling and 99 Mountains. This deck kind of grew out of that, starting with at least 50 mountains and then slowly becoming less and less land heavy as time went on. Eventually I retired that first iteration of my Ashling deck a few years ago as it was stagnating and moved on to other decks and ideas.

Fast-forward to more recent history and I keep talking about building a new mono-red Commander deck (Ib's meme goblins aside) and just can't quite bring myself to end up building Hazoret or any of the other options I was considering. A few weeks ago it just hit me that if I was reminiscing about the Ashling deck so fondly, I could just resurrect it and rebuild it with 3+ years of new cards available for it, so I did, and this is the result. Rising like a phoenix from its own ashes, I present to you this new version, which I call Ashling's Purifying Pilgrimage.

So what does this deck do? Well, the deck focuses around Ashling and maximizing her ability to blow up the world and reap benefits from it. A few of the key ways to do that are by giving her deathtouch and by preventing the damage that she would deal to herself. On top of those, I can give her lifelink to really put myself out of reach of a lot of normal threats. And then there are cards like Scythe of the Wretched which can actively steal everything that Ashling kills, commanders excluded.

Beyond the Ashling-focused strategies, the deck has the usual mono-red focuses of big mana and getting extra cards. Mono-red benefits from having Gauntlet of Power, which is a third mana-boosting rock, though its price has shot up about 500% from when I acquired one for the previous build of the deck. So what do we do with big mana other than pump up Ashling? We cast big spells. Planeswalkers, big artifact creatures, ways to draw even more cards, and of course equipping our equipment.

Speaking of equipment, I wouldn't necessarily call this deck a voltron deck as the pieces aren't there to make Ashling a lethal attacker, but that's a pretty valuable side-benefit as games get longer, though almost any creature in the deck can pick up the gear and benefit from it.

That's about all I can think to say about this deck for now, but I welcome your questions and comments about the list as always.

I also started with 99 mountain Ashling and built from there. Never put it down. Still my favorite EDH deck. I'm currently at close to 60 lands. Ive ran more spells but took a lot back out. I like to dump as much mana into Ashling as possible and only use mana otherwise for essential spells that increase how threatening Ashling is. I put pressure on players early with commander/combat damage from a large Ashling but always have mana open to threaten blowing up the board and doing a lot of damage to players if me or any of my essential permanents are targeted. I play very political. My build is currently more of a rattlesnake / voltron build than a controlling one. I try to finish the game with a big burn spell via comet storm or chandra's ignition.

I like the inclusion of Walking Ballista. Going to pick one up for my deck now. I would highly recommend extraplanar lens & heartstone for your build.

Quote from JamesTheIV »

I also started with 99 mountain Ashling and built from there. Never put it down. Still my favorite EDH deck. I'm currently at close to 60 lands. Ive ran more spells but took a lot back out. I like to dump as much mana into Ashling as possible and only use mana otherwise for essential spells that increase how threatening Ashling is. I put pressure on players early with commander/combat damage from a large Ashling but always have mana open to threaten blowing up the board and doing a lot of damage to players if me or any of my essential permanents are targeted. I play very political. My build is currently more of a rattlesnake / voltron build than a controlling one. I try to finish the game with a big burn spell via comet storm or chandra's ignition.

I like the inclusion of Walking Ballista. Going to pick one up for my deck now. I would highly recommend extraplanar lens & heartstone for your build.

Heartstone I might give a try, but I don't like the land disadvantage of Extraplanar Lens. I'm not really in the market for a 4th mana boosting effect anyway. Glad to meet another Ashling afficionado, though