A Fire Burns In My Heart

Commander / EDH* Control Mono-Red Primer

aloofmilk

Removal&Protection (23)

• 1x Abrade
• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Blood Moon
• 1x Chandra's Ignition
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Damping Sphere
• 1x Disrupt Decorum
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Magebane Armor
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Rolling Earthquake
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Scour from Existence
• 1x Smash to Smithereens
• 1x Star of Extinction
• 1x Steel Hellkite
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Volcanic Offering
• 1x War's Toll

Land (37)

• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Forgotten Cave
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Hammerheim
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 22x Mountain
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Spinerock Knoll
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Terrain Generator
• 1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Value (21)

• 1x Arcbond
• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Dictate of the Twin Gods
• 1x Dualcaster Mage
• 1x Heartstone
• 1x Jaya Ballard
• 1x Koth of the Hammer
• 1x Magebane Armor
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Repercussion
• 1x Reverberate
• 1x Scythe of the Wretched
• 1x Stuffy Doll
• 1x Sulfuric Vortex
• 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
• 1x Vicious Shadows
• 1x Wild Ricochet
• 1x Worn Powerstone
• 1x Zealous Conscripts

CardAdvantage (16)

• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Conqueror's Galleon  ^Flip
• 1x Daretti, Scrap Savant
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Ghirapur Orrery
• 1x Karn, Scion of Urza
• 1x Magus of the Wheel
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Planar Bridge
• 1x Reforge the Soul
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Spinerock Knoll
• 1x Staff of Nin
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip
• 1x Vance's Blasting Cannons  ^Flip

Commander (1)

Ramp (19)

• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Dreamstone Hedron
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Koth of the Hammer
• 1x Mana Flare
• 1x Mana Geyser
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Pyromancer's Goggles
• 1x Ruby Medallion
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Terrain Generator
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Worn Powerstone

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Are you tired of the typical control decks like Kruphix, God of Horizons, Brago, King Eternal, and third one? Do you enjoy understand that symmetrical does not mean equal? Do you think the WUBG in WUBRG are silent? Then Ashling the Pilgrim is the commander for you!

The Commander

Ashling is an interesting control commander. Her ability, which lets you threaten a mass board wipe plus heavy face damage at a moment's notice, keeps creatures constantly in check whilst slowly grinding out your opponents. As such, she is both your primary control piece and your primary win condition.

But to truly play the deck properly, you must first understand how she works. Her ability will only wipe the board if it is the third time the ability has resolved in a turn. Not the third time you activate it this turn, and not the third time you activate it in general. This means A) you can spend time building her up by putting up to two counters on her a turn. B) If an opponent responds to the third activation, you can reactivate it to attempt to pop her again. This works because, again, it checks resolutions, not activations. C) If ashling lives past her third activation, she cannot explode again, but further activations will still place counters. D) If ashling does not survive the third activation, or for any other reason dies, and is recast, her activation count will restart from 0, rather than continuing from your previous activation number.

Because of the nature of Ashling's ability, she thrives against creature based strategies, but can still work against non-creature strategies. Unfortunately, her ability also has a negative impact on our deck, as we can't really run many creatures. Because we are constantly board wiping, either through Ashling or various other cards we run, creatures that aren't crucial are wasted space. Additionally, mono-red is a less competitive color combination to be in for control, as your access to card draw, ramp, and answers are limited. Despite this, Ashling still makes for an interesting and fun way to play control that no other commander can really replicate.

Key Cards

Repercussion: Oh baby this is the big one. Repercussion makes our job so much easier. Because we run fewer creatures than most decks, our commander and other damage based board wipes go from solid removal to instant win conditions. Dropping a Star of Extinction, Blasphemous Act, or even an Arcbond after someone else's creature get's blocked can be deadly. Just be careful, as even with the few creatures we have, we can still get really hurt by this.

Vicious Shadows: Similar to repercussion, Vicious Shadows is far less dangerous to ourselves, but far more expensive to cast. Cost aside, it lets us potentially target kill someone.

Opal Palace: This card really helps to make Ashling more impactful. Even if you use it to cast ashling for the first time in a game, she will enter with one counter, and later in the game it can turn her into a real threat without having to wait several turns.

Scour from Existence: Gotta deal with enchantments some how.

Magebane Armor: This lets ashling survive her own explosion, which lets us rebuild her quickly, as well as makes cards like Blade of the Bloodchief more impactful, and Repercussion less detrimental. It also makes removing ashling a pain, as your opponent's can't use damaged based removal either.

Scythe of the Wretched: This is one of our win conditions. When Ashling pops, a trigger will go on the stack for each creature killed by her, including one for herself. As such, you will reanimate every creature she killed, along with herself. This can easily turn around a game. Keep in mind: Triggered abilities resolve in active player non active player order. If you kill a creature with persist on your turn, for example, The stack will look like: Scythe Persist And as such the persist will resolve first. Because the card is no longer in the graveyard when scythe resolves, the trigger will fizzle. However, if you should kill a persist creature through blocking, your opponent would be the active player, and in this case you would reanimate before the persist trigger resolved.

Basilisk Collar: This card lets you go long and makes it so you can pop for less to wipe the board, making it pretty crucial. Remember, lifelink is a replacement effect, not a triggered ability, so if an activation would kill you but the lifegain would bring you back, you will not lose.

Any Card with a symmetrical effect: Cards like Gauntlet of Power, Ghirapur Orrery, and Reforge the Soul can seem dangerous to use because they benefit our opponents as well as us, but this is not the case. It is important to remember that while a card might be symmetrical in design, that doesn't mean its impact will be equal. Every deck may be able to benefit from these cards, but our deck is built to capitalize on them. Sure Manaflare seems dangerous because every deck needs mana, but not every deck has a reliable place to put that mana. Reforge the Soul may refill our opponent's hands, but it also makes our Vicious Shadows better, and can ruin another player's good hand to boot. Don't play these cards blindly, as they will have a positive impact on your opponents, but remember we are still the ones getting the most use out of them when played properly.

I love feedback, so please leave your suggestions, experiences, questions, and opinions in the comments.

Date added	7 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.68
Tokens	City's Blessing, Construct 0/0 C, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant, Emblem Jaya Ballard, Emblem Koth of the Hammer