Ashling- Army of One (EDH / Commander)

We've witnessed the conversations before- "what's a fun, cheap, unusual commander (read: gimmicky) that my opponents won't see coming? (Until the second time you play the deck)"
"Lol Ashling the Pilgrim + 99 Mountains"

This deck is an attempt to take the gimmickiness and boringly simple approach out of Ashling the Pilgrim without removing the novelty of having your commander be the only creature in your deck (with the exception of a single germ token).

There are a few major points that one needs to keep in mind when building/piloting a one creature deck:

1. Your board presence is almost always the lowest
   • not necessarily a bad thing. Coming across as nonthreatening can be a useful political tool in a lot of situations.
2. You will need to recast your commander a LOT.
   • Consistent access to ample Mana is vital so the deck runs above average lands. Ashling is a Mana sink on the field and in the command zone so flooding out isn't our worst issue.
3. Most other decks function fundamentally differently than ours.
   • This is our key to victory. With such a major self imposed restriction on our deck list, we have a wide selection of effects that can leave opponents with a lot of dead/useless cards without much/any negative impact on ourselves. More on this later.

With these factors in mind, we can begin to look at some of the packages this deck runs in greater detail.

Let's first look at Ashling directly. We have a 1/1 body that grows at a rate of 1 +1/+1 counter per 2 Mana spent. If her ability is activated 3 times in one turn she blows up, dealing damage to all creatures and players (notably not planeswalkers) equal to her total accumulated counters. So we have a commander than can get big and stompy and act as a board wipe in a pinch. How do we take advantage of her abilities?
First, we want ways to accumulate counters on her quickly and cheaply to make the explosion effect more formidable. Opal Palace and Forge of Heroes can put counters on our commander as soon as she hits the field, so they're worth the opportunity cost of activating them over tapping them for mana. Blade of the Bloodchief, and Ring of Valkas are the only worthwhile noncreature, nonland +1/+1 counter givers in our colors, so they're in. Victory Chimes and Braid of Fire are both great sources for lots of Mana that would otherwise go to waste if we didn't have an instant speed Mana sink in the command zone. Lastly, Scythe of the Wretched and lifelinking equipment like Loxodon Warhammer, Batterskull (our only other creature source) and Basilisk Collar make Ashling's explosions a lot scarier.
These are all still pretty slow effects though, so we should seek to protect Ashling not only from opponents' removal but also herself. Having Ashling survive her explosion saves us Mana and gives us an attacker/blocker on a usually empty board. There are several ways to keep Ashling alive upon activating her ability for it's third time: you can give her indestructible, protection from red, make her power and toughness without counters higher than the number of counters on her, etc. That third one is risky though so let's focus on the first 2.
Darksteel Plate and Hammer of Nazahn both give Ashling indestructible, and each has its own advantages. Our options in mono red are limited so we'll happily run them both. Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of War and Peace not only give us pro-red, they also give us pro white and blue, and alot of incidental value when we go attacking. Both are auto-includes. Magebane Armor is a unique effect that works fantastically with Ashling and a lot of red board wipe spells in general; another easy inclusion. To round out this package we have Swiftfoot Boots (not Lightning Greaves though because we can't do the Greaves dance to get around shroud with only one creature) and a few red "counter spells" That can at least punish opponents for making us lose our commander. Of note, Reiterate is included over reverberate because its casting cost + its buyback cost is the same amount as activating Ashling 3 times. So we can pass the turn with 6 Mana open and be ready wipe the board, copy a spell repeatedly, or just grow our commander to suit our needs.
Finally, we also have Fling and Homeward Path at our disposal to get around steal effects and harmful auras, or even just fling in response to removal to send a message.

Whether Ashling gets to stick around very long or not, we're still at a major disadvantage when it comes to blockers- our opponents will have several to very many and we will only ever get 2 at most (germ token). Luckily there are ways to even the playing field or make our opponents creatures a detriment. Smoke and Caverns of Despair are a couple of weird old enchantments that can drastically limit our opponents' ability to attack and block without hindering our board in the slightest (because our board presence is already worse than a normal deck brought to it's knees by these effects but that's not important)
Portcullis is a fun artifact to drop on an early board with Ashling and a dork or something out, and it can hold up all other creatures in exile after they ETB until it leaves the battlefield. As an early drop that can grow very quickly, Ashling is able to wreak havoc on life totals while this is in play. Lastly, Repercussion will make any token decks fear for their lives while they stare down Ashling's ability, to the point that they'll be happy to lose their board if it means their creatures aren't around to multiply the damage they take from an Ashling explosion. Outside of these, we also run Blood Moon because anything to disproportionately slow our opponents down is helpful to us, and mountains are the best land type anyway.

Speaking of mountains, let's look at our land choices next. We run Snow Covered Mountains for 3 reasons: Scrying Sheets, Glacial Crevasses, and Extraplanar Lens. Glacial Crevasses ties back into the previous segment about having little to no blockers, since we don't need any when our lands can prevent it all anyway. In the same vein we also run Glacial Chasm and Thaumatic Compass/ Spires of Orazca. These were chosen over Maze of Ith for a few reasons. First of all, chasm is able to also prevent damage that Ashling would deal to us outside of combat. Second, Spires is able to smooth our land drops and later tap for Mana so it has more versatility which I value highly in an offbeat deck like this one. To help mitigate the drawbacks of Glacial Chasm and Crevasses, we're also running Crucible of Worlds, so while we're at it we also include a variety of lands that sac themselves for value since we can recur them easily. Buried Ruin and Inventors' fair in particular are good here since they can find and recur the Crucible to keep things consistent. One more cute interaction we have at our disposal is using Crevasses and Crucible to sac and recur our snowy mountains while Valakut the Molten Pinnacle is out and active for reliable damage every turn.

The remaining slots in the deck are a lot less focused on Ashling and more focused on general utility and making sure our weird strategy runs smoothly. Artifact recursion like Daretti, Scrap Savant and Trash for Treasure keep our powerful equipment around, Faithless Looting and Risk Factor get us some cards, and Mizzix's Mastery lets us do any/all of these things another time. Koth of the Hammer and our array of mana rocks provide ramp, while Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Mirage Mirror can fill a variety of roles. Everything else is pretty standard removal and goodstuff for mono red, so not much further explanation is necessary.