This is my 2024 Path of Precons deck (see my other decks for the Azorius Flying Tribal one from last year). Path of Precons is our local store challenge where we buy a precon each and then upgrade it over a few months, with a budget of £10 a month (limited to no more than 10 cards per month).
This year I'm doing Orzhov sacrifice matters with the "Blood Rites" precon from the new Lost Caverns of Ixalan set. I actually bought the precon because there were a few Vampires I wanted specifically for my Edgar Markov deck so I've taken those out. One of those was the actual commander Clavileno, First of the Blessed so I'll be using the secondary commander Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher.
The deck is based around sacrifice synergies. With the original commander this was about sacrificing vampires to turn them into flying demons, but with Carmen it's about growing her whenever any player sacrifices a permanent, and recurring permanents from the graveyard whenever she attacks.
I played the deck a few times with Carmen at the helm during December 2023 to get an idea of how it works but I'm not allowed to change any cards until the end of January 2024, although I can plan what I want to change.
My initial impression of the deck was it can be pretty fun if you take advantage of recurring things you wouldn't normally think to recur, such as lands. In the second game I played with it I was able to recur Myriad Landscape a couple of times which is great ramp in colours that often struggle to ramp, and incidentally gains life and pumps the commander every time I sac it. To this end, I'm considering lands like Silent Clearing and Fabled Passage along with creatures like Solemn Simulacrum and Burnished Hart as my early changes. Carmen can trigger a surprising number of times as these days most commander games involve Treasure (and sometimes also Clues, Food etc.) so she is able to capitalize on this well.
There are helpfully a few spells that are sacrifice-based board wipes such as Promise of Loyalty, Single Combat and Cataclysmic Gearhulk which can replace the mass-removal in the precon (Damn, Olivia's Wrath and Austere Command as they will simultaneously wipe opponents creatures and grow Carmen into a massive threat.
The original deck leans quite a bit into vampire tribal as vampires matter to the original commander; there are a number of vampires included as a result of this that will be irrelevant for my build. Things like Legion Lieutenant, Crossway Troublemakers etc. can come out but I do need to keep free sac outlet vampires such as Viscera Seer and Yahenni, Undying Partisan.
The original deck comes with the money card Exquisite Blood and it would be easy enough to just put in the other half of the combo (Sanguine Bond), but I think I would rather have a couple of creatures that do the same thing instead so I am planning to put in Cliffhaven Vampire and Epicure of Blood.
I already own a graveyard recursion deck in Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and this uses the trusty Reveillark/Karmic Guide combo, so I thought I might also use this here. Typically I would use Elenda, the Dusk Rose with this combo to generate infinite lifelinkers, but as I'm keeping both Blood Artist and Cruel Celebrant in the deck I can just drain everyone with infinite Reveillark/Guide sacrificing.
The other combo I'm looking at is with Animation Module. This is something I instantly wanted in the deck as I can generate sacrifice fodder for Carmen every time I put a +1/+1 counter on her, as long as I can pay to activate the Module. To these two cards we can then add Ashnod's Altar and we have an infinite combo. Sac something to the altar to generate 2 colourless mana, put a counter on Carmen and gain a life, use one of the colourless mana to activate the module to get a servo, sac the servo and rinse and repeat. This gives infinite lifegain, infinite colourless mana, infinite etb and death triggers and makes Carmen infinitely big.
The other card I'd like to include a bit further down the line (because of budget constraints it probably can't be in the first month) is Revel in Riches. This is not only a wincon and ramp package in itself, it also gives the resource to grow Carmen and gain a lot of life. Assuming I keep Grave Pact in the deck, it synergises quite well with Revel.
There are some creatures in the precon which will generate tokens on death such as Elenda, the Dusk Rose and Elenda's Hierophant but I am keen to add some bigger token generators - something like Myr Battlesphere. If I'm able to cast a Battlesphere, sacrifice it to a sac outlet and get Carmen big enough to recur it I can keep doing this turn after turn to build up an army of Myrs or grow Carmen to a huge size.
Here is the deck as I ultimately want it to look after a few months of upgrades. This is subject to change depending on how it plays out.
[https://archidekt.com/decks/6203948/carmen_path_of_precons_2024]
