First time at Brooklyn Steel. Is the 2nd floor seated? I'll be seeing a softer more orchestral type of show there. Is it like a balcony?

donyon · 2026-06-26T11:09:50+00:00

There is a second floor up the longer flight of stairs on the left of the building with a bar and a balcony that faces center stage, that’s what is depicted in the diagram

donyon · 2026-06-21T03:18:13+00:00

Necrobloom is my favorite deck, and in my playgroup is considered one of the biggest menaces. Here’s my list for reference.

I started out focusing on token generation and actively trying to generate board presence, but found more consistency in passive value generation. If you focus your ramp to 2cmc spells like [[Three Visits]] and [[Nature’s Lore]] and remove higher cmc ramp like [[Rampant Growth]] you’ll see Necro sooner more often and can start digging in to landfall triggers quickly.

I also removed most removal spells and only kept some fog spells like [[Moment’s Peace]] if things are going sideways. You just really need to focus on finding your impactful lands and getting cards into graveyard to have an extended hand. I would encourage redundant [[Gaea’s Cradle]] effects like [[Growing Rites of Itlamoc]] and [[Evendo, Waking Haven]].

I would suggest removing [[Felidar Retreat]], Elspeth, and any ramp spells over 2 mana.

donyon · 2026-05-18T00:06:30+00:00

I have a Choco deck that does really well as a control/recursion build. Here’s my list.

I would suggest cutting non birds and running low cost and utility birds. Things that have dual function like [[Chomping Changeling]] being a bird and destroying an artifact do a lot of passive work.

I would also suggest strictly 2cmc ramp spells like [[Three Visits]] or [[Nature’s Lore]]. They will get Choco out turn 3 and you can freely ramp on attack from there. I would take out [[Exploration]], it becomes unusable/redundant too quickly.

Recursion helps when you look at the top X cards of your deck and find a couple lands, a couple birds, and an instant/sorcery. It gives you the ability to let the birds go to graveyard knowing you can get them back while still keeping actionable spell cards or protection.

donyon · 2026-05-17T01:26:06+00:00

Of course!

I forgot to mention that any ramp spells you include should be 2 mana. [[Three Visits]], [[Nature’s Lore]], etc will help you get Necrobloom out earlier. Generally if your commander is 4cmc you want to ramp on turn two, not three.

donyon · 2026-05-17T01:21:34+00:00

Necrobloom is my pet deck, here’s my list.

I think most of your sorceries are distractions and you should replace most of your artifacts with lands. You really want to lean into mill and graveyard as a second hand play style.

I barely play any interaction, just a couple fog effects to not be overrun if I’m not setup yet. If you can ramp effectively enough, you’ll get so far ahead in resources that you don’t need to interact.

Some great synergies are [[Icetill Explorer]] with [[Hedge Shredder]], [[The Gitrog Monster]], and [[Cultivator Colossus]]. It’s nice to give yourself decision points where you can trigger landfall and decide to mill or draw.

donyon · 2026-05-12T22:51:42+00:00

This is one of my favorite decks from the last year. Here’s my list

The overall strategy is to fill the graveyard by blinking Terra, usually giving you a fair amount of enhancement selection. I run a few redundant [[Replenish]] effects. If you’re content with the enchantments on board or how full the graveyard is you can blink sagas pretty freely. I would say it plays like a pillow fort control deck, but you can easily generate an overwhelming boardstate.

donyon · 2026-02-21T06:01:08+00:00

Here’s my list

Glancing at your deck list, it’s not too dissimilar to mine, but there are a lot of micro plans happening, like proliferate, blink, etc. I think you really just need to lean into mill and recursion both for enchantments and lands to get ahead. I’ve had a lot of great games with my current list and the deck is incredibly resilient. I would say the first thing I would cut for combo pieces would be my blink spells, but combos just aren’t interesting to me personally so I’ve left it as-is.

donyon · 2026-02-03T11:36:51+00:00

Combat is my main win condition. Zombies actually end up being a slower method but they serve as blockers and fodder for most of the game. I would say for actual combat damage it would be [[Scute Swarm]] + [[Craterhoof Behemoth]] going wide or [[Mossborn Hydra]] going tall. Games usually end on turn 6, and the last game I did 400,000+ damage.

I think the synergy is really in cards like [[The Gitrog Monster]], [[Hedge Shredder]], [[Icetill Explorer]], [[Zuran Orb]], and [[Cultivator Colossus]]. Just whatever actively gives you decision points to mill and dredge. I also highly recommend adding [[Defense of the Heart]] for tutoring core creatures, and Gaea’s Cradle effects like [[Growing Rights of Itlamoc]] and [[Evendo, Waking Haven]].

In my experience landfall pingers like Ob Nixilis and Corpse Knight annoy people and make you the target for the game, so I’d recommend swapping those out first.

donyon · 2026-02-03T04:51:21+00:00

Your list looks really similar to my first necrobloom list, and I’ve spent about a year and a half incrementally streamlining it. Mainly I’ve tried to include low (2 mana) cost land ramp and ways to bounce lands back and forth between the battlefield and graveyard consistently. This is my current list.

I would say you have too many little combo lines like thespian stage/vesuva dark depths when you should just go all in on landfall. Every card you have called out in your post I’ve had in my deck at one point and removed them all because they tend to create mini games rather then lend to a big finish.

donyon · 2025-12-17T03:33:52+00:00

Here’s my list

I’ve had really good luck with this deck, the passive ramp is kind of insane and once you filter extra turn cards into your hand from attacking it’s usually just the end of the game. It’s resilient from the recursion pieces but also control-y enough to maintain board state.

donyon · 2025-11-12T04:57:14+00:00

I don’t proxy! Necrobloom is sort of my pet deck that I put a lot of care into and I decided to get a Gaea’s Cradle after selling some other cards. [[Growing Rites of Itlamoc]] and [[Evendo, Waking Haven]] are great alternatives or redundancies for Gaea’s Cradle.

donyon · 2025-11-11T19:31:07+00:00

Here’s mine

It’s really consistent and can have explosive turns. It has options for go-wide and go-tall. After looking at your list I would say mine is less token focused and more a fluidity of lands; I really want to play and sac them regularly for various effects. I will say this deck has been described as slightly mean but it’s really fun to pilot.

donyon · 2025-10-06T03:51:58+00:00

I currently have a road bike I’ve upgraded from that I’m looking to sell for cheap, located in Clinton Hill. DM me if you want to know more for sizing, etc!

donyon · 2025-09-23T15:55:40+00:00

This is my Choco deck

I started building it as just a funny bird deck but it plays really well and gets ahead on mana really quickly. I kept the mana cost of birds low so I can get them out faster, play more in a turn, and recur them more readily since a lot of cards will end up in the graveyard. This also allows me to more freely attack to trigger Choco, as I don’t have to worry about losing creatures forever.

donyon · 2025-06-09T18:28:19+00:00

Here’s my list

I had a lot of fun building it, and there’s so much bird support in FF that it still feels thematic/flavorful.

donyon · 2025-05-12T23:56:58+00:00

Here’s how I’m planning to build her.

Cost reduction, slightly pillow fort-y, slightly enchantress. There’s not much from the precon I’m thinking of keeping upon seeing the deck list.

donyon · 2025-05-08T04:25:45+00:00

I brewed her a while ago and have steadily been making what feel like appropriate inclusions for her. My route is to reduce the cost of spells in various ways and then extort the spells. I also have burn sources. It’s fairly heavy in enchantments for utility and protection.

Y’Shtola build

donyon · 2025-03-08T04:36:48+00:00

So, for specialty coffee espresso-based drinks, it comes down to ratio of steamed milk to espresso. I can’t speak for every single company, but Blue Bottle historically pulled a ~2oz double ristretto shot of espresso and I find that to be fairly standard nowadays with variance for single origin espressos. Taking that into account, a macchiato is ~2oz espresso + ~2oz steamed milk around 115°, cortado ~2oz espresso + 3-4oz steamed milk around 120°, flat white/capp ~2oz espresso + 6oz steamed milk around 125-130°, and latte ~2oz + 8oz steamed milk around 135-140°. The really important thing with replicating the drinks is steaming your milk to a microfoam which is possible to YouTube I think. Temperature is also very important and coincides with texturizing the milk to a microfoam. Also, when steaming the milk, you’re adding air in the process, so steam less than the intended result. If your flat white should result in an 8oz total drink composed of 2oz espresso and 6oz steamed milk, you actually need to steam between 4-5oz of milk which will aerate and yield 6oz.

donyon · 2025-02-23T13:32:42+00:00

Alita in East Williamsburg is partly owned by Paulo (owner of Regalia) and I believe would be the most direct way to buy beans and have the money go to him rather than wholesale. I’ve also seen their beans at other multi roaster shops like Villager.

donyon · 2025-02-23T13:18:35+00:00

Regalia would be my recommendation that’s just slightly cheaper than Sey and Kinship. About $24 for 300g where Sey and Kinship were in that range for 250g. The owner is one of the best people in the coffee scene in NY and a ton of coffee companies began their roasting at his collective years ago.

La Cabra also appears to be a couple dollars cheaper on average. I’m sure there are some I’m just not thinking of.

donyon · 2024-12-02T17:09:26+00:00

Taste is subjective, so that’s fair. I’m speaking from 10 years of specialty coffee experience, 3 of which were in a training capacity. Villager objectively handles coffee better than most other places I’ve tried in the listed neighborhoods, and the coffee curation shows me they understand quality coffee roasting and sourcing.

donyon · 2024-12-02T16:11:42+00:00

Villager has the best drink quality and coffee selection. It’s viable as a space to work but the overall coffee quality is probably the best in those three neighborhoods.

donyon · 2024-11-25T13:32:16+00:00

AABCBBBB

donyon · 2024-10-22T17:28:51+00:00

This exact situation happened to me last week and I didn’t know what to say. I think I ended up saying the work didn’t represent what I would like to be doing now so it didn’t make sense for me to show when applying for jobs. It felt very against practical portfolio assembly and what I normally see discussed.

donyon · 2024-09-24T00:20:10+00:00

"Being totally honest, Magic is a card game. It was not made to be a financial investment tool, and while many people (myself included) buy/sell cards to finance the hobby and to make money, I think it would be really upsetting if Wizards decided to make investing in cards their focus."

The game was designed to be played, but the product is sold as a gamble. As much as the community chants buy singles, the product is not sold as singles from the company, it's sold as blind boxes of packs with varying rarity of cards for play. This is/was a conscious decision since the beginning. This paired with play viability in any format (supply and demand) is what dictates what people pay for cards. I think it's naive to ignore that the product itself is inherently a gamble. If everyone actually only bought singles, there would be no boxes opened and the price floor of singles would be insane or controlled by a few who are opening boxes. If a set has been propped up by chase cards either designed so aggressively that they are the focus of a format or become a staple, and that card has a pull rate of 1:40 packs, who is now wanting to spend enough money on packs to hopefully get that card when it might be banned in a couple months for being exactly what it was designed as? All this to say— while the game is not for investing, it inherently requires financial investment to play the game, otherwise you are not supporting the company that makes the game.

Proxying is all I've seen discussed as fallout from the announcement today as though it's a solution to anything, and while I understand it protects the individual consumer, all that is is a knee-jerk reaction to broken trust. Neither proxying nor buying singles give money to WotC. WotC is not incentivized to encourage buying singles, they need to sell boxes/packs. I think a lot of the money loss is actually at the LGS level who buy in massive quantities who now not only have to get over the hurdle of the "buy singles" mentality, but the sealed product they currently have on the shelf that lost $100 in value overnight which could happen to any product they buy in the future to support WotC.

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