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mr.otto |
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 7:07 pm |
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Draft to win with Future Sight. Give this article a read before your next draft to improve you chances of winning.
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- Formating Changes to come!
The purpose of this article is to share with you my ideas and techniques involving Limited drafts with the newest set, Future Sight. This set is much more wide open than previous sets or blocks. We don’t have guilds or specific creature sets to guide us, so it is our job to determine which color combinations and cards will give us the best deck.
I’ve won my last three drafts, and my brother has won his last two by following a simple methodology and observations. Below is a compilation of thoughts, ideas, techniques, and judgments that will hopefully guide you in the right direction.
Here are our topics:
Drafting strategy
Color choice
Knowledge of individual cards
Drafting strategy
I pick card cards according to several factors. As other people have said: you should try to stick to 2 colors with maybe a splash of a third and you need to strive to have a tight mana curve with drops every turn. I also draft with set colors and combinations in mind.
***Note*** Sometimes MTG gives us themes that work during drafts, such as the Guilds during Ravnica, snow creatures during Coldsnap, and Slivers during the first of Timespiral. For future sight we are not given set color combinations or too strong groups of creatures. One exception may be Rebels. There are a couple of decent Rebel cards in Future Sight, but overall I assert that there
I also pick cards according to how well they fall into these ranked categories:
Bombs
Evasion (tied for 2nd)
Solid Creatures (tied for 2nd)
Removal
Combat Tricks/ Creature Boosts/Card Advantage/Lands/etc
1. Bombs – I placed this first since you will only see a few Bombs and it’s important to get them when you can. Bombs can win you the game if it resolves. A Bomb will swing the tide in your favor. You won’t see too many of these pass you by so grab them if you have the chance.
2. Evasion – Evasion is important. More often than not the game will stall with no one wanting to attack, lose creatures, and be at a disadvantage. Creatures with Fear, Shadow, Flying, etc are less common than non-evasive creatures and will usually deal damage every turn.
3. Solid Creatures – Solid creatures are important since they deal damage and protect your life. Draft games are always about creature combat so stay focused on getting good, solid creatures. Drafting too many other types of spells will end with you getting pummeled on the battleground.
4. Creature Removal – These cards help to keep creature advantage on your side and to remove pesky evasive creatures. Having SOME removal is a must.
5. Combat Tricks/ Creature Boosts/Card Advantage/Lands/etc – cards that let you regenerate creatures, gain life, draw cards, etc are nice, but having too many means that you don’t have enough creatures. If a card is VERY good at what it does, take it, but remember that you are playing in a Creature Centered deck world.
Color Choices
I’ve heard people say to take the best card from the first pack and draft around it. That’s an ok strategy, but remember to consider which other cards are available. A card on it’s own shouldn’t influence your whole deck. Don’t draft a rare where the rest of the color pool won’t help you.
The best way to determine which colors are the best to draft I simply analyze each color with my draft strategies as categories.
Here’s how Future Sight breaks down:
Bombs
White –
Angel of Salvation – very strong flying creature with an ability that can be helpful.
Magus of the Moat – Not very good on it’s own. It works VERY well if you draft flying creatures from then on. Otherwise it’s a bit of a waste.
Blue –
Maelstrom Djinn – 2 turns with a 5/6 flying creature for 6 total mana is fine. It’s really not THAT great of a bomb if you have no other way to deal damage.
Black –
Nihilith – a 4/4 with fear for only 2 mana! Nice!
Shimian Specter – Much better for constructed play. It does deal 2 damage and can help limit their hand, but highly susceptible to removal. I would still consider taking it for outside use (worth at least 10 bucks) but as you’ll see later drafting black is tough in this set.
Tombstalker – a 5/5 flying for a potential BB is amazing.
Red –
Scourge of Kher Ridges – Getting 6RR is tough, but once he hits the field, it’s almost game over. My brother won 2 games by drawing him. He is one of my favorites.
Boldwyr Intimidator – a true Warrior. For 5RR you can have a nearly unblockable 5/5 who can make other creatures unblockable too.
Shah of Naar Isle – a 6/6 with Trample for 3R! the echo gives your opponent 3 cards…but maybe you’ll do enough damage or kill enough creatures to make it worth the card disadvantage.
Tarox Bladewing – Flying, Haste 4/3 for 5 mana isn’t bad. You’ll never get to use his grandeur ability and the triple red requirement is tough, but he’s still a nice card.
Green –
Kavu Primarch – a 3/3 for 3G or a 7/7 for 7G that has convoke is very nice. It is also a common, so you probably will see one of these in the draft. If only he had any form of evasion…
Ravaging Riftwurm – a 6/6 for 1GG isn’t bad, but to have him only be a blocker for 2 turns or attack once when he doesn’t have trample is pointless.
Baru, Fist of Krosa – Also like a perma-boost for your green creatures. At 4/4 for 3GG there are other better rares/bombs, but this one is nice in a heavy green deck.
Imperiosaur – One perfect draft card. You will only be playing basic lands anyway so 4 mana for a 5/5 creature is great. He won’t single handedly turn the game around, but he will make your life easier.
Nactl War-Pride – The triple green cost is well worth it. This card WINS games. If the other player doesn’t remove it during his or her turn, there can be problems. You will deal 3 damage for each tapped creature he or she controls. You will kill any untapped creature with 3 or less power. Every time I put this card on the board I’ve won in less than 2 turns. I’m sure that it won’t be great in constructed, but in draft it is a BOMB. (Imagine the look on my opponent’s face who had been playing a saproling deck. It was great)
Artifact –
Akroma’s Memorial – In Limited this card is better than any card with Akroma in the title and that says a lot. Works with any deck colors. This is the best bomb out there.
Sliver Legion – It’s hard to consider a 7/7 for 5 converted mana that also happens to be a walking +1/+1 for each creature type in play as a worthless draft pick, but it really, really is. Playing 5 colors and/or slivers in Future Sight can’t work.
Conclusion –
Green has the best bombs, followed closely by Red. Black has a couple of decent rares that qualify as bombs. Blue and white are essentially Bomb free zones.
Evasion
White –
Shadow - Auger il-vec, Spirit en-dal,
Protection –Seht’s tiger, Mistmeadow Skulk
Flying – Angel of Salvation, Knight of Sursi,
Blue
Shadow- Infiltrator il-Kor,
Protection - none
Flying – Aven Auger, Cloudseeder, Maelstorm Djinn, Narcromeba, Sarcomite Myr, Whip-Spine Drake, (Arcanum Wings)
Black
Shadow-Cutthroat il-Dal, Stronghold Rats,
Protection - None
Flying - Shimian Spector, Tombstalker, Deep Cavern Imp
Fear - Nihilith
Red
Shadow- None
Protection - Boldwyr Intimidator
Flying - Scourge of Kher Ridges, Tarox Bladewing
Fear -None
Green
Shadow- None
Protection - None
Flying - None
Fear – None
Conclusion –
No surprises here. Blue is the best for drafting evasion creatures. White follows with the second best choice for evasion. Although black has a decent list only three of those cards aren’t rares. The same goes for Red. Apparently green doesn’t worry about evasion in the Future.
Solid Creatures –
I’m looking at the percent of creatures that have a decent mana/power and toughness ratio. That is one mana = a 1/1 creature, two mana = a 2/2 creature. The better the ratio, the more solid the creature.
White – Most creatures are somewhat mana expensive. White tries to make up for this through evasion and prevent damage.
Blue – None of the creatures are at the curve. The creatures are evasive, but can’t go toe-to-to with most creatures.
Black – Most creatures are slightly below the curve, but some have drawbacks to make up for the curve.
Red – Several creatures at the curve and a few below it. Red came ready to fight this time.
Green – Most creatures are at the curve. Several are below the curve. A couple are straight up amazing.
Conclusion
Green has great, solid creatures. It usually does. Red has great creatures. Black as mediocre creatures from a solid vantage point. White and blue have evasive not solid creatures.
Creature Removal
- Black sports the BEST common to remove creatures, but lacks otherwise. Red has the best creature removal as a whole. Blue has some bounce, but not much else and white relies more upon prevention of damage.
Combat Tricks/ Creature Boosts/Card Advantage/Lands/etc –
Each color has it’s own tricks and helpful cards. Depending upon your colors you should pick up a couple of them. None of the colors really shines over another in this department.
Color Choices Conclusion
1. Green – The BEST color in Future sight for drafts. Most of the creatures are solid and have nice abilities. There are several bombs that will turn the tide of the game for you. I ALWAYS have drafted Green and I have always won. I don’t know how I would do if I didn’t.
2. Red – Very solid color as well. Has very good creatures, arguably the best or second to the best common, has removal, and several bombs.
3. White – White has a few key creatures that make life tough for opponents. White makes an excellent second or splash color.
4. Blue –Not as tough as the rest of the Time Spiral block. Still contains plenty of combat tricks/draws/etc and some evasive creatures. It is missing solid creatures and bombs, so it must be part of a stronger creature color to be effective. –I splash blue for shadow and flying many times.
5. Black – Very disappointing even compared to Planar Chaos and Timepiral. Aside from the best removal card of the block and a few VERY nice rares, Black is a bad choice to draft. No one finishing in the top 4 of my drafts has used black. I would try to avoid drafting black. It may not even be worth splashing.
Individual Card Choices
The Worthless – Don’t draft these, ever. If it comes down to these cards or a foil land, take the land. (Monetary wise it may not be the best decision, but draft wise, The cards are worthless)
Barren Glory – This card can NEVER win in a draft. It is that simple
Nix – These cards only work against the Pacts and you won’t see them played since they are rare and have expensive mana costs. This card is dead in hand.
Magus of the Moon – Everyone will be using 98% basic lands anyway!
Force of Savagery – 0 toughness = into graveyard since you rarely will have tricks to save it.
Sliver Legion – Drafting Slivers in FS is bad. There are not enough slivers to justify focusing on them and trying to run 5 colors for one card is stupid.
The Best – Ranked 1-5 *’s with ***** being the best
Commons – You will see more of these, so knowing your commons is the most important step.
Green –
****Llanowar Augur – only G = stops most creatures from damaging you, and can be sacrificed to pump a creature (hopefully with evasion) to deal more damage.
*Llanowar Empath – card advantage = good but high mana cost
*****Sprout Swarm – A friend of mine complained that 5 mana for a 1/1 saproling was a bad deal, and this card was an absolute waste. What my friend failed to see was the fact that this card is an instant. At some point a limited game is going to level out and neither player will want to attack for fear of losing creatures. This is where Sprout Swarm is your best friend. Wait until it is your opponent’s end of turn. THEN tap your creatures to cast sprout swarm. You get to untap your lands/creatures during your upkeep anyway. Playing the card this way nets you creatures and keeps the card in your hand.
***Nessian Courser – very solid 3/3 for 3. Not much can beat it down. Cool artwork.
**Sporoloth Ancient – Very useful if you are using saporling deck, otherwise so/so
*****Thornweald Archer – Kills any size creature (even with flying) or stops them from attacking. Maybe not an automatic fist pick, but it does round out the mana curve nicely. It does a lot for the 2 mana.
Red –
***Bogardan Lancer – a 2/2 with flanking for 2 mana = thank you.
**Emberwilde Augur – It’s nice to hold these down on the table and know that they can be 3 damage to the dome at the beginning of your upkeep.
****Fatal Attaction – Can kill all 2 or 1 toughness creatures now and all 3-4 toughness creatures the next turn. The only way to deal 4 damage with one card.
*****Gathan Raiders- a potential 5/5 creature that can be used in ANY color deck. Wow.
** Rift Elemental – AMAZING is you are suspending creatures. Otherwise a mediocre 1 drop. I played him and really liked him.
****Flowstone Embrace – A decent removal card or pump for a big creature you choose.
*** Fomari Nomad – Fat creatures are good.
Blue –
****Aven Augur – A nice combination of evasion and combat tricks/removal
****Foresee – Card advantage is good and this common will be used heavily in Constructed because it does what it needs to. It draws 2 cards and it gives you the choice of which cards you take.
***Infiltrator Il-Kor – a tough shadow creature. I’ve won games with this card. The 2 mana suspend and 2 turns wait is very, very good especially when it deals 3 damage a turn most of the time. Unfortunately it is an easy removal target.
**Logic Knot – There aren’t too many counters in Future Sight. This one is pretty good mid to late game when your opponent tries to play a bomb.
Black – Don’t draft black, but if you must…
****Augur of Skulls – Regenerate is good. Card advantage is good.
*Grave Peril – Can be helpful. I’m not sure if there is a wording issue, but all your opponent has to do is play a crappy creature, then play the good one to avoid this trap.
****Ichor Slick – Best way to remove a 3-toughness creature. It doesn’t stand up to Last Gasp, but you can’t draft them.
**DeathRattle – Better late game, but still decent.
White –
**Augur il-Vec
*** Judge Unworthy – decent creature removal and deck sorting for white
***Knight of Sursi – good evasion and abilities
****Blade of the Sixth Pride – 3 toughness for 2 mana is nice. Very good early game and can hold off attacks late game.
Uncommons
Green –
***Centaur Omenreader – This makes playing creatures much easier during your second phase, but if you have 4 mana already it’s usually not that big of a concern. Playing this then sprout swarm, however….(3 mana for 1st saproling, 2 for every one that turn since you can tap the new creature)
*****Imperiosaur – See “bombs”
*****Nactl War-Pride – See “bombs”
Red –
**Sparkspitter- Very nice way to discard extra lands and make 3/1 hasty trampling tokens.
****Boldwyr Intimidator – See “bombs”
**Skizzik Surger – Would be much better with trample, but there are two sinarios that work well for this card. One, your opponent has no blockers and two, late game when sacrificing 2 lands isn’t a big deal this card can pay off.
White –
***Even the Odds – very nice play on turn 3 if you played second and your opponent has landed a creature each time.
*****Spirit en-Dal – playing a 2/1 shadow creature for 3 mana is nice, but I LOVE the forecast ability. Make your biggest creature unblockable for 2 mana! Crazy.
***Bound in silence – Deep down I know that this is an over priced pacifism, but it is the only card like it in Limited now. Plus it has rebel attributes which may come into play sometimes.
****Mistmeadow Skulk – Very nice blocker against big creatures. The life gain is nice also.
Blue –
***Cloudseeder – Make many, many evasive creatures. 2 mana isn’t bad for a flyer also
**Cryptic Annelid – I love scry, and this is almost the king of scry, but it isn’t always helpful if you have a good ratio of creatures/lands anyway.
**Mystic Speculation- did I mention that I love scry. I really want to build a blue combo deck now. Unfortunately scry may or may not help in limited if you have a bomb.
***Arcamum Wings – One of the nicest combat tricks. Give a creature evasion that otherwise has none.
***Second Wind- Give your own creature vigilance or perma-tap an opponent’s creature.
*** Spin into Myth – Take a creature, put him on the bottom of opponent’s library = nice. The mana is a bit tough, but you want to play this on a fattie anyway right?
Black -
**Snake Cult Initiation – Slap this baby on a card with evasion and its soon game over.
****Pooling Venom - Making them hurt to get mana is cool. So is destroying a land later when you have extra mana.
Rares
You won’t see too many rares in drafting. Many rares are only good in certain situations. Basically if you don’t see a rare in the Bomb section, it’s really not that great for Limited play. But take it if it helps your color scheme and it’s decent (or if it’s worth a lot of money)
Conclusion:
Future Sight is a fun set to draft. Things feel wide open now. We are not being focused towards specific creatures or color schemes like with previous sets. Hopefully you’ve glanced over this article and will try out my aggro creature based drafting techniques and hopefully you’ll do well. Best of luck. Till next time. |
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Anvar |
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 7:40 pm |
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I like the idea of this article, and it looks like you have gone into some serious depth. My main concern at the moment, is that you talk as if we will be drafting only FS. In fact, drafts that most players will participate in (now that the set has been released) will be TS/PC/FS drafts, and I think your article should reflect that.
The point being, I suppose, that cards you get in FS are not going to be cards you build your deck around, since 2/3 of your deck will already have been chosen.
Anvar |
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Felipe Musco |
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 7:52 pm |
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Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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Yes, the article kind of "misses". The idea would be about a WHOLE draft, and how some Future Sight cards could fall into place in those strategies, which cards could be potential bombos for the archetype you’re playing, etc. But most of the bombs I already covered, too... Don’t really know where you should go with this article. Maybe revamping it to evolving a precon? Nah, mtg.com already did that... Yeah, kind of lost... |
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mr.otto |
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 6:18 am |
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Well, I did feel that the other two releases have been well covered by Anvar when they where released. Also the three drafts I went to where release drafts and had all 3 Future Sight or 1 Timespiral and 2 Future Sight. In those cases Future Sight WAS the big concern. I suppose a section dedicated to drafting TS-PC-FS would be in order?
I did notice that Felipe and I shared similar thoughts on many of the cards for Limited play, especially for the Bombs section. I wrote all of the bombs section before you posted your article. I guess that great minds think alike? I think that most of those choices where fairly obvious though. |
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Anvar |
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 9:28 am |
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I understand that most of your limited experiences come from the Pre/release events, but unfortunately such drafts won’t happen again (at least not as sanctioned tournaments). For this article to be useful, I think it really needs to approach a draft from TS/PC/FS.
What cards in FS work well with strategies that start in TS/PC? What cards should you be looking to pick up early to make later cards work? What colours and strategies have been improved and/or weakened by the change from TS/TS/PC to the full block?
Anvar |
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mr.otto |
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 10:59 am |
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I definately see the points being brought up.
Two sections that I’ll add:
1. Timespiral Block Archetypes
2. Viable color combinations
And what is gained/lost in each through the addition of Future Sight.
I’ll probably start the sections this weekend. |
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physcosick |
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 1:23 pm |
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Like the previous people have said, one problem I have with this is discussing developing a strategy with the 3rd pack received in a draft. Therefore, at that point, your strategy is already set in stone, pretty much.
Speaking of strategy, I have a problem with yours:
Quote:
I pick card cards according to several factors. As other people have said: you should try to stick to 2 colors with maybe a splash of a third and you need to strive to have a tight mana curve with drops every turn. I also draft with set colors and combinations in mind.
My problem here is simple: you rarely should go into a draft with a set goal in mind. Why? Simple:
a) you never know what cards your gonna open
b) you never know what cards your gonna be passed
c) you never know what other people are gonna be drafting
You focus so much on sticking to certain colors but that is often a flawed system. You may have won the last few drafts but I say you got very lucky if you were able to stick to colors and make a good deck. Why? Because you would, essentially, probably be battling 2 or 3 people for cards. If you think green is so great in limited, other people might think that, too. If that happens, then your deck is going to be weak because you won’t be passed strong colors. Instead, you should be passing signals to other people at the table and receiving and reading signals from other people. What happens when you start drafting GR and then get passed a pack late in pack #1 and there are a bunch of good white cards? Obviously no one is drafting white heavily. Therefore, if you pick up on white, you’ll be passed some of the best white cards available. There is no point in battling because your outnumbered and your deck will be bad.
Speaking of white….
“white relies more upon prevention of damage.” … no not really. This is the time where I describe to you my experience in winning the drafts we did when a friend bought a box of future sight. To sum it up, UW is the best. That was what I went for because no one else liked the colors but they lost to it. Both sets are full of evasive creatures (cheap suspending fliers and shadow guys) that no one can do with. Plus, blue has bounce, a couple destructions, as well as some “does not untap during its controller’s upkeep”. Plus blue has some of the best cards in Mystical Speculation, Forsee (both r underrated, imo), and that one that scryes 1, 2 and 3. And white contains the best card imo, and in my experiences, Judge Unworthy.
But you like green… ok… so answer me this. If you draft green so much and you think it’s great… then why did you fail to include one of, if not they, best green creature to come out of this set? What is this creature? Quagnoth. Split second and can’t be targeted on a decent body (the discard clause isn’t too important). It’s a definite mention because this should be high on the draft list for anyone.
So since my fingers are starting to hurt I’ll point out another problem I have and show you my order of importance.
Evasion-> you need good creatures that get in for damage to win
Removal-> any good deck has several ways to deal with guys
Solid Creatures-> not as important but you need them to survive and deal some damage. With some colors, you can’t get evasion, they need lots of critters.
Bombs-> Bombs are by far NO WHERE NEAR the most important thing. The fact is, you will prolly only get 2 bombs in your deck. So 1:20th of your deck is big guys. That is not game altering especially when your opponent plays removal. And if you play the guy… they could just fly over you for the alpha strike because they have evasion and you don’t.
Combat Tricks/ Creature Boosts/Card Advantage/Lands/etc-> agreed.
Finally, my problem with these types of articles is that you just look at the set and state facts about the cards that anyone could have said. There was no insight and I learned nothing from reading this.
Don’t get my tone of voice wrong here, too. I swear this is constructive. |
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Anvar |
Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 12:07 pm |
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I was hoping that you would have made some changes to this article. It really needs two changes, 1 big and 1 small:
1] Cosmetically, it could benefit from reformatting and tidying up. Make links between sections, have a table of contents etc.
2] An article about drafting FS simply has to deal with TPF drafting. No one will be drafting FS by itself, and an article needs to reflect that the Future Sight pack will be the third of the packs to be opened. What changes to Time Spiral block draft does FS bring? Which strategies and colour combinations look the strongest across all three packs?
If you make these changes, and I know that the 2nd is a big change, then your article will be much improved. At the moment, I don’t think I can give it more than a 3.
Hope to see some changes,
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mr.otto |
Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 7:41 pm |
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-I’ve been really, really busy with finishing up school. I had WAY more work during the last two weeks than I planned. I really haven’t had time to think about MTG lately, and probably won’t be able to before the end of the month
- To physcosick, thanks for your impute. I did take your criticism as constructive. I agree that drafting strategy is tough since
a) you never know what cards your gonna open
b) you never know what cards your gonna be passed
c) you never know what other people are gonna be drafting
Drafting is a bit of luck, but having an idea of what is good and what is not will really help out. I still conditionally disagree with your choice of creature removal over bombs. I wouldn’t take a shock over a Scourge of Kher Ridges, but I would take a last gasp over a war-pride. You get several chances to draft removal, but little chance to draft a good bomb, but there are other factors at work.
-Anyway, I have more work to do now. Sorry that I won’’t finish writing a wider view of drafting before the end of the month. |
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omnipotentnoel |
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 4:15 pm |
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I am preaty much going to go with what everyone else has said. You have only used FS in your draft and that will never happen. It will be TS/PC/FS draft. While u have prvoided a analisis of cards most of them i do not aggre with. |
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