Sphere of Fire


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion

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First, I think that this card should have recharge either at the end of this turn or start of your turn.

Second, this card has new behaviour with entertaining consequences.

Valeros displays Sphere of Fire, has an encounter, discards the spell for an extra d6. Someone casts Cure on him during this turn, shuffling Sphere of Fire into the deck. When the end of turn arrives, he is supposed to banish the card but it is nowhere to be found. Even without this case, it is unclear whether it is supposed to be rechargeable if discarded for its power given the wording on the card. (I suggest that end of this turn and using the power call for a discard, with a power that either banishes or recharges the card when you would discard it from play.)

If this card were Arcane-only, it would also interact strangely with Alahazra Tempest's ability to gain Arcane until the end of the encounter. It doesn't even need to be played during an encounter.

Can it be displayed during a combat check (or for that matter, in an encounter)? It gives a new, optional power which can be used to choose your skill for the encounter. (I believe there is another discussion about this for Rage.)

Sovereign Court

What's the text on the card? When it comes to timing of playing cards, context is important.


Sphere of Fire wrote:
Display this card. While displayed, for your combat check, you may use your Arcane or Divine skill + 1d6; you may additionally discard this card to add another 1d6. At the end of your turn, if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card; otherwise, attempt an Arcane or Divine 9 check. If you succeed, recharge this card; if you fail, discard it.

Sovereign Court

I'd read it like Rage. You can play it on the check, but you have to use the ability (use your Arcane or Divine +d6) on that check. Non-combat encounters though, no you could not play it because it doesn't affect the check, or even have the option to.

It would have to be reworded to properly explain how to do it, but no, Curing it wouldn't negate banishing it. Probably something along the lines of

Quote:
At the end of your turn or when you would discard this card for its power during a combat check


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I think the card is quite clear. You only check to banish/recharge it if you do not use the power for the additional d6.

Sovereign Court

If you use the spell you banish it, but if you make it even more powerful, you don't? That makes no sense. Well, Flenta maybe.


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The power of the card is that is sticks around for multiple encounters. If you use the extra dice, you a) can't use it on future encounters and b) lose the ability to recharge it. For the vast majority of casters, losing the ability to recharge the spell is a big disadvantage. It's the entire factor that balances this spell against something like scorching ray.

Sovereign Court

Oh I agree not recharging is a fair trade. However, non-casters losing the banish requirement in exchange for better. I don't know what to say besides "no".


To be fair, people without the arcane trait won't want to play the spell (flenta excluded). Letting them discard a card to lose a combat isn't actually an advantage. And having a couple of spells that work for Flenta isn't a bad thing


Based on the text, to me, it's not "quite clear" that it's only recharged at the end of your turn if you use the second part of the ability.

It has a Display ability and that ability is made of several sentences that all take effect. Displaying the card is its own sentence. That is how you -play- the ability on that card. Once the ability is played and it is on display, additional parts of that ability occur, and -BOTH- parts of beneficial bit of the ability are in the -SAME- sentence. The recharge is the -next- sentence. Regardless of whether you use part A (just display only benefits) or part A & B (Display and Discard benefits) [or even C: you gained absolutely no benefit from the card whatsoever your entire turn because you had no Combat Checks to deal with], you may recharge it at the end of your turn. If you do not recharge it, it's discarded.

Once you play the card, you have to deal with the entirety of each ability that is activated upon playing it, you can't pick and choose parts of the ability and neglect to follow through with the rest of it that isn't optional. The only optional part of this ability is whether you choose to discard it or not during a Combat Check. Whether you discard it or not, the rest of the ability still kicks in, and at the end of your turn, you have to deal with it.

It doesn't stick around for multiple turns if you played it on your own turn but it can still stick around for multiple encounters, as its non-discard benefit does last until the end of your turn if you do not discard it.

And while cards don't have memories, ongoing effects do still exist.

The card doesn't say "If this card is displayed or in your discard pile: if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card..."

So, to me, whether it's Displayed, in your Discard Pile, in your Deck, back in your Hand, or even Buried, at the end of your turn, you still have to deal with the consequences of having played it: that specific card gets banished if you don't have Arcane or Divine, otherwise it is recharged or it goes into your Discard Pile.

It may seem funky that the card could be sent to your deck or under it only to be discarded/banished later, but sometimes rules cause strange things to happen, and this would be one of those.

All that being said, it is possible that the designers might chime in and decide that it should work a different way and an errata will be issued, but as of right now, it is what it is.


mlvanbie wrote:
First, I think that this card should have recharge either at the end of this turn or start of your turn.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Having a spell that you can play on someone else's turn and will sit there until the end of your next turn is just the kind of awesomeness I'd expect from the minds behind this game.


Firedale2002 wrote:

Based on the text, to me, it's not "quite clear" that it's only recharged at the end of your turn if you use the second part of the ability.

If you are right, the basic mechanics of the game breakdown

Basic Principle
Cards have no memories. You play cards and resolve their effects completely, but they retain no memory of that after you play them. The exception to this rule is cards that you display. But display cards only work because they exist in a special game state that prevents them from being manipulated. You can’t have cards that both a) have memory and b) can be manipulated without undermining the mechanics of the game

Example
- Ezren has a deck which contains two Spheres of Fire (SF1 and SF2). SF1 is in Ezren’s hands, while SF2 is remains in his deck.
- Ezren has an encounter in which he plays SF1, discarding it for an additional d6.
- Ezren gets healed (potion of healing, cure spells, etc.), causing him to reshuffle SF1 into his deck.
- Ezren plays haste, examining the top card of his deck. Sphere of Fire! He draws the card into his deck (SF?), but doesn’t know which Sphere of Fire he now has

What happens if Ezren has another encounter and plays and discards SF? for an additional d6, then ends his turn? Does he recharge SF? and then search his deck to recharge the other Sphere of Fire? Does he recharge SF? twice? How do you recharge a card twice at the end of the turn? What happens if you succeed on one recharge check and fail on the other? And it gets much worse than this.

What if the encounter forces Ezren to Bury or Banish SF?? Does he assume SF? is SF2 and search his deck for the other sphere of fire and then try and recharge it? Does he assume SF? is SF1 and try to recharge a buried or banished card? Can you even do that? Do you just forget about the whole thing?

What if Ezren has used a card to trade SF? to another player? Can you recharge a card in another player’s deck?

Before anyone says that these examples are too far-fetched, remember that you can play sphere of fire on out of turn combats. In a multiplayer game you could go through four or five turns between when you discard sphere of fire and the end of your turn when you assert that you should recharge the card. In other words, things can get WAY more complex than the situations I detailed above. The card could move all over the deck.

You aren't expected to (and in some cases can’t) track that card after you resolve its effects. That’s a big reason why cards don’t have memory.

Sovereign Court

You're going straight on the card wording and assuming it is correct and works as they intended, like they've never reworded a card before. It's because of the combination of the wording working like you say, and the fact that it makes absolutely no sense for not banishing it in exchange for making it better, that I said earlier it probably just needs rewording to also trigger banish-or-recharge when you discard for its power.


I think that if you discard it, you can't attempt to recharge it. The recharge text lacks the typical "instead of discarding it" phrase.

Granted this is a different way for a spell to work, so that might be wrong since it is not a perfect comparison.

The other option is that if you discard it, the card goes into "limbo" until your turn ends (i.e. it doesn't go in your discard pile). There used to be text about that in the RotR rulebook, but it seems to have been removed from the S&S rulebook. It was in the section about the recharge box.

RotR Rulebook p15 wrote:
If, while attempting another check, you play a boon that you may be able to recharge, resolve the current check before attempting to recharge the card. The boon is in play (and does not count as being in your hand, in your deck,in your discard pile, or elsewhere) during the intervening time.

That is really about resolving the current check before resolving the recharge check. But could it be this is supposed to work the same way?

I definitely don't think you are supposed to put it into your discard pile and then go fish it out at the end of your turn.

Sovereign Court

Yea regardless of the final intent, fishing it out at the end of your turn doesn't make sense, which is why I think it's recharge would happen on "when you discard it for its power"


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My (non-official) opinion is that it should get errata that's similar to this:

"Display this card. While displayed, for your combat check, you may use your Arcane or Divine skill + 1d6; you may additionally discard this card to add another 1d6 if you have either the Arcane or Divine skill, or banish it if you don't. At the end of your turn, if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card; otherwise, attempt an Arcane or Divine 9 check. If you succeed, recharge this card; if you fail, discard it.

But there's an edge case with Flenta there (maybe not, since discards should also happen at the end of the encounter like the RotR rulebook). It might be okay.


I'm curious as to why some think that discarding for the extra d6 precludes a player from attempthing the recharge check. I'm not saying that it doesn't, necessarily, but the way I interpreted the card is that you can display it for multiple combat checks of Arcane/Divine + 1d6, or end the effect prematurely for a combat check of Arcane/Divine + 2d6. At which point, the banish/recharge/discard effect comes into play.


This is interesting. I just assumed that it worked like all the other spells - when you discarded it, you either banished it or had the option of a recharge check - it's just that you could choose to delay the discarding until you had used it multiple times. I didn't look to hard into the exact wording.

Interested in what Mike or Vic have to say when the offices are open again.


Ashram, as a general rule, cards don't have memories (cards that are displayed being the exception). So a card can't "remember" that it needs a recharge check once you send it off to the discard pile. And if discarding the card doesn't preclude recharges, it creates a a bunch of huge problems that potentially break the mechanics of the game (see my above post).

It's possible that the card could be errataed/FAQed to change the functionality, but as it stands now I don't see how recharging after you choose to discard is a viable interpretation.

Sovereign Court

Because it makes that power just like 99% of the other spells in the game (Summon Monster the only exception I know). You play the spell, and when it goes away you banish it unless you have Arcane/Divine.

I'm confused that you aren't finding that a viable interpretation, let alone the only viable interpretation.

A better question than why would it work like every single other spell in the game, is why wouldn't it? Why would this be some special exception, especially one that makes as little sense as "Oh, you aren't a magic user? Well here, this spell lets you use it for even more power in exchange for taking away its only real downside".


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Andrew, the recharge rule written on the card is for the end of your turn. As written, you can't recharge it before then.

So you could play the card on another player's turn, discard it in a combat with multiple combat checks, Cure it into your deck, draw it with Ezren's power (or equivalent), give it to someone else and have them cast it before the end of your turn. They could help you on a combat check and discard it.

You could argue that it should be recharged at the end of your turn (from the other player's discard pile), but what happens at the end of the other player's turn? Do they recharge it out of your deck or hand (maybe you were Radillo)? What if you had two copies of the card? Then there would be only a 50% chance that the card came from the other player's discard pile instead of your deck.

This isn't the only card with this pattern. More orbs are in several decks. What if you eat pizza in the middle of this sequence and can't remember which type of orb you were using an hour earlier?


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The way I play it, is like this:

My interpretation wrote:

Display this card. While displayed, for your combat check, you may use your Arcane or Divine skill + 1d6; you may additionally discard this card to add another 1d6. At the end of your turn, discard this card.

At any time a power of this card causes it to be discarded, you may attempt an Arcane or Divine 9 check. If you succeed, recharge this card instead of discarding it. If you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card instead of discarding or recharging it.


Andrew K wrote:

Because it makes that power just like 99% of the other spells in the game (Summon Monster the only exception I know). You play the spell, and when it goes away you banish it unless you have Arcane/Divine.

I'm confused that you aren't finding that a viable interpretation, let alone the only viable interpretation.

A better question than why would it work like every single other spell in the game, is why wouldn't it? Why would this be some special exception, especially one that makes as little sense as "Oh, you aren't a magic user? Well here, this spell lets you use it for even more power in exchange for taking away its only real downside".

There are two separate debates in this thread; one focused on how the spell should work and the other focused on how the spell does work.

The debate about how the spell should work is more open ended and flexible. We all have our own opinions on the spell, and discussing how we think the card is intended to operate creates room to validate multiple opinions.

However, the debate about how the spell does work is more clear cut. You can't base it on your unwritten ideals on how spells should function. No one has addressed the serious mechanical problems that
mlvanbie and I have brought up. Instead, people have talked about how they think the card should work, and many of those assumptions contradict the text of the card itself.

The sphere spells are the only spells that allow you to display the card for a bonus with the option of discarding them for an additional effect. They already operate differently than any spell in the game. If you think you can recharge/banish them after you use the discard power, you need to explain how you deal with cases where the sphere gets shuffled in your deck/another person's deck/a location deck and how we deal with multiple spheres.

Or you need to ask for a FAQ/errata, but that is a 'should' conversation.


Yerdiss wrote:

The way I play it, is like this:

My interpretation wrote:

Display this card. While displayed, for your combat check, you may use your Arcane or Divine skill + 1d6; you may additionally discard this card to add another 1d6. At the end of your turn, discard this card.

At any time a power of this card causes it to be discarded, you may attempt an Arcane or Divine 9 check. If you succeed, recharge this card instead of discarding it. If you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card instead of discarding or recharging it.

As an argument for how the card should work, I think this concept runs into balance problems. Your idea makes this spell clearly superior to a spell like Geyser. I don't think that was the intent, and it reduces the number of meaningful choices in spell selection. I think the intent is that you choose between Geyser (which offers a one time use at +2d6 and the ability to recharge) and Flaming sphere (which offers a repeated +1d6, and the one time ability to go up to +2d6, but with the cost of losing the ability to recharge) and give each spell its own strength.


Yeah. I really think you only get the recharge option if you don't discard it. Which makes how you play the spell a tough choice.

Choice A: Leave it displayed. You'll have slightly less dice in the combat check, but you can use it again on another combat check(s) before the end of your turn. You'll also have the option to recharge it if it is still displayed at the end of your turn.

Choice B: Discard it for extra dice. But you'll loose the ability to use it for another combat check and you won't be able to recharge it.

So you've got to look at your check and say "Do I need the extra oomph enough to be willing to pay that price?" That makes this spell great. It is reusable, not just over multiple checks but over multiple turns. And it gives you an option for extra oomph, at a price.

The only potential problem I really see with it is the question of what happens when a player without the required skill discards it. It doesn't seem they are forced to banish it.

Of course, for most characters even that doesn't make it worth actually playing it. So it might be something not worth fixing (if it is even considered wrong in the first place).


It would be a stealth buff to casters that can recharge from the discard pile if you don't get to recharge Spheres on an early discard. That power (recharge spells in discard) isn't all too great to begin with, so that wouldn't be bad.


I'm all for anything that makes Seltyiel less awful better.


Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
I'm all for anything that makes Seltyiel less awful better.

Ha, I wasn't even thinking of Seltyiel. I've written hiom off so completely (shame on me, I know) that I forget what powers he has beyond his signature one. I had Amaryllis in mind.


I quite like the fact that Seltiel can risk failing a recharging when the odds are around even, knowing he can have another go at the end of the turn.

When Zarlova is recharging Holy Light, I often feel like I need to play a blessing, just to be sure of getting it back.

Sovereign Court

Josh, I'm not talking about how I think it should work. I'm talking about how I think it does work, and the fact that I believe it is simply a poor wording that overlooked the scenarios like healing or pulling a spell from your discard pile.

As for the mechanical problems you claim, it's easy. Bury it for the extra d6, and allow a recharge on the bury. The only difference would be that you don't have to worry about it going into your deck/hand. However, I think the more logical answer (if I am correct that it shouldn't be ignoring the banish/recharge) would just be to reword the recharge so it is when you discard it, not the end of the turn.

An errata is a should question, a general clarification FAQ (which is all I think is needed) is not.


Andrew K wrote:

Josh, I'm not talking about how I think it should work. I'm talking about how I think it does work, and the fact that I believe it is simply a poor wording that overlooked the scenarios like healing or pulling a spell from your discard pile.

As for the mechanical problems you claim, it's easy. Bury it for the extra d6, and allow a recharge on the bury. The only difference would be that you don't have to worry about it going into your deck/hand. However, I think the more logical answer (if I am correct that it shouldn't be ignoring the banish/recharge) would just be to reword the recharge so it is when you discard it, not the end of the turn.

An errata is a should question, a general clarification FAQ (which is all I think is needed) is not.

But that is a discussion of how the spell should work. You are now talking about burying the spell and completely altering the timing of the recharge check. Your not interpreting the card as written, your rewritting it based on how you think it should work.

You claim that this is poor wording and that they didn't think about what happens after you discard the card, but you are ignoring the larger and more general meta-rule.

"Cards Don’t Have Memories. Cards forget they’ve been played after they’ve done whatever they do... Don’t ask your cards to remember what happened, because they’re just cards.


Technically, aren't we almost always recharging spells out of our discard? Most spells say something like "Discard this card to..." So once you hit the recharge, the spell has usually been discarded. I don't see why this would be any different. Except, if you cured (or in some other way removed the card from your discard) it wouldn't be available to recharge any longer. So you don't get to recharge it because it is impossible and if you are ever instructed to do something impossible you just don't so it. Fairly simple, right?


I thought about it a bit, but I actually thought of the Fire Sphere spell as something akin to a weapon; you display for a consistent combat check boost, and you can bump up the boost but it goes away.

But I think there's valid arguments for either.

EDIT: No, nondeskript, we don't actually recharge spells out of the discard pile. For normal spells that say "after you play this card", discarding for effect only happens after the spell is played, and the card hasn't hit the discard yet. For the spells that say "display until end of turn", discarding happens at the end of the turn and so does the recharge effect.

The problem is that this can be discarded at 2 different times, but only has a recharge effect for one of them.


Normally you have to finish something before you start something else, so while you discard a card and then make a recharge roll, you can't interact with that card between the discard and the roll to recharge. As a result, the normal recharge mechanic doesn't require the card to have memory of how it was played, your reading does.

Also, i am unsure what qualifies as impossible. What if the card goes to another players hand and they play it and discard it. It's not impossible to recharge a card in another player's deck, but what would happen to the card in that circumstances is very unclear.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
zeroth_hour wrote:
I thought about it a bit, but I actually thought of the Fire Sphere spell as something akin to a weapon; you display for a consistent combat check boost, and you can bump up the boost but it goes away.

It is not quite the same as a weapon. A weapon is a reveal (show it and put it back in your hand) to use its power with possible discards for additional powers. This spell is display (show it and place it on the table which is out of your hand) to use its power. While displayed you can continue to use its power. Discard activates another power.

I am in the camp that if you discard it for the extra d6, you do not get to recharge it. I do not see why this is such a contensious issue. The spell works differently than other spells. I expect that the game designers are playing with the design space to provide more variety.

Sovereign Court

19702: The primary issue isn't that it can't be recharged. It's that not casters don't have to banish it. If it can't be recharged, fine. In all his disagreements, Josh has yet to actually explain how it makes sense that a non caster can make a spell more powerful in exchange for getting to keep the spell. It makes no sense that you have the two following options

Weak spell, and banish it
More powerful spell, keep it

No one has been able to explain why that is right.

Josh, you're assuming that your interpretation must be correct and it can't be any other way. I'm not rewriting it based on how I think it should work. I'm saying that I think they timed it as end of turn, thinking that would apply to both, and didn't think about possible heals and things like that.

Saying I think they overlooked something isn't trying to change how the card works, it's saying that I don't think the current wording reflects the way it's SUPPOSED to work, the way they intended for it to work. There's 3 FAQs on these forums full of rewordings that clarify how they wanted a card to work, because the initial wording caused problems, even if the FAQ entry doesn't actually change how the cards is supposed to work, but tells you they wrote the wrong words to tell you how it is supposed to work.

You seem to be under the assumption that they could never possibly choose poor wording to get their point across and that everything must be intended exactly as written no matter what problems might come along. Check the FAQs, it happens a lot.


You two are talking past each other.

Josh is saying it's "this way" because RAW.

Andrew is saying it's "that way" because duh, it just needs a FAQ.

Josh then says "that way" is an interpretation that we can't be sure of - so we have to go with RAW.

That's all that's happening here - one of you is arguing the literal wording (what's on the card letter for letter) and one of you is arguing the percieved intent (what logic dictates based on prior experiences).


I'm not a mind reader; I can't tell you for certain how the designers intended the card to work. I think making the assumption that you know the intent of the designers absent some kind of statement from them is dangerous business, particularly when you assumption is contrary to the stated meta-rules.

I can tell you how the card is actually written and the rules that we have at the moment, and I see only one way to interpret the card in light of those. You might be right and the designers could have made a mistake, but I don't think we can know that absent some kind of statement.

Also, the issue really is the recharge, not the banishment. Whether or not you can recharge the card after you choose to discard it will come up all the time. It gets to the basic function of the card, and most groups that include an Orb in their deck list will run into this question every single time they play the game. Whether or not characters without the arcane skill need to banish the card is a corner case, that only meaningfully affects one character in the game, since the vast majority of non-casters would never want to use this card regardless of whether or not they get to roll 1d6+1d4 or 2d6+1d4. I'm not saying that banishment doesn't matter at, but the recharge is the main issue.


What orbis said

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Designer

We are discussing this.


Mike Selinker wrote:
We are discussing this.

Four of my favorite words to see you type. :D


Orbis Orboros wrote:
Mike Selinker wrote:
We are discussing this.
Four of my favorite words to see you type. :D

Mine too... but it also gets me hating a little bit. Like... I want that to be my job. Sometimes the haters are gonna hate.

Sovereign Court

Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
I'm not a mind reader

Well, crap. If I'd known that I would have approached this differently. You need to catch with the times, we're all mind readers on the internet now!

JBiggs78 wrote:
Orbis Orboros wrote:
Mike Selinker wrote:
We are discussing this.
Four of my favorite words to see you type. :D
Mine too... but it also gets me hating a little bit. Like... I want that to be my job. Sometimes the haters are gonna hate.

Haha agreed. I wish I could go to work thinking "Alright, today we need to figure how this cool card works in this really cool game... and get paid for it"


Andrew K wrote:
Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
I'm not a mind reader
Well, crap. If I'd known that I would have approached this differently. You need to catch with the times, we're all mind readers on the internet now!

Yea srs get gud m8

...

I hate myself a little bit for typing that.

Sovereign Court

Orbis Orboros wrote:
Andrew K wrote:
Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
I'm not a mind reader
Well, crap. If I'd known that I would have approached this differently. You need to catch with the times, we're all mind readers on the internet now!

Yea srs get gud m8

...

I hate myself a little bit for typing that.

My head hates you for making me read that


Mike Selinker wrote:
We are discussing this.

Thanks Mike!

And thanks to Andrew and others for arguing with me about this so we could get Mike's attention ;)


Go team!!

Sovereign Court

Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
Mike Selinker wrote:
We are discussing this.

Thanks Mike!

And thanks to Andrew and others for arguing with me about this so we could get Mike's attention ;)

It was all part of my diabolical plan. I secretly agree with you but wanted Mike to clarify for others.

Wait... are you not supposed to tell people about your secret diabolical plans?


Andrew K wrote:
Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
Mike Selinker wrote:
We are discussing this.

Thanks Mike!

And thanks to Andrew and others for arguing with me about this so we could get Mike's attention ;)

It was all part of my diabolical plan. I secretly agree with you but wanted Mike to clarify for others.

Wait... are you not supposed to tell people about your secret diabolical plans?

Yes, just like I haven't told anyone about my diabolical plan to make such good Homebrew cards on the Homebrew forum that they have to hire me as a developer, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure developers aren't allowed to read the Homebrew forums due to copyright reasons. It's fool-proof.

Scarab Sages

Orbis Orboros wrote:
Ha, I wasn't even thinking of Seltyiel. I've written hiom off so completely (shame on me, I know) that I forget what powers he has beyond his signature one.

I'm sure he could seem awful, with a different set of boons and banes (better for other characters) in the box than that which the designers intended.

Oh wait, I forgot - that's exactly what you do.

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