In this guide, you will learn the basics of Neurodeck’s gameplay.
We will introduce each phobia with their patterns and some tips and tricks to defeat them easily or to challenge yourself.
In case you are stuck during your exploration in the subconscious maze, feel free to take a look at this guide!
Introduction
Neurodeck is based on building your own deck.
Depending on the emotion that you’ll choose, it is safe to adopt your own strategy from the start that you can complete thanks to the rooms you can explore as you progress through the game.
You can add cards, meditate, but you should also consider removing the cards that you find annoying during your fights, those that you cannot take any advantage of or that don’t make the effects that you need.
The characters, their emotions & their basic cards
Lei
Joy
Anger
Surprise
At the beginning of the run,
you gain +20 MAX Stamina
and +20 MAX Sanity.
When you play a card,
you regain 2 Sanity
and 2 Stamina.
You draw one more card
with Mind Focus.
2 Random Thoughts:
Phobia loses 6 HP.
2 Comfort Food:
You regain 8 Stamina
& 5 Sanity.
1 Stressball:
Phobia Loses 8 HP.
Player gains 2 Rested.
2 Random Thoughts:
Phobia loses 6 HP.
2 Comfort Food:
You regain 8 Stamina
& 5 Sanity.
1 Back Pain:
Phobia Loses 8 HP.
You discard
1 random card.
1 Diary:
You regain 10 Stamina.
Phobia loses 5 HP.
2 Random Thoughts:
Phobia loses 6 HP.
2 Comfort Food:
You regain 8 Stamina
& 5 Sanity.
2 Presents:
Deal 5 damage
to the Phobia.
Gain 1 action.
Add a copy of this card
to your discard.
Special capacity: Mind Focus.
You draw one card. It costs 8 Stamina, though. It adds up well to the Present card when you need one more action to draw another card.
Jupiter
Sadness
With full Inner Peace,
you play another turn
after this one end.
Homework with kids:
Phobia loses 5HP.
Gain 1 Meditate.
Comfort Food:
You regain 8 Stamina
& 5 Sanity.
Old Movie:
Phobia loses 6 HP.
You draw 1 card.
Special capacity: Inner Peace.
Thanks to some cards or by spending 8 Stamina on this capacity, you’ll get another Meditate point. Once you have 5 Meditate points, you can play another turn.
Neurodeck fights UI
The gauges
In Neurodeck, you’ll have to manage the Sanity and the Stamina.
Sanity is basically your health point, so once you have no Sanity left, you faint and have to start the game again.
Stamina allows you to play your cards, once you have no Stamina left, you can no longer play cards, which forces you to end your turn to regain a bit of it.
The fights
Here is your interface when fighting a phobia. These can vary a bit depending on the phobia you’re facing:
Here is where all the player’s data are gathered:
On the bottom, there are your gauges, Stamina and Sanity. They are very important and you have to manage them carefully.
The three circles under Lei’s icon are your traits. You can have a maximum of 3 traits that have passive effects.
On the top-right are where your equipment cards go, you can place maximum of 2 action cards and you can use them whenever you want.
On the top-left, you can see your modifiers. In this very case, there is 1 Wrath, and you can see that there is a tiny line around the icon which represents the number of turns the modifier is available.
Your Blocks will also appear on this part of the interface:
Here is the information about the phobias:
Its health gauge is in red as well as the name of the phobia just above it.
Just under the gauge, you can see two brain icons. The number of icons tells about how long the phobia’s pattern is. The brain represents actions that will affect your Sanity and flash your Stamina.
For example, Squalophobia has 2 actions affecting your Sanity, here is an example of Agoraphobia, which has a quite long pattern with actions that affect both Sanity and Stamina:
Let’s come back to Squalophobia’s example. You’ll know more about the actions of the pattern on the square below the icons. The action “BITE” for Squalo is incoming right after your turn.
You also can notice that next right the health gauge lie modifiers. In this case, Squalo has 4 Rested and 4 Anxiety. The line around the icons means that they’re available for 3 turns.
Information related to your turn are here:
During your turn, you have 3 actions. You’ll find the number of actions you have left in the bubble next to “Your Turn.”
You’ll also find your special capacity – Mind Focus for Lei, Inner Peace for Jupiter – as well as how much Stamina it costs. You can end your turn, which will make you regain Stamina – you can choose this when you’re starting to be out of Stamina instead of using Comfort Food, for example. The fewer actions you do, the more Stamina you’ll regain when ending your turn.
This is your deck:
Damage preview
If you move the mouse over a card, you can preview the damage done to the phobia on its HP gauge with a yellow bar:
Icon information
If you move the mouse over the icons, you’ll find out more information about them:
The rooms & their features
There are 12 rooms to explore. After you defeated a Nightmare Mode phobia, you have the choice between 3 rooms.
Mirror
Sleeping Room
Get a card from another pool of emotion from the same character
Add a card to your deck
A little survey will appear and in the end, you’ll unlock a card coming from another emotion. For example, if you’re playing Lei Surprise, you will be proposed cards from Anger or Joy.
You’ll be asked to choose between two midle rare cards
Gymnasium
Library
Improve your character’s permanent stats.
Duplicate a card from your deck.
You have the choice between doing Plank, which will add you 10 Stamina, or Push-ups, which will add you 10 Sanity.
The maximum buff you can add is 50 per gauge or 120 for each of them.
You pick one card of your deck that you’ll duplicate.
Living Room
Memorial
Unlock a card you’ll be able to get in future runs.
Remove a card from your deck.
You answer a “are you more this or that” survey to unlock a card from another emotion that you’ll be able to add to your deck when entering the Sleeping Room or when defeating a phobia.
If you think that a card of your deck is unnecessary, you can get rid of it in this room.
Meditation
Nursery
Choose a new bonus for your character
Choose a trait that changes your playstyle.
You’ll have the choice between improving your brain, your heart or your stomach.
Brain: Your base “End Turn” bonus is increased by 5.
Heart: Your max cards in hand are increased by 2.
Stomach: you draw one more card at the beginning of each fight.
Nursery contains 12 traits. You have to choose one of the three traits proposed in this room that will change your playstyle and that will follow you all along with your session.
Classroom
Balcony
Transform your capabilities into something bigger.
Pick a card from the Neutral card pool.
You pick one card of your deck that you’ll trade with a rarer and more effective card.
There are 14 cards in this pool.
Three of them are proposed and you have to pick one of them.
Kitchen
Survey
Eat a dish that will boost your next fight.
Answer a survey and unlock a trait.
Ratatouille or ramen? You’ll have to choose between two dishes that will increase your stats for one fight, mainly your Stamina or your Sanity.
There are 14 survey traits. They come by pair i.e Delicate & Bestial and depending on how you answer the survey, which consists of 5 questions, you’ll be assigned a trait that you will have for the rest of your exploration. You can choose to activate or deactivate it.
The cards
If you pay attention to the cards, you’ll notice that there are different colors and they have different features. Let’s see this in more detail.
Let’s say you have these cards:
Type of card
If you take a look at the cards, you’ll notice they don’t have the same color. Burgundy cards are action cards – that are usable right away – and emerald green cards are equipment cards, that you put aside and you can use later.
Rarity
On the top-right corner of the card, you’ll see there’s a little colored gem that will tell you about the rarity of the card:
Blue is common cards
Grey is. mildly rare
Purple is rare
Orange is extremely rare
The eye below the gem represents the emotion to which the card belongs.
Stamina consumption
On the top-left corner of the card, you can see how much Stamina the card costs:
Equipment cards will display this way:
Equipment cards generally cost more Stamina but offer interesting features that can be used whenever you want.
The number of uses is displayed on the top of the icon, where you can see a “1.”
Once a card is equipped, it doesn’t cost any additional Stamina.
Traits & surveys
The traits give different passive capacities. They are presented by pair (i.e Humble & Proud, Depend & Independent, etc.).
When you enter the Nursery room, you have to choose one of the three traits from the Nursery room:
When you use Mind Focus, you gain 5 Sanity.
When you play a card, you gain 2 Stamina.
When you heal Sanity, you gain 5 Stamina.
When you discard a card, you gain 1 Rested.
Cards with “fades” have a 50% chance of being discarded instead.
At the beginning of your turn, you have a 50% chance of drawing an additional card.
Each time you play a card, removes 5 armor on the phobia (if it has any).
Create two random cards in your hand at the beginning of a fight.
Each time you take damages from the phobia, you gain 1 Wrath.
At the beginning of your turn, you have a 30% chance of creating a random card (it’s added to your hand).
You gain 2 Rested each time you use [Mind Focus/Inner Peace].
You gain 3 Sanity at the beginning of your turn.
And finally, there are the Survey traits:
Using Inner Peace or Mind Focus does not cost stamina points.
At the beginning of your turn, you gain 5 Stamina.
You gain 5 Sanity each time a card fades.
Cards cost 5 less Sanity to play.
On your first turn, You get 2 random positive modifiers.
When you reach 0 Sanity, Phobia loses 10 HP.
At the beginning of your first turn, you gain 1 action.
When you have no cards in hand, you draw a card.
When you take Sanity damage from the monster, you gain 5 Stamina.
When you use equipment, deals 3 damage to the monster.
When you discard a card, you draw a card.
When you draw a card, deal 2 damages to the monster.
When you use a piece of equipment, you gain 4 Sanity
On your first turn, you draw 2 cards.
Survey tips
Regarding the surveys, you can choose to answer honestly or not, and sometimes it’s interesting to pick answers that you would not have chosen personally in order to discover new effects.
Let’s move on to the phobias with their pattern and some tips that will help you to defeat them.
Managing your traits
You can activate, deactivate and manage your traits here:
Insert a trait by selecting a spot (steps 1 & 2), then clicking on the trait you want to add (step 3).
Deactivate a trait by right-clicking on it.
Once you’re done, click again on the person icon.
Modifiers
Here are the different modifiers you’ll encounter in Neurodeck with their features:
Anxiety
Player or phobia lose Sanity at the beginning of their turn.
Rested
Player or phobia regains HP at the end of their turn.
Wrath
Player or phobia deals more damage during their turn.
Sorrow
Locks one card at the end of the player’s turn.
Nostalgia
Player or phobia has less action and cannot have less than 1 action.
Weakness
Player or phobia does less HP damage during their turn.
Here’s what you should keep in mind about them:
They expire after 3 turns – you can do a quick check by moving the mouse over their icons
They’re added to the current amount but it doesn’t refresh
They can be used on you or the phobia and sometimes removing them from the phobia allows you to make the fight less difficult, especially on phobias using Wrath such as Tokophobia or Masculinity.
They can be activated at the beginning or the end of the turn, or be used as a passive, like Wrath, for example.
Other general gameplay tips & info
The phobias’ ranking
There are 4 phobias ranks. The more you progress through the subconscious maze, the higher the ranks will be.
Rank 4 phobias are the final bosses of Neurodeck that will test your deck and your strategy.
Defining a strategy
Another important thing is to check your deck before making a decision since phobias have different effects. You should also pay attention to what your deck looks like before choosing a room: if you’re likely to encounter a high-ranked phobia on the next turn, maybe you can choose to level up your stats, adding a new trait or choosing a dish instead of adding up cards.
The power of combos
You also should not hesitate to make combos: playing the most cards possible ensures your victory and allows you to unlock some effects or to prepare yourself for devastating turns. You can also unlock achievements by playing several actions in the same turn or by making a certain amount of damage to the phobia in one turn.
Arachnophobia a simple but direct pattern: Damages: 25 Sanity & 25 Stamina at each turn.
Since you are more likely to encounter Arachnophobia at the beginning of Neurodeck, your deck won’t be that wide. So, to defeat it, you have to strike it with the only attack cards that you have. You must deal the most damage possible at each turn before you run out of Sanity!
Blennophobia – Rank 1
Do you hate slimy things? Touching them or seeing them almost makes you gag or frighten you? Blennophobia is the fear of slime. This can be explained because of its unpleasant substance and touch aspect. This can remind people of something disgusting or pus, that comes from wounds.
Blennophobia has a pattern causing indirect damages: 1. Toxic Spit: Player gains 10 Anxiety 2. Turtle Up: Phobia gains 15 Blocks during its turn. The player loses 15 HP. 3. Concentrate: Reset player’s Anxiety timer. The Player gets 20 Anxiety. 4. Protect Phobia: gains 20 Blocks during its turn. The player loses 20 HP.
The best way to avoid the indirect damages caused by Anxiety is to anticipate.
When Blennophobia gains Block, take the opportunity to heal yourself or choose to double your attacks.
To balance the anxiety effects, try to gain the more Rest possible or try to cancel this Anxiety asap before it adds up as the turns go.
Haptophobia – Rank 1
You feel a huge discomfort when someone touches you, even lightly? Some people with trauma or diagnosed with some mental illness can also experience haptophobia. Also, people being injured can also fear being touched, rather because they are scared of feeling the pain than because of the touch itself.
Here are Haptophobia’s actions: 1. Grabbing: You lose 20 Sanity. Lock 2 cards for one turn. Locked cards can’t be played. 2. Regrow: You lose 30 Sanity.
Since it locks two of your cards, it would be better to use the cards that you’re sure you don’t need immediately. Or at least, create a balance between healing and attack cards so they’re not all locked at the same time.
Tokophobia – Rank 2
This specific phobia is about pregnancy and childbirth. Since the pregnant person sees their body change and that giving birth is known for being a tough ordeal, some people absolutely fear the whole process.
Tokophobia’s actions are the following: 1. Labor: You lose 20 HP. Phobia gains 10 Wrath. 2. Birth: You lose 20 HP. Phobia gains 5 Wrath. 3. Post Partum: Reset Phobia’s Wrath Timer
Wrath adds damage points to Tokophobia. This means that more damage is added to the casual damage inflicted. There are ways to minimize these damages and to counterattack quickly.
You can use Modifier Cleaning cards that will remove their modifiers. It will prevent the phobia from being too powerful.
Tokophobia never regains HP so you don’t worry about your damage being blocked by them.
Nighmare mode
You must redouble your efforts when fighting Tokophobia in Nightmare mode. You can die quickly if you don’t get rid of the modifiers, especially Wrath, that will devastate your Sanity just like Masculinity does. Those two phobias are strong against slow decks that don’t cause high damage.
Squalophobia – Rank 2
This deadly look and those sharpened teeth give chills to more than one person when swimming in the sea — or in the swimming pool if you’re extra suspicious. Fear of sharks is quite natural since it is a fierce predator way bigger than an average human being.
Here are the actions to expect for Squalophobia: 1. Bite: You lose 20 Sanity. Phobia gains 5 Blocks during its turn and eats one card in your hand. 2. Ingestion: Phobia ingests and fades previously eaten cards. Phobia gains 5 Blocks during its turn. Phobia gains 2 rested.
You can try to have no cards in hand so it won’t eat them. It is highly recommended to at least equip your action cards so you can always use them when needed.
Big tip: if you attack Squalophobia when it has “eaten” your cards and you break its Block, Squalo will “regurgitate” your cards and give them back to you. Then, it could be useful to keep your damage cards for when it “eats” your cards.
Nightmare mode
In Nightmare mode, Squalophobia can be deadly and even deprive you of all your deck if you don’t choose to play them wisely or define priorities among your cards.
Agoraphobia – Rank 2
Wide spaces with a lot of people are quite frightening since it feels like you can’t escape. Adding this to a crowd sensation can be extremely uncomfortable for some people, even anxious. Some people have this feeling on stage, which is extremely stressful.
Agoraphobia has a long pattern with indirect actions:
1.Pointing finger: You lose 15 Sanity. Lock 1 card for 1 turn. Locked cards can’t be played 2.Spectral hand: Player gains 1 Sorrow. You lose 15 Stamina. 3.Staring eyes: you lose 20 Sanity 4.Whispers: Player gains 1 Sorrow. You lose 20 Stamina. 5.Laughing crowd: You lose 30 Sanity.
Agoraphobia has a long cycle of actions. It means that you will only have locked cards for the first round, but after that you’re clear! Sorrow will also be important because it will limit your actions, so you should get action cards to have more potential in your hand.
Agoraphobia is inconvenient when locking some of your cards. You have to define priorities among your deck: what is more important to keep? What will prevent you from losing too much Sanity even though some cards are locked?
Herpetophobia – Rank 2
Long and cold body, sharp teeth with venomous bites… Snakes are the best candidate to get an absolute fear of them! You can meet them on earth and underwater, some species are extremely venomous depending on where you live. They will defend themselves if they feel attacked, but unless you get too close, being attacked is rare.
1. Cover: gain 10 Block during its turn 2. Rock Hiding: Phobia gains 20 Blocks during its turn. You lose 30 Stamina 3. Sharp Teeth: You lose 30 Sanity.
Herpetophobia will try its best to deprive you of your Sanity as well as your Stamina. Make sure you can heal yourself quickly and deprive it quickly of its health.
Herpeto is very sensible to combo decks. The usual strategy is to wait until turn 4 (so action 1) because the phobia will have 0 blocks at this time. If you can do a big combo on turns 4 and 5, you generally win!
Here are some cards and features that will help you:
– Meditate (Jupiter) so you can have an additional turn and then playing attack cards when Herpeto has 0 blocks or heal yourself
– The Present card (Lei Surprise) will help with adding up actions while inflicting damage, don’t hesitate to draw wards to get the maximum amount of Present cards.
Heliophobia/Nyctophobia – Rank 3
Day and night can be both fearful.
Fearing the sun can be explained by the fear of catching skin cancer, although we need the sun to get enough D vitamins.
Nyctophobia is the fear of darkness when being an adult. For people with this phobia, it can affect their mental health and their everyday life, which can cause depressive behavior and big anxiety episodes.
Helio and nyctophobia have a cycle with two patterns:
Heliophobia: 1. Heat Flash: Create 1 copy of Burning Light in your deck. Phobia restores 5 HP. 2. Sunburst: You lose 20 Sanity. Remove all Phobia’s negative modifiers.
Nyctophobia: Moving Shadows: You lose 25 Sanity. Phobia takes no damage from cards.
Obscuration: Lock Player’s hand. Create 2 copies of [cardid_1] in your deck.
When a “face” gets 15 HP, the face will swap.
Heliophobia aims at your gauges (Stamina & Sanity), and Nyctophobia aims at your capabilities (hand lock, damage prevention, deck corruption). It’s the opportunity to play your action cards to reduce your deck and then they won’t be locked next turn.
Another good idea is to prepare a combo, swap nyctophobia for heliophobia then send everything you have!
Entomophobia – Rank 3
Bugs are sometimes annoying but useful for our ecosystem. Ok, sometimes they don’t look friendly and bite for no reason, that’s why some people deeply fear them.
Entomophobia likes to protect itself, see by yourself: 1.Cover: You lose 20 Sanity. Phobia gains 40 blocks during its turn. 2. Dart: You lose 40 Sanity. Phobia gains 20 blocks during its turn. 3. Rest: Phobia gains 10 Wrath and it also gains 10 Rested.
Entomophobia Block can become very hard to manage. Since you encounter rank 3 phobias quite later in Neurodeck, you probably had the time to build a powerful deck.
On pattern one, there’s no need to rush into attacking because of the number of Blocks it has. Take the time to get the most powerful cards or to add up power and effects.
Mysophobia – Rank 3
Nobody can stand dirt. It’s full of germs that can make you ill or give infections. But people with mysophobia had a really bad experience with germs, which lead them to fear whatever looks disgusting and dirty.
Here’s what Mysophobia will do in Neurodeck: 1. Wart Explosion: Removes all modifiers on everyone. Player loses 40 Stamina. 2. Bubonic Plague: Player gains 10 Anxiety, 2 Sorrow and 2 Nostalgia. 3. Toxic Atmosphere: Removes all modifiers on everyone. Player loses 40 Sanity.
Mysophobia will strike you on all fronts. It’is all about modifiers! You should have a card that cleans modifiers. Sorrow is one of the biggest threats! It will prevent you from being efficient on turn 3, 4 and 5 so keep those turns to prepare a good combo.
Also, mysophobia doesn’t really do a lot of damage overall, it’s more annoying than deadly.
Toxic Masculinity – Rank 3
Toxic Masculinity gathers a set of behaviors mostly known in the male gender. These behaviors are quite violent or passive-aggressive towards women in general, but they can be seen in friendship as much as in a relationship.
Here is its pattern: 1. Muscle comparison: Player loses 30 HP. 2. Lift weights: Phobia gains 40 Wrath.
Masculinity forces you to act very quickly considering its Wrath accumulation. You better get the more additional turn possible or having the more actions possible in the same turn to make a series of attacks that will defeat Masculinity asap. You can also try to remove its modifiers not to take the accumulated damage from its Wrath.
Theophobia – Rank 4
Fearing something bigger than us is natural. It can be a physical thing as well as an entity that you know is omnipresent and omnipotent. You fear what he could do to you if you don’t behave.
1. Divine Aura: Remove all modifiers except Anxiety. You lose 40 Stamina. Theophobia adds a random rule. 2. Fear of the All Mighty: You lose 15 Sanity. Phobia restores 15 HP. Theophobia adds a random rule. 3. Futility of Humankind: Player gains 15 Anxiety. Reset your Anxiety timer. Theophobia adds a random rule.
Theophobia rules are the following:
Use all your actions this turn
Don’t heal Sanity.
Don’t heal Stamina.
Don’t use Items.
Draw only one card per turn.
Since Theophobia adds rules at each turn you must understand and read them carefully. When you break a rule, you will lose Sanity. Obey Theophobia’s rules and you should be able to defeat it quite seamlessly. Or don’t obey him if you feel like challenging yourself.
Nosophobia – Rank 4
Having a bad experience with illness can cause you trauma and then be scared of contracting a disease. By disease, it’s more about cancer, heart disease and big diseases.
You’ll know Nosophobia actions in this order: 1. Corrupting Smoke: You lose 40 Stamina. You create 1 copy of [cardid_1] in your discard pile. 2. Debilitation: You lose 20 MAX Stamina. You discard 2 random card(s). 3. Muscular Decay: Phobia restores 10 HP for each modifier on Player. You discard 1 random card(s). 4. Pestilence: Player gains 30 Anxiety. [target_1] gains [amount_1] [targetmod_1].
Nosophobia keeps adding up bad effects. Make sure you have improved your character’s stats so you have enough margin not to lose too much Sanity. Adding a dish before the fight can help as well.
One of its biggest threats is the deprivation of Stamina on turn 2. It’ll take your Stamina little by little until you cannot play any card anymore. Put all your focus on this gauge otherwise, you’ll be stuck very quickly!
In addition, Nosophobia restores its health but only at the end of the pattern, so make sure that you make the most damage possible! Nosophobia is also very sensible to cards that remove modifiers since it’s its main way of attacking you.
When playing Jupiter Sadness, try to get your Meditation points so you can play as many turns as possible so you keep attacking, but be careful of the modifiers it adds you, because you could lose more than you expect. Inner Peace only costs -8 Stamina so don’t hesitate to use it when you’re close to the power activation!
Phasmophobia – Rank 4
We fear what we can see. Ghosts represent death in many ways and we often have a bad vision of the way they haunt us. Once in the dark, they can do whatever they want, with horrific and threatening shapes that don’t bode well.
1. Arms Crossed: You lose 15 Sanity. Phobia gains 25 Blocks during its turn. 2. Frightening Laugh: You lose 30 Sanity. Player gains 10 Anxiety. 3. Haunting Scream: You lose 30 Stamina. Player gains 10 Wrath.
Phasmophobia will drop your Sanity very quickly and drastically. Since the fights are exhausting, you have to be able to scale damage in the long run or to regain Sanity in order to survive long enough.
Inflicting indirect damage is necessary and modifiers such as Rest will be very useful to regain a little bit of Sanity.
Phasmophobia doesn’t really have scaling systems and its attacks are steady and regular, so you can take advantage of this to manage your gauges and your attacks.
Resilience levels
There are seven levels of resilience in Neurodeck. You can activate or deactivate them by using the arrows:
Features
Level 0 Resilience: Base level: You need to finish the game once in order to unlock a new resilience level.
Level 1 Resilience: Unlucky Draw: You don’t get lucky draws in reward. Classroom, rank 2 and rank 3 cards get available later.
Level 2 Resilience: Constant Anxiety: You always get 5 Anxiety at the beginning of the fight until you remove it yourself.
Level 3 Resilience: Harsh Exploration: The exploration is harder and less favorable to you.
Level 4 Resilience: Fewer Traits: You can only use 2 traits in a fight
Level 5 Resilience: Tougher Phobias: Phobias gain HP depending on their rank
Level 6 Resilience: Nightmares: every phobia met is in nightmare mode.
Level 7 Resilience: Mental Exhaustion: when you draw a card you lose 1 Sanity.
Regarding modding in Neurodeck, you’ll find all the details in another guide.
I hope you enjoy the Guide we share about Neurodeck – Gameplay Guide; if you think we forget to add or we should add more information, please let us know via commenting below! See you soon!
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