Archetypes

Want to get into digica but not sure where to start? Want to see if you can play your blorbo? Here's a semi-comprehensive list of the currently-available archetypes, with descriptions of their approximate deals and how they're supposed to work, so you can see what appeals to you.

Last updated 2024-11-14

From Adventure 99

• WarGreymon (KR)
  Towers-y control deck with a bit of flexibility in the choice of upper end. It uses <Raid> and the original X-Antibody option card as its main offensive tools, and certain upper ends allow trashing opponent security when a Digimon unsuspends. It's not very fast and there's a lot of things that can just tell it to fuck off, but at a rogue level it can be quite fun.
• MetalGarurumon (BM)
  You sit in breeding doing nothing for several turns, and then you swing, unsuspend, swing, unsuspend, swing...
  • Garurumon engine BeelStarmon turbo ("WolfStar") (BM)
    Same as above, but you also trash option cards while you climb, so then you slap a large body for a reduced cost to use the option cards you trashed.
• Omegamon (EN: "Omnimon") (RB)
  A deck held back by its lack of searchers, the gimmick is to slap a large body directly, which then quickly turbos your level 3 into a boss monster. The boss monster provides a lot of removal, and takes out two security at the end of the turn, but once it's out it's a big memory pinata.
• Hououmon (EN: "Phoenixmon") ("Red Birds") (R)
  Basically, your monsters want to kill themselves and they have five billion effects that all proc when they do so. The boss monster adds an extra trigger to these effects so they all go off at the end of the attack, and the Tamer watches for the effects that recycle cards from the trash and lets you play out extra bodies.
• TyrantKabuterimon ("Insects") (G)
  Get big, become unaffected, and do big unga bunga attacks while repeatedly sending your opponent's Digimon to the bottom of the deck (and occasionally killing their Tamers). However, you're not unaffected by option cards, so you can still get your day fucked up.
• Dark Masters ("Omegazoo") (KM)
  A zoo engine that relies on level 5s that delete their own bodies (such as the ever-helpful D-Reaper egg) to spawn level 6s in raising at the end of the turn. The deck's gimmick involves evolving these level 6s into Omegamon Zwart (EN: "Omnimon Zwart"), and from there shuffling between Omegamon variants to do chungus swings while playing out ACEs cheaply.

From Adventure 02

• Imperialdramon (BGW)
  Tier 0 slop deck that works by preventing the opponent from playing the game. If you build this, people will not want to fight you.
• Imperialdramon (RM)
  A rogue combo deck with potential against certain matchups due to how fast it can rebuild if you out it, but it's also got like, no good search capacity, so at the end of the day it's really inconsistent. It can be fun in a rogue setting though.
• Magnamon X-Antibody (YBK)
  An unaffected beatstick that you turbo into as fast as possible. It's a cringe brain-off deck that either you can counter or you can't.
• Rapidmon X-Antibody (GY)
  This deck's gimmick is "skip levels, and also basically everything is a blast target." It fades in and out of the meta depending on what matchups it sees but it's a pretty fun aggro deck.
• Cherubimon (GM)
  The original <Alliance> deck, it fields a number of effects that let your Digimon evolve for a reduced cost when they're being <Alliance>d with. It can be a bit finicky to handle, but if you pop off, you can ramp a single body into a full field of a level 6 and multiple alliance bodies, and give your opponent massive debuffs while you're at it.
• BelialVamdemon (EN: "MaloMyotismon") (M)
  Cycling the trash YuGiOh-style to summon big bodies on opponent's turn. The gimmick is that the Tamers kill themselves to play things out; the level 5s in turn play out Tamers when deleted, enabling a surprisingly powerful trash turbo engine that, under ideal circumstances, can swarm the field while controlling the opponent's board.
• Eosmon (W)
  A swarm deck that makes both sides play out a lot of Tamers, gets swole from playing out Tamers, prevents them from unsuspending, and de-evolves you. Since it can play out any white Tamer by an effect, it's primed to make maximum use of the generic goodstuff Tamers Digimon Kaiser and Hokuto Amanokawa. Since Quartzmon can evolve on a white level 6 it can then use it as a finisher for very cheap.

From Tamers

• Dukemon (EN: "Gallantmon") (RBY)
  A crowd control deck that, until recently, didn't have much else for sauce. Nowadays it has an interesting playstyle focused around memory management and <Raid>ing into things, with the X-Antibody providing opponent's-turn unaffected (and Paladin access if you're cringe).
  • Guilmon engine Lilithmon turbo ("Millith") (MR)
    Trash cards from your opponent's deck as fast as possible. If all goes well, they'll start their turn with no cards left in deck, which causes them to instantly lose.
• Sakuyamon (Y)
  A mediocre rogue deck :( that shuffles option cards around to DP-reduce opponent Digimon and create blockers and other tokens. Its boss monster unsuspends when something swings, encouraging an OTK gameplan. Unfortunately it's a pile of weak-ass bricks and as such is frustrating to use.
• Taomon (YB)
  A combo engine relying on using a single card, Taomon ACE, to rapidly spam options and set up a wide board of multiple level 7s to floodgate your opponent. Multiple variations of this playstyle exist, with varying effectiveness. Not beginner-friendly, but rewarding to pop off with.
• Devas/Four Holy Beasts (EN: "Four Sovereigns") (🏳️‍🌈)
  A zoo deck that makes use of ACE removal that kills opponent Digimon when deleted, and once its trash is sufficiently stacked, it summons a 15k unaffected beatstick that, by bottomdecking cards from the trash, wipes the board when it attacks.
• Justimon (K)
  Several different archetypes with little in common, all revolving around Justimon X-Antibody as the boss card. Want to play it as an OTK pile deck? Go ahead. Want to spam options? Go ahead. There's a lot of variability in deckbuilding here and so far there's no clear "correct option."
• D-Reaper (W)
  A control deck whose gimmick is "you use a big body on the field that can't attack in order to speed up how fast you can do things." It also features the game's first field spell, which gives you extra control power; enemy attacks are first debuffed by the field spell, then further debuffed by a Digimon that spits herself out from evolution sources to redirect attacks into her (this redirect happens only after <Raid>).
  • Black Hybrid (KY)
    A cringe-ass control deck that utilizes a generic green Tamer to give <Blocker> to the D-Reaper's egg (which is as mentioned an unaffected 15k body), while evoing your black Tamers into blocker hybrids and taunting out a powerful ACE that blows up the opponent's board. Since one of these is a mindlink Tamer, it can eject itself from the stack at end of turn to serve as a base for more hybrids.
  • Mother Vortex (GR)
    Another way of combining the D-Reaper with the same generic green Tamer; in this case, you run almost the entire D-Reaper deck as normal (only excluding the field spell), except you also run MedievalDukemon (EN: "MedievalGallantmon"), which can suspend opponent Digimon to reduce its hard play cost to 7, and at the end of the turn it performs <Alliance> checks with the egg; by giving the Tamer's <Blocker>/<Piercing> effect to Medieval instead of the egg, it unsuspends during the swing, allowing it to still serve as a blocker.

From Frontier

• AncientGarurumon ("Blue Hybrid") (BY)
  A hybrid deck (evolves on a Tamer) that swings with a level 4, and while it's swinging, climbs the ladder into a level 6 that helps clear the opponent's board, then explodes to climb the ladder again. Often run over a red base because one specific red egg is just too bullshit to ignore.
• KaiserGreymon (EN: "EmperorGreymon") ("Red Hybrid") (RGB)
  The original unga bunga deck, it just rapidly accumulates bonus DP as it climbs and then swings at end of turn for ridiculous checks. The newest wave of support gave it access to source-trashing, making it significantly more useful in modern metas.
• AncientGreymon (RM)
  The red/purple equivalent of AncientGarurumon, except it doesn't have the sauce AncientGarurumon has and its boss monster is also more underwhelming, so it's not as good. You can do really silly shit with it, just don't expect it to be good.
• Velgrmon ("Purple Hybrid") (M)
  Change the colors of opponent Digimon, preventing them from being used to blast evolve. Then, get big and ungabunga, and blow yourself up and recycle.
• Lucemon (YM)
  Everything costs way too much memory, but in optimal circumstances, you essentially force your opponent to either (1) continuously blow up their own shit or (2) let you recover endlessly while trashing their own security.
• Dynasmon (YR)
  A funny hubris deck that trashes its own security in order to become the big chungus and block/raid for silly numbers. It runs an option card that, when used, places itself at the bottom of security, where it recovers from deck if it's checked as the last security card.

From Savers

• ShineGreymon (RY)
  Masaru Daimon (EN: "Marcus Damon") punches you in the face, and it reduces your DP. The deck essentially revolves around suspending as many Tamers as possible as fast as possible to do your climb. The level 5s all have inherits that protect your Tamers by putting them in security, threatening even more DP minus if your opponent attacks you.
• MirageGaogamon (B)
  How do you like not being allowed to play the game? Because that's this deck's gimmick. Any time your opponent adds cards to their hand by an effect (which is most of the game) you gain memory. It's gross. It's basically Maxx C for digica. Don't touch it.
• Rosemon (G)
  Another deck's engine strapped to an underwhelming boss monster.
• Ravemon (MG)
  At the end of the turn, you blow yourself up to rip cards from the opponent's hand. Then, you play yourself back out. It's rogue but its unconventional way of interacting with the mechanics means it has surprising potential in certain matchups.
• Sleipmon (EN: "Kentaurosmon") (Y)
  Same gameplan as Dynasmon, but with a more consistent buildup, and more focused around debuffing the opponent with <Security Attack -1>.
• Royal Knights (🏳️‍🌈)
  A clock deck that spawns a bunch of big bodies for reduced cost that control the opponent's board, then on its finishing turn plays them all out at once with its boss monster. If it fails to kill on this turn, it may then use a generic staple called Paladin Mode to bottom-deck its whole trash, resetting its engine to zero.

From Xros Wars

• Shoutmon EX6 and/or X7 ("Xros Heart") (🏳️‍🌈)
  Two different styles focused around digixrossing to get a bunch of effects. X7 is more flexible, while EX6 is stronger but more protracted. Both decks involve toolboxing a bunch of single-keyword inherits to rush down your opponent.
  • Xros Heart engine Duftmon (EN: "Leopardmon") ("Xros Duft") (GY)
    A swarm deck that utilizes the fact that most of Xros Heart's level 5s are green in order to go into Duftmon, which then plays out the unevolved green mons from hand without paying the cost, allowing their effects to get them a free evo into their evolved counterparts from under your Tamers. I don't have much direct experience with it so I can't provide a proper evaluation at this time. Notably one of only two archetypes (the other being Devas) which can reasonably expect to get use out of an option card called Trinity Burst that's really shitty in its intended decks.
• ZekeGreymon ("Blue Flare") (BK)
  Pretty easy to pick up. <Jamming> and unsuspending go brr, and with recent support it also has access to <De-Evolve>. This deck boasts the single greatest search power in the game, in the form of a cost-5 option card that searches six cards deep, takes two of them to the hand and also plays out a Tamer while it's at it.
• Mervamon/Anubimon (M)
  A swarm deck that makes use of powerful purple tools to play things with <Retaliation> out from the trash and give them <Rush>. Its adherents often describe it as "a deck from the future," as it was broken as shit the set it released, but still feels like it was made for the modern day.
• LordKnightmon X-Antibody (KM)
  A DigiXros deck that focuses around concentrated <De-Evolve> by dropping DarkKnightmons for 4 memory, then using them as a blast target to play more DarkKnightmons. Once you're at the level 6, you give things <Collision> for even more bullshit, and rip and tear with <Alliance>/<Piercing> and <Security Attack +1> inherits. Also, one of your Tamers essentially acts as a memory boost: it does a search, and then by popping it, the cost of your level 5 is reduced by 2.
  • LordKnightmon X-Antibody, trashbox variant (M)
    By using a bunch of generic purple goodstuff, skip the entire buildup and turbo straight into LKX, then unga bunga. People dislike this one a lot for being way too consistent and just ignoring everything that makes the normal archetype fun and interesting, but best-of-1 results suggest this variant will be significantly more popular than the actual intended base.
• ZeedMillenniummon (KRM)
  Trash combos for days! Technically a hybrid deck, because one of the two secret rares it uses evolves on its main Tamer if and only if the deck's main searcher has been placed under her. Has a lot of potential in the hands of a skilled pilot, but loses hard to <De-Evolve>.
• Bagramon (M)
  I, uh, don't know much about it. Reliable sources tell me (1) it's not very good (2) 90% of its effects trigger only when an opponent does something.

From Hunters

• Arresterdramon Superior Mode ("Hunters") (M)
  Reduce evo costs by placing generic inherits underneath the body you're evolving. Then, your level 5 boss monster banishes an opponent Digimon to underneath a different Digimon or a Tamer, and swings without suspending if there are enough sources under it.

(Appmon is currently not in the card game. This is likely to change with BT21 but we don't know for sure.)

From Adventure 2020

• Omegamon Alter-S (EN: "Omnimon Alter-S") (K)
  A combo deck with little else to its name and no good searchers. If it pops off, when you evolve one of your Digimon, it evolves another by effect over and over until you combine into a big level 7, which swings at the end of the turn by the Tamer's effect. If it doesn't pop off? You're just going to be sitting there with several blockers and feeling sad.
• Algomon (EN: "Argomon") (GM)
  A rogue deck focused around telling Tamers to sit the fuck down. I forgot to cover this in the Savers section but 2020 has like, almost no support in the card game, so it goes here instead. Basically, if it pops off, it's a way to swing multiple times with generic green staple Quartzmon. If it doesn't pop off, it just kind of sits there and steals turn if it gets deleted.
• Goddramon (EN: "Goldramon") ("Four Great Dragons") (YR)
  A token-generation deck with an inconsistent buildup. Its gameplan is to set up blockers, use <Raid>, and optionally play out level 6s by effect at the cost of deleting them at the end of opponent's turn. There's two ways to play this deck: you either attempt to OTK with ST19 Arisa, or you just try to approach it as a swarmy control deck with self-healing on removal.

From Ghost Game

• Siriusmon (RM)
  You fuck around with level 4s and gain effects by putting them under your level 5. Unfortunately held back by the fact that Ghost Game as a whole got its second full wave of support right when ACEs started to be a thing, so all of the Ghost Game ACEs are just really sad cards.
• Amphimon (B)
  Self-handrip to unsuspend and trash sources, I think?? People have tried to cook with it but see above re: Ghost Game decks are sad.
• Diarbbitmon (G)
  Basically a prototype for a later season's protagonist deck, but with none of the sauce that makes said protagonist deck any good. See above re: Ghost Game decks are sad.
• Invisimon (BK)
  Due to debuting in Liberator instead of actual Ghost Game, the Espimon line has a competent deck. It revolves around flipping the opponent's security face-up and hiding the top card of your stack in security when you attack, whereupon it gets played out at the end of the opponent's turn like Ravemon.

From Seekers

• Fenriloogamon Takemikazuchi (MY)
  So you got this really broken egg, right? You use the egg and rapidly turbo up the chain as fast as fucking possible, while setting up your trash; then, once you reach the level 6, you jogress (EN: "DNA Digivolve") from the trash, forcibly set your memory back to -2 to keep turn, and swing a fuck ton of times for game. The thing is, it can do this entire combo from a single level 3, and so most people hate its guts.
• Kazuchimon (YG)
  Try to stay at 3 security because half your effects won't fire if you have more and half your effects won't fire if you have less.
• Brigadramon (K)
  Swarm deck that plays out a bunch of small guys and also has generic access to <Jamming> and <Reboot>. Combines play-cost-based deletion with effects that reduce play costs. Pretty rogue nowadays but still fun.
• Numemon (K)
  Once, long ago, this was the scourge of the game. Nowadays it's had two of its most important pieces limited to 1, so it basically does the same shit as always but slower and less effectively. Its deal is basically "be sticky."
• Death-X-DORUgoramon (EN: "DexDorugoramon") (MK)
  You put cards in the trash that protect you from deletion by, when your body would be deleted, evolving into them instead. Features <Collision>, powerful bursts of <De-Evolve>, and even a little Tamer hate.
  • Purple base Death-X-DORUgoramon (MK)
    By using a lower end consisting of Loogamons and the BT17 Bowmon (i.e. the one that isn't busted as all fuck) instead of DORUmons, you can make the deck slightly more memory efficient in exchange for losing access to <Piercing>.

From Liberator

• Zephagamon (G)
  The protagonist deck that stole Diarbbitmon's gimmick. It has a bunch of effects that suspend opponent Digimon to do things, and then at the end of the turn it swings into them for massive damage. It also features the single most generic Tamer in the game, who can give <Blocker> and <Piercing> to anything in the game at the end of the turn (and if it's an in-archetype level 5 or higher, it unsuspends). An alternative level 6 gives it access to <Alliance>, as well as offering DP deletion when a Digimon is played.
• Cendrillmon (Y)
  Play out bodies with the [Puppet] trait and/or tokens, and delete them at the end of the turn to DP-reduce opponent Digimon and swing without suspending.
• BeelStarmon X-Antibody ("Three Musketeers") (M)
  Shuffle options around that place themselves into your Digimon's own evolution sources. Then, the upper end has effects that can trash them from sources to activate a secondary effect.
• Ryugumon ("Aquatics") (B)
  You put your own cards into sources, you play your own cards out from sources. Features a type of protection that, when you'd be removed from battle, plays out sources. Technically a hybrid deck, as the best searcher the deck has is able to evolve on the deck's main Tamer.
• Pyramidimon (K)
  Place additional evolution sources under your tower as you climb, and attempt to OTK by trashing them. Pending further support, fail at doing so.
• Heavymetaldramon (MR)
  Arguably one of the saddest decks of all time. It's meant to rip its own hand, with effects that fire if the player's hand size is less than 4. Unfortunately, the very mechanics of the game are working against it, so until it gets its second wave of support in BT20, it's pretty fucking bad.
• Royal Base ("Bees") (GK)
  I heard you like X-Antibodies so I put Protoform in a deck that directly benefits from having a stacked security and that lets you recycle that Protoform back into your hand at the start of your main! Get big, get loads of security, unga bunga, and kill. Features generic mindlink Tamer Yulin (or Kosuke, depending on the build), who can go into any X-Antibody stack to give it free <Reboot>/<Alliance> (or <Piercing>/<Blocker>).
• Hexeblaumon/Skadimon ("Ice-Snow") (B)
  Strip your opponent's evolution sources very very fast. Floodgate them with Hexeblaumon, or banish their Digimon to security with Skadimon. Either way, you can then unga bunga with <Piercing>, <Security Attack +1>, and the unique effect <Ice Clad>, which changes the rules of battle to decide the victor by number of evolution sources instead of DP.
• Dinomon/Tyranomon (RG)
  So you get really fucking big while you're swinging, and then you force your opponent to only be able to attack your suspended Digimon. You also have <Fortitude>, so if they delete you, you just play yourself back out and suspend yourself again. It's pretty fun.
• Ragnamon (EN: "Galacticmon") (K)
  Build into a level 5 fast and then evolve it for full cost into a strong level 6 with a lot of DP and conditional protection from all removal by sending sources to the bottom of the deck. The Tamer allows for <De-Evolve> by bottom-decking sources, which is useful because many sources of immunity to Digimon effects don't prevent Tamer effects, and this procs an unsuspend inherit; under optimal circumstances you can find yourself ripping 3 security a turn!

Liberator NPC Decks: "Fields"

Fields are a concept from the old v-pets, referring essentially to a Digimon's natural habitat and the types of evolution it tends to experience. (Non-v-pet fans may recognize it from V-Tamer 01, where each of the five Tags was guarded by a Perfect-level hailing from the corresponding Field.) As they describe tendencies rather than immutable aspects, the same species of Digimon can appear in multiple Fields. Originally, there were six fields, and these are the ones the card game recognizes; two others were retroactively added during the Savers era.

In Liberator, certain in-game NPCs run themed Field decks, using the roster of the corresponding Pendulum Color v-pet. These all share certain common features: they all run a 2-cost field spell that gives a small but significant buff to all of your Digimon with the trait, they all run a 3-color jogress level 7 as their boss monster that plays out a high play cost's worth of Digimon when jogressed into, and they all run an upper end with an end-of-turn jogress effect. These decks are:

• NSp: Nature Spirits (🏳️‍🌈)
  Boss monster: Tlalocmon (GKY)
  This deck's main gimmick is an egg which allows Digimon to attack by effect when your Digimon are played, synergizing with the field spell providing generic <Alliance> and the end-of-turn jogress to potentially check 4 security in one turn.
• DS: Deep Savers (🏳️‍🌈)
  Boss monster: Aegisdramon (BKY)
  This deck's main gimmick is a variety of effects which disable the opponent's ability to interact with the boardstate as long as the player has 1 or more memory. To this end, it runs an egg which sets memory to 1 if the player has 0 memory. The boss monster further fucks things up by floodgating [On Play] effects while the player has 1 or less memory.
• NSo: Nightmare Soldiers (🏳️‍🌈)
  Boss monster: Voltobautamon (EN: "Boltboutamon") (MKY)
  This deck has access to Tamer removal, and boasts a fast jogress buildup even below level 7. By using a variety of extremely-low-cost level 5s and below it enables a quick buildup into Callismon for control power, while setting up the trash for Voltobautamon's effect.

Decks Not Listed Above (not from anything, or are from something niche)

• Galaxy Engine (RB)
  One of the mathiest decks in the game, it uses powerful memory management tools to build a huge stack that can then go into whatever level 6 you want. It is often seen committing war crimes, because MirageGaogamon is so broken on its own that you don't need the rest of the archetype to wreck shop with it, but any level 6 that can evolve on blue/red and that is useful generically can pop off in a Galaxy deck.
• Mastemon, from Re:Digitize Decode (YM)
  A deck that says "go ahead, swing into me, I dare you" and then banishes an opponent Digimon into security at counter timing. The rise of Imperialdramon, which runs an option card that parries the banishing into an evolution, has meant that it doesn't see much tournament play, but it's good at a casual level.
• HeavyLeomon, from ReArise (GK)
  The original <Fortitude> deck, it does big chungus plays with the option card Final Zubagon Punch. I'm not sufficiently versed in it to make statements about how it plays, but essentially the level 4s let you evolve into a level 5 mid-swing, and then the level 6s do big plays. Tech in Parasimon, a card that places itself from the hand into the sources of a green Digimon, for extra Fortitude power.
• Mugendramon (EN: "Machinedramon"), from World 1 (KR)
  A toolboxy zoo deck that gets big and unga bungas with a wide variety of black and red [Cyborg] inherits. Features a Tamer that can redirect opponent attacks into your boss monster without blocking.
• Seven Great Demon Lords (M)
  Basically Royal Knights but more bullshit, because anything that goes in the trash is fuel for the Gate and later for Ogudomon. The only way to survive against it is to either rush it down before it can do anything, or ensure you always have 8 or more total bodies and security cards, which is a tall order when it deals in lots and lots of removal.
• Diaboromon, from Cyber Sleuth (K)
  The original go wide deck, with lots of de-evolve and deletion power. It has two main downsides: it loses badly to non-deletion removal, and the de-evolve/deletion effects are all mandatory. At a casual level, though, it's pretty fun.
• BloomLordmon (G)
  The deck alluded to when I described Rosemon as having "another deck's engine." The gameplan essentially revolves around going really wide for very little memory, then going into the level 6 and doing a fuck ton of checks. Hasn't seen support in a while, but it can be a dangerous matchup if you're not careful.
• RagnaLoardmon (RK)
  I heard you liked effects so I put [Hand] effects on your cards so you can get evolution sources while you gain effects. If it pops off it can do silly shit, but it mostly sees its cards used as enablers in other archetypes.
• Volcanicdramon/Metallicdramon, from Linkz (KR)
  A deck whose gimmick is big [On Play] plays, while floodgating on evolution in exchange for costing 5. Its main Tamer, Hina Kurihara, suspends herself when an in-archetype Digimon evolves to use its [On Play] when evolving. Uses Dorbickmon to make explosive plays by xrossing a card on the field to use its float skill, then jogress for game.
• Alphamon, from Chronicle (K)
  The "1v1 me fairly, coward" deck, it focuses around building a big, deletion-immune stack with <Blocker> and challenging the opponent to swing over it. It's a highly granular archetype that makes use of a lot of different mechanics, but unfortunately it matches up poorly against non-deletion removal or source trashing.
• JESmon, from... uhh... he was in something, right? (R)
  An OTK deck focused on playing out puppets with [Sistermon] in their name to ramp fast, giving them rush with ST19 Arisa, and becoming the big chungus for massive checks. Some people tech in Magnamon X-Antibody because the boss monster can take any royal knight into sources and use its effects as its own.
• Examon (BG)
  A level-skipping deck that turbos from level 5 directly into a jogress level 7 with <Blocker>/<Evade>, then plays out a level 6 by effect to force the opponent to swing into you at the start of their main phase. It's a fun playstyle, but it's memory-hungry and severely struggles with search power, so it's often bricky in practice.