Discussion Does Dragon Need a Basic Energy Type?

[Otaku]

I remember Haymaker (yes, I'm THAT old), but the deal with Haymaker was everyone played about 20 energy...

Either you remember incorrectly or you didn't realize you had a bad list.

Edit: Just re-read that sentence. To be clear, I also had a bad Haymaker list back in the day. Eventually, I learned it was bad.

I popped over to a certain Wiki-style Pokémon site to look up something else, and decided to see what it said about Haymaker. Unfortunately someone posted a bad Haymaker list there (which I was supposed to correct four years ago - took care of it now). Don't know if that was your reference point, or if one with that high of Energy count won something impressive, but I've done a little research and experimentation with these cards since then, and stuff that scared and confused me back then, like a Haymaker deck running 8 Pokémon, 40 Trainers, and 12 Energy now seem quite reasonable. In fact, I think some versions took it further, running more like 8 basic Energy and including a few copies of something like Energy Retrieval or (once released) Nightly Garbage Run to help compensate. The (faulty) common sense of running 20 Energy was introduced at this time (probably in the first starter decks), and carried through until around the e-card sets, IIRC. Even then, though, it was a starting point and only the decks that needed a lot of Energy in the first two Modified Formats got that high.

As for the superior Trainer support, while a facet of the cardpool it doesn't change that even back in the beginning, competitive multi-Energy decks were a thing. While they faded with those first two Modified Formats, they returned afterward. Then they faded again. It is a cyclic thing, so I believe expecting it to shift again is quite reasonable. Even if not, as we are discussing whether a convoluted Special-Energy-that-counts-as-a-Basic-Energy needs to be released or a new kind of basic Energy that won't help current Dragon-Types, the other option has just been what you dismissed; useful Special Energy or Energy acceleration. Even while we had Double Dragon Energy, this was a thing that helped Dragon-Types see play, why act like something that didn't disappear that long ago won't return again?

Plus, the ultimately solution for just about every problem in the game? Fix the pacing.

 

[signofzeta]

I find it hilarious that when the fairy type, and its basic energy, was introduced, it was not significantly different from the other existing 8 types that used its own basic energy.

Here are 3 things why not a lot of people play dragons.

1. No incentive to play multi energy type decks in the current format.

2. Each type does everything, and no type covers for the weakness of another type.

3. Too many basic energy types. In MTG, you have 5 mana types. There are 10 2 color pairs. In pokemon TCG, you have 9 basic energy types, which is, 36 different pairs. They would have to print 36 different dragon pokemon evolutionary lines before the same 2 energy pair is recycled. At this point now, the energy type pair has only one or 2 designated dragons.

If they introduce a 10th basic energy type, it wouldn't be a mistake, it would be a boneheaded decision.

Do you know what's even funnier? Dragons have a weakness to fairy, right? Dragons, having the multi energy costs and all, should only be weak to dragons. Another thing is, before fairy energy was introduced, there were 28 energy type pairs that could be used on dragons. Adding fairy added another 8 energy type pairs.

Basic fairy energy should never have existed.

 

[thflame]

@Otaku

After a quick (15 minute) internet search, I have found exactly ZERO sources (except you on a few sites) that played less than 16 energy in Haymaker, and the guys who played 16 admitted their counts were on the low side. Most people played 18 energy, which sounds reasonable and pretty close to my 20 energy count guess. More ran 20-22 energy than 16.

You are the ONLY person I have found who remembers Haymaker having around 12 energy.

Logically speaking, with Energy Removal and SER being 4-ofs in 90% of the decks around then, you would lose most of your games just off of not having any energy left to attack with. You aren't even playing enough energy to utilize your own SER and still maintain a steady stream of energy to attack.

Maybe if you maxed out Energy Retrievals, you might have had enough energy to carry yourself through a game, but for the most part, an extra energy was better than Energy Retrieval, especially in a deck that could attack for 1-2 energy. You would also be discarding tons of resources with your Energy Retrievals.

I highly doubt that the majority of the internet is mis-remembering the energy counts in the old Base Set days.

 

[Otaku]

I highly doubt that the majority of the internet is mis-remembering the energy counts in the old Base Set days.

Whereas I highly doubt 15 minutes was enough to find quality decklists, whether from that time period or from other people (like myself) have retroactively posted. I want to preface what I am about to say something. Thank you for challenging me. I could be totally and utterly wrong about this. You've got a long way before I am convinced I am wrong (or at least have more than something minor wrong) but I'm not trying to deceive people, so I can't learn unless someone lets me know I'm wrong. I also have several things I need to catch-up on this weekend, so I'm probably going to have to go silent in this discussion for a bit. Could be quite a while, as I am actually very behind.

When we got onto this tangent, you were trying to stress how the modern cardpool and metagame is so vastly different to that of this early era, yes? The online Pokémon community is also very different. How much do you remember about playing Pokémon at the time? Researching stuff online back then? As you probably realize, I am stating that you should have doubts about whether "the internet" remembers this fact because we are going back to the internet circa 1999-2001, for a hobby. A popular one, riding high on the original, international Pokémon fad, but still subject to a lot of the original data being lost. This was also a time when the magazine industry was still riding high; competitive deck lists usually came from the correct magazine and/or paid websites. WotC wasn't usually publishing the winning deck lists, and even if they were, those results probably aren't still readily available with a quick web search.

What is readily available? The equivalent of the bad information you know to ignore in a contemporary web search about the Pokémon TCG. The "Deck Help" list that never gets good help, or the loudmouth otaku who only thinks he knows the game. ^^' Even if you're dealing with the work of someone who is competent, they may not yet be a competent writer, and if they are still playing, instead of being a full adult with 20 years of experience they are likely a teenager with (at most) two years of it.

I will also remind you that this tangent was about somehow "proving" that the Dragon-Type needed its own basic Energy card because Dragon-Types past, present, and future were, are, and won't be competitive with their current design practices. I brought up the far past and the near past to show that this changes over time.

 

[Otaku]

...or I can remember a resource I have handy that you may not: Pojo's Unofficial Ultimate Pokémon: 20th Anniversary Special Edition. This is a book that released last year and while I am one of the people who helped write it, we'll be looking at something written by someone else.

Jason Klaczynski wrote an article about what he considered the 10 best decks of all time. I'm not going to spoil the entire article, but not a single deck he picked to represent the best from the entire history of the Pokémon TCG has more than 17 Energy cards. The lowest Energy count is just one Energy, but that was in a deck that used Holon's Pokémon (which could be played as Energy) so I won't count that. The next lowest is a Seismitoad-EX deck from 2015, running just four Double Colorless Energy. So, what about Haymaker? Is it in there? How many Energy did it run?

To my surrpise, Ness' list has 17 Energy. So I was wrong? Maybe. His list is for Base Set only, which does change a few things, but the Energy count still seems high. There are four Double Colorless Energy, and they seem like they are more for retreating than attacking; the deck has two copies of Base Set Farfetch'd. It also packs three Energy Retrieval, so does that mean I should treat it like a higher Energy count, or is that proof decks that needed to run "more Energy" would just use that Trainer instead? Then again, with Base Set only, the other cards I'd want to work in aren't available yet, so maybe more Energy instead of one more copy of [insert Trainer] really is best? Of course, he also covers the infamous deck built around Murkrow, Slowking, and Sneasel (all from Neo Genesis), specifically a build from 2001. 11 Energy in that one, all Special Energy cards, though three were Recycle Energy.

Sadly, nothing tailored to our discussions less tangential needs is present; after Seismitoad-EX, the next most recent deck is from 2012 and does not involve a Pokémon with multiple Energy Type requirements. Then again, I guess those previous two didn't either, so I should probably mention that the list is Igor Costa's 2012 World Championship winning deck. Darkrai-EX/Mewtwo-EX/Shaymin/Smeargle ran 14 total Energy with seven being basic Darkness Energy, three being Double Colorless Energy, two being Prism Energy, and two being basic Fighting Enegy. Yes, the deck includes Dark Patch and Junk Arm, both maxed out. Getting back to the heart of the discussion, we were arguing about whether or not Dragon-Types - as their gimmick is having two off-Type Energy requirements - need a basic Dragon Energy card. @thflame proposed a Special Energy that would count as a basic Energy card and I was arguing that it was too complicated a concept. Instead, I was trying to point out that if the powers-that-be weren't intentionally wanting Dragon-Types to be "meh", they could use the far simpler methods of the past - even just reprinting Double Dragon Energy to accomplish this.

 

[RiverShock]

I think we should look at it like this. Does Dive Ball need to be reprinted for Water decks? Does Forest of Giant Plants need to be reprinted for Grass decks? Does Blacksmith need to be remade for Fire decks? Should we reprint Double Rainbow Energy or Boost Energy so some evolution decks are better? Should we reprint Dark Patch for Dark decks?

I want you guy to honestly answer these questions and if any of these are no, then why should Dragon types get a pass, since these cards above made their archetypes better.

Dragon is inherently a worse type. It doesn't hit anything for weakness, and uses multiple energy types. It requires more support than the average type for that reason. Also, the types you mentioned already have multiple support cards available to them. When the rotation hits, Dragon will have literally zero support whatsoever. Water still has Manaphy EX, Brooklet Hill and Aqua Patch, Fire still has Altar of the Sunne, Volcanion-EX and Kiawe, etc. Heck, BURNING ENERGY and SPLASH ENERGY will still be in rotation, which are far less important to their types than Double Dragon Energy is.

Tell me, why should literally every other type have multiple support cards while Dragon has ZERO?

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Dragon is inherently a worse type. It doesn't hit anything for weakness, and uses multiple energy types. It requires more support than the average type for that reason. Also, the types you mentioned already have multiple support cards available to them. When the rotation hits, Dragon will have literally zero support whatsoever. Water still has Manaphy EX, Brooklet Hill and Aqua Patch, Fire still has Altar of the Sunne, Volcanion-EX and Kiawe, etc. Heck, BURNING ENERGY and SPLASH ENERGY will still be in rotation, which are far less important to their types than Double Dragon Energy is.

Tell me, why should literally every other type have multiple support cards while Dragon has ZERO?

Colorless has no support as well and hasn't had any, like ever and still doesn't hit anything for Weakness. Dragon at least has support in Expanded. I don't consider things like Manaphy-EX water support because any deck that uses Water Energy can use Manaphy-EX and while Water decks are better users of Brooklet Hill (which is also support for Fighting types), a deck can still use it to get out that one Remoraid, or just use it for deck knowledge.

Why is Dragon any more deserving than Colorless for support? Dragon type is more powerful than the other types and that balances them against the others. They get to enjoy higher damage and better Abilities and on average ten to 30 more HP than the other types. The Dragon type isn't meant to exist together in the same deck. A Rayquaza isn't going to work in a deck with Goodra. I know you're going to say the Colorless type is splashable but it really isn't. You can't put a lot of Colorless Pokemon in any deck. As a matter of fact, the best Colorless Pokemon in Standard is Tapu Lele-GX.

 

[Kietharr]

Dragon type is more powerful than the other types

I see you repeatedly, persistently making this claim with absolutely no evidence to support it. Colorless, by virtue of the cards printed for it and the fact that colorless cards don't have to deal with multiple basic energy cost, is far superior to Dragon as a type. Whether splashed or not.

Higher damage - Not really. Some of the dragon cards have theoretically higher damage, but pay for it in terms of higher costs, coin flips, discard effects, and again, having to pay inherently less consistent multi color costs. Even with DDE negating the last point, these cards (M-Rayquaza ROS 60, White Kyurem BCR 103, Black Kyurem PLS 95, ect) see zero serious play in either expanded or standard. In fact most typical dragon cards (Dragonite EX, Garchomp EX, ect) deal about the same damage as other cards while paying equal or higher costs.

Higher HP - Not at all. Dragon type EX cards ranged 170-180 hp which was completely average. Dragon type big basics range from 110-130 hp. Dragon type stage 2s range between 130 and 160 hp which is strictly average, Dragon type megas were 220-230 hp, megas on the whole ranged 190-240. Kommo-o has 240 which is about average for a stage 2 GX, which range from 230-250. Noivern has 200 hp which is completely normal for stage 1 GX cards, which range 200-210.

Better abilities - Not at all. If you're only looking at Giratina, maybe. Giratina and Flygon are the two dragons that saw high level play for their abilities.

There aren't many dragon cards out there. It's not hard to go look at the list and discover that dragons aren't advantaged in any meaningful way over any other type in this game despite having the unique disadvantage of paying multi color costs. Colorless as a type has the inherent advantage of being able to pick any secondary type that meshes well with the card you want to play. Look at the different ways people were able to play MegaRay, with Jolteon, Manaphy, Magearna, ect. Colorless is not inherently splashable but the reverse is true, you can splash most anything you want to support a colorless attacker since you don't have to run additional basic energy types.

 

[signofzeta]

If dragon is being run in some decks, and those decks only run one dragon evolutionary line, then it is perfectly fine.

If you mean by dragons not getting support as in not everybody is using dragons and not everybody is dedicating most of their pokemon to dragons, then you are looking at dragons in the wrong way.

Does it really matter if you don't see people use a lot of gold colored cards? I don't think so.

 

[ProfessorPlatan]

I believe dragon should receive a basic energy typing as it would make the game more diverse, and like a LOT of people already said - if the typing is brought into the tcg, it should get a basic energy card.

 

[PMJ]

I mean, you have to do a little bit of work, bro. Decks like The Truth don't just come out of nowhere without a little bit of elbow grease. You're playing with the big boys now! Act like it, or go back and play Night March.

This is some nice scrub mentality. Night March is not as brain dead as you think it is. Just because you lost to it a bunch doesn't mean it takes no skill.

What we need are more cards that engages the player. Nothing more with large damage but something more to make the players think how they approach deck building.

Anyway signofzeta has some good points, I agree with the things he says. Part of the reason why I fell in love with Grass-types was because I was a huge fan of inflicting Special Conditions. Now that everyone and their mom can do it, it seems less special. I would agree with Otaku and say that I don't think that one certain thing should always, 100% of the time, definitively be the realm of a certain type, but it should be less common than it is now.

Also I would definitely be down for retiring Fairy and streamlining all the basic Energy.

 

[Otaku]

You're playing with the big boys now! Act like it, or go back and play Night March.

This is some nice scrub mentality. Night March is not as brain dead as you think it is. Just because you lost to it a bunch doesn't mean it takes no skill.

Whether crystal_pidgeot usually beat it or usually lost to it, Night March wasn't a brain dead deck; it requires different skills than a deck like The Truth, and you give a bad player either and it becomes a crap shoot of do they mess things up and lose or does the decks' inherent strength allow them to still win. Thinking about the decks, they may be two sides of the same coin but I've barely faced The Truth decks and even then, only as they function on the PTCGO in the Legacy Format so I could be way off.

With what little I do know, though, that seems to be the case. Night March requires some skill setting up (to avoid leaving yourself in a bad situation late game) but most of the skill it needs after that is carefully handling the rest of the match. The vast majority of decks with bad match-ups to it had bad matchups against one (or more!) decks in the rest of the competitive metagame; I'd have players who could have won panic and/or ragequit because they didn't realize they were in a strong position, even though I'd pulled ahead in Prizes. XP The Truth looks like the opposite; you have to have patience and perform your setup well, even go down a few Prizes, but once it gets rolling, only a few decks can stop it. At that point, it is mostly a matter of not doing something stupid and costing yourself the game.

...

Seriously though, someone more familiar with The Truth wanna weigh in?

 

[Jenna573]

Guys... this thread isn't about haymaker or any other kind of decks. It's also not really about which types have what type of support. I think everyone is getting way off topic. It's more about the potential need or practicality (or lack thereof) of a new type of basic energy in the current format.

It wouldn't be that hard to implement Basic Dragon energy.
PTCi releases a basic Dragon Energy and an errata stating that all non colorless basic energy costs of Dragons are now Dragon energy.

That is absurd. That errata is a tremendous change to the way cards are interpreted. It's way more of an intrusive change than TPCi would bother with.

OR TPCi Prints a Dragon Energy that reads "This card provides [C] energy. When this card is attached to [N] Pokemon, this card provides every type of energy, but only one energy at a time. This card counts as Basic energy."

You've literally just described a special energy card. A basic energy is self-explanatory because it is a basic card that has the word energy on it, and a type. Nothing else. Nothing else. If it was basic it wouldn't need to describe anything, let alone that it should count as a basic energy. (that's what makes it "basic") If it did, it would still be a special energy whose effect allowed it to be counted as a basic when attached to a pokémon, (so trainer and ability effects would treat it as a basic) which would actually make it a really cool card and I'd love to see something like that, but that doesn't change the fact that it would still be a special energy that you could therefor only have 4 of in a deck. (defeating the purpose/point of your desire for basic dragon energy)

I get the feeling that a lot of people think of dragon energy based on their experience with it as DDE and think "oh yeah dragon energy counts as any type of energy" except it doesn't. Only the special energy 'Double Dragon Energy' counts as any type and only because of it's effect as a special energy. Dragon energy itself is just dragon energy... which isn't used by anyone at all. A basic dragon energy wouldn't count as anything but dragon energy, because it's not a special energy and therefor can't have ANY effect.

Like I said... The only way basic dragon energy would work is if new dragons started using it, and it would still be dumb because you would have to more or less disregard every single dragon type card that currently exists. (your proposed errata is outrageous and unrealistic. It also defeats the original purpose of current and past dragon cards) I don't think I would mind at all if they reprinted DDE, though. It was awfully handy, if not a bit OP.

I get that types have mechanics that more or less are associated with them, but some mechanics are better than others.

Nobody wants to play split energy cost Pokemon, because running two types of basic energy is a consistency nightmare. When you have space for 12 energy you have 12 outs to energy. When you play 6-6 line of split energy you just halved your chances of drawing into the energy you need.

If you are unhappy with these specific established mechanics for one specific type of pokémon... don't play that type of pokémon. Clearly it doesn't work as well for your preferred play-style. That's the cool thing about pokémon TCG... it's got something for everyone.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Whether crystal_pidgeot usually beat it or usually lost to it, Night March wasn't a brain dead deck; it requires different skills than a deck like The Truth, and you give a bad player either and it becomes a crap shoot of do they mess things up and lose or does the decks' inherent strength allow them to still win. Thinking about the decks, they may be two sides of the same coin but I've barely faced The Truth decks and even then, only as they function on the PTCGO in the Legacy Format so I could be way off.

With what little I do know, though, that seems to be the case. Night March requires some skill setting up (to avoid leaving yourself in a bad situation late game) but most of the skill it needs after that is carefully handling the rest of the match. The vast majority of decks with bad match-ups to it had bad matchups against one (or more!) decks in the rest of the competitive metagame; I'd have players who could have won panic and/or ragequit because they didn't realize they were in a strong position, even though I'd pulled ahead in Prizes. XP The Truth looks like the opposite; you have to have patience and perform your setup well, even go down a few Prizes, but once it gets rolling, only a few decks can stop it. At that point, it is mostly a matter of not doing something stupid and costing yourself the game.

...

Seriously though, someone more familiar with The Truth wanna weigh in?

I played both decks and I found some respect for Night March. My first match I played with it, I made a ton of mistakes but still won all of my games but one due to coin flips. I had no idea how to play it other than "get Night March" in the discard pile and then kill things. The Truth wasn't like this for me. It wasn't my goal to just play what I had but setup future plays and not mess anything up.

I'm not a expert with these decks but the difference between the two is night and day.

 

[signofzeta]

Look at it this way. Don't think that dragon Pokemon as having multi energy costs. Think of Pokemon with multi energy costs as dragons.

Think of the introduction of dragon types back in BW Dragons Exalted as creating a visual cue for Pokemon with multi energy cost attacks.

I mentioned that each type that used its own basic energy should have its own exclusive gameplay feature, right? It would be better if a gameplay feature, like healing HP, or preventing damage, or doing massive damage, or even status conditions would be determined by the energy type used in its costs. A Pokemon that heals would use grass energy, which can be used on any type of pokemon, but usually, they are grass types. A Pokemon that prevents damage would use metal energy. A Dragon pokemon with both grass and metal energy costs would both heal, and prevent damage.

Dragons need to be more powerful in relation to its energy costs.

Dragons also need to be the only type that does what every other type could do, depending on the energy it uses for its attacks, which means that the other 9 types using its own basic energy needs to be more limited in what it could do.

Dragons also need to be designed with the knowledge that they have multi type energy costs for attacks. The rules for designing Grass, Fire, Water, Lightning, Psychic, Fighting, Darkness, Metal, and Fairy should be thrown out the window when designing Dragons. Some of you want basic dragon energy because it seems as if the Dragons were designed in such a way that they use basic dragon energy, when in reality they don't. I'd rather have them design around the multi type energy costs, rather than to create a 10th type that goes in your deck the same way as 9 other types.

They also need to design with the knowledge that this is a trading card game. I'm pretty sure they know that, but some of you think that adding more types that use their own basic energy is a great idea, but there is a problem. I call it dilution. One specific type is diluted in a set in such a way that there are less cards of one type just to make room for all the other types. You can still have a lot of types, it is just the energy costs that matter. The more basic energy types there are, the less Pokemon there are that have a specific energy type for its attack costs.

 

[Otaku]

(Sneaking in another comment)

I played both decks and I found some respect for Night March. My first match I played with it, I made a ton of mistakes but still won all of my games but one due to coin flips. I had no idea how to play it other than "get Night March" in the discard pile and then kill things. The Truth wasn't like this for me. It wasn't my goal to just play what I had but setup future plays and not mess anything up.

I'm not a expert with these decks but the difference between the two is night and day.

You didn't explain much of a difference than the one I pointed out earlier.

I referred to them as two-sides-of-the-same-coin because, while having rather different backstories, as well as having a different emphasis on when skill is required, both ultimately seemed to lead to a one-sided matchup unless the other player is more skilled and/or running a deck with a favorable matchup. The Truth is the legendary 11th-hour rogue deck, built using cards that straddle generations and that the designers probably didn't expect to work together, that almost won the World Championship where it debuted. Night March was most likely intended as a budget deck or gimmick deck, one which was spoonfed to us. If Lysandre's Trump Card hadn't been banned, that is probably all it would have ever amounted to, but that happened and so it went from underdog to the reigning champ... and did terrible at the World Championships that people thought would belong to it.

Tell me, if I had run The Truth and - on my first few games - won even though I was still making a lot of misplays and learning the deck, should I dismiss it as being "simple"? Maybe, just maybe, you got luckier than you realize with that early game? Or maybe I really am totally wrong about this.

@signofzeta I cannot take time to respond to your comment in depth. I think a lot of what you said makes sense, but I was reminded of a few things all of us need to keep in mind. The Dragon-Type is still relatively "new"; it took a while for there to be a period where [insert older TCG-Type] ruled the metagame. Most of the time, it isn't a particular Type but just the best cards that happen to belong to said Type. I wonder if Dragon-Types are really doing all that bad when you consider there are relatively few of them.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

(Sneaking in another comment)



You didn't explain much of a difference than the one I pointed out earlier.

I referred to them as two-sides-of-the-same-coin because, while having rather different backstories, as well as having a different emphasis on when skill is required, both ultimately seemed to lead to a one-sided matchup unless the other player is more skilled and/or running a deck with a favorable matchup. The Truth is the legendary 11th-hour rogue deck, built using cards that straddle generations and that the designers probably didn't expect to work together, that almost won the World Championship where it debuted. Night March was most likely intended as a budget deck or gimmick deck, one which was spoonfed to us. If Lysandre's Trump Card hadn't been banned, that is probably all it would have ever amounted to, but that happened and so it went from underdog to the reigning champ... and did terrible at the World Championships that people thought would belong to it.

Tell me, if I had run The Truth and - on my first few games - won even though I was still making a lot of misplays and learning the deck, should I dismiss it as being "simple"? Maybe, just maybe, you got luckier than you realize with that early game? Or maybe I really am totally wrong about this.

@signofzeta I cannot take time to respond to your comment in depth. I think a lot of what you said makes sense, but I was reminded of a few things all of us need to keep in mind. The Dragon-Type is still relatively "new"; it took a while for there to be a period where [insert older TCG-Type] ruled the metagame. Most of the time, it isn't a particular Type but just the best cards that happen to belong to said Type. I wonder if Dragon-Types are really doing all that bad when you consider there are relatively few of them.

I guess if you're naturally good at card games and understanding its mechanics, you can do well at it. Part of its success was Item lock and the other being its rogue status. I think they problem with the Dragon type is they don't know how to handle them. They don't seem to know how to handle any of the types to be honest. I think they should start by making smaller sets and find something unique for all the ultra rare cards to do because most of them end up being filler.

@signofzeta It pain me that other Mega Evolution cards didn't have Ancient Traits. M Altaria-EX would have been a decent card if it had the trait that double healing effects, turning Potion into a heal 60. I do like your approach to the Dragon type though. Making them completely unpredictable would work well for them.