Color of Card Backs

[PriusGuy2004]

Hello. I have both the "Munchkin" (1st edition, 24th printing ... published January 2013) and "Munchkin: Legends" (1st edition, 1st printing ... published April 2013) base games. I recently purchased the 112-card expansions "Munchkin 3: Clerical Errors" and "Munchkin 4: The Need for Steed" from Amazon.com. They just came in the mail today. When I took out the cards for "Clerical Errors", I noticed that the backs of the cards (Doors and Treasures) are a slightly different shade compared to the cards I have for the base games. If I mixed this expansion with either of the base sets, I could easily tell the sets apart. Should this be a concern? Or, does everyone have this issue? I'm wondering if I should try sending this back to Amazon.com and asking for a replacement in the hopes that I might get a set that matches the base sets? Or, I was wondering even if I could just visit my local board game store in town where they have Munchkin and ask if they might consider exchanging? I'm just not sure what to do. What do you all suggest? Thank you, in advance.

[Mister Ed]

Originally Posted by PriusGuy2004

Hello. I have both the "Munchkin" (1st edition, 24th printing ... published January 2013) and "Munchkin: Legends" (1st edition, 1st printing ... published April 2013) base games. I recently purchased the 112-card expansions "Munchkin 3: Clerical Errors" and "Munchkin 4: The Need for Steed" from Amazon.com. They just came in the mail today. When I took out the cards for "Clerical Errors", I noticed that the backs of the cards (Doors and Treasures) are a slightly different shade compared to the cards I have for the base games. If I mixed this expansion with either of the base sets, I could easily tell the sets apart. Should this be a concern? Or, does everyone have this issue? I'm wondering if I should try sending this back to Amazon.com and asking for a replacement in the hopes that I might get a set that matches the base sets? Or, I was wondering even if I could just visit my local board game store in town where they have Munchkin and ask if they might consider exchanging? I'm just not sure what to do. What do you all suggest? Thank you, in advance.

I've noticed this issue often. The colors never seem to exactly match between different sets, but it doesn't really bother me much. I wouldn't bother returning it in hopes that the next one would match better, as I think chances are kind of slim.

Sure, it would be great if they could make all the card backs (or even the card fronts, which have as much, if not more, color variation) be consistent from set to set, and from year to year. I know it CAN be done, as many CCGs do exactly that.

However, I'd be willing to bet that it would be quite a bit more expensive to pull that off, and I don't think it would be worth it, personally. I've never really paid that much attention to the card backs during a game, and while the differences might be noticeable side by side, sometimes VERY noticeable, usually you can only see one card at a time in the decks. The differences aren't generally so huge that you'd recognize them WITHOUT comparison ("That exact shade of brown means that card I'm going to draw comes from Munchkin 4!"), unless you were quite intentional about trying to do so, which I'm not. And even if you could tell that easily, when you are dealing with 100+ card sets, knowing which set a card comes from isn't all that much of an advantage.

[PriusGuy2004]

Thanks for your reply, Mister Ed. I looked at both my expansions in better light, and each is slightly different than the base games I have. I think I'll just open them up because I want to see the cards I bought.