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The title says it all,

I recently bought the base set + expansion awesome level 9000. I now have duplicate bases. Should I play with duplicates or take them out?

Matt
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  • The awesome level 9000 just added reprints of the old base cards with bigger lettering I think. You should take them out. – Lyrion Feb 01 '17 at 09:39
  • @Lyrion: You would be correct, I added an image of the back of the package explaining just that to my answer. Interestingly, I bought this expansion sealed, and don't remember getting these. Either I grabbed a mispackaged edition, or there were different editions... – TheThirdMan Feb 01 '17 at 10:35

3 Answers3

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Each expansion contains functionally unique bases, which makes sense, as every expansion adds a number of new factions, each of which have their designated bases.

Some expansions may also contain reprints of existing bases - in case of Awesome Level 9000, as mentioned on the back of the package (see the image below), there are reprints of the original bases included - likely as replacements of the original cards due to design changes, not to double the chances of those bases appearing in games.

SmashUp Expansion: Awesome Level 9000 - back of package

Some ways I could see you otherwise obtaining exact duplicates of original bases is if you bought the same expansion more than once, got a mispackaged edition of the game, bought it used and unordered by the previous owner, or something along those lines.

TheThirdMan
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  • Not true, there are duplicate bases in some sets. – Toon Krijthe Feb 01 '17 at 10:39
  • @ToonKrijthe: Are you talking about bases that are duplicates for non-cosmetical purposes? As I stated, Awesome Level 9000 does contain cosmetical reprints, but they're explicitly labelled as reprints with improved graphics, therefore likely meant as replacements of the original cards due to design changes, not to double the chances of those bases appearing in games. If you know of any bases that received reprints for other purposes, could you tell me where they appeared? – TheThirdMan Feb 01 '17 at 12:19
  • I have seen several duplicates. I have not seen a notice about cosmetic reprints. But maybe I have overlooked it. – Toon Krijthe Feb 01 '17 at 13:37
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There should not be any duplicates in the base pile.

Each faction has exactly two different bases associated with it, and they are different from the bases of every other factions.

Awesome Level 9000 reprinted the bases of the original game because the font and/or art changed. These reprints are meant to replace the bases from the original game; they are not meant to be used in addition to them.

It's not as fun to have two of the same base in a game, and it can favour (or disfavour) a player.

ikegami
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  • You're right in that my answer is/was slightly contradicting... I didn't mean to say that it only contained new bases, but that that's the material in which the expansion is actually expanding the game, as opposed to providing replacement material for older cards. I edited my answer to make that clearer. – TheThirdMan Feb 02 '17 at 07:43
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There are sets that have duplicate bases.

There is no rule that prohibit a duplicate base (you can have two or more of a single race, it only prohibits picking one race twice). So you have to decide for yourself. Do you prefer to use all cards or do you favor uniqueness of the bases.

For myself, I have just been to lazy to remove the duplicates. And because they don't bother me, it probably stays that way forever.

Toon Krijthe
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