Unmatched: Brains and Brawn review — Strange and marvelous

I haven’t really gotten deep into the Marvel sets of Unmatched. It’s not that I’m necessarily against them in theory, I just found public domain characters and dinosaurs fighting much more interesting than the twenty thousandth iteration of superheroes on a board in my lifetime. That said, that doesn’t mean I didn’t leap at the chance to review Brains and Brawn. It’s Unmatched, of course I’ll review Unmatched. It certainly doesn’t hurt that it includes Spider-Man, the only Marvel superhero I give half a damn about. She-Hulk and Doctor Strange are alright, I guess?

But the first thing I noticed, having never played entirely within a Marvel set, was the map. The Marvel maps have single use items strewn across them, and I found them really useful in giving clear objectives to newer players that haven’t had the time to hone reading Unmatched maps. There you go, instant easy win right out of the box.

From what I know about Strange and She-Hulk, they nailed those two fighters pretty well thematically. Strange has a bunch of offensive utility and a passive that maintains his hand size, but an accompanying glass jaw, so if he misplays a few exchanges, he doesn’t have a chunky max health to cushion him from auto damage schemes and/or passives finishing him off. She-Hulk is an absolute beatstick that has options and strategic depth. She’s beefy and hits like a truck, so she’s a similar concept to T-Rex, but can play a bit smarter than “big melee fighter hurt you good.” Not that that isn’t an option, of course.

Spider-Man, on the other hand, feels like a total whiff. I was concerned that the compelling parts of the character, the awkward snarky nerd with a heart of gold, wouldn’t translate to Unmatched too well, and as hard as I try, I keep feeling a disconnect when I’m playing him. Nothing he does feels particularly clever, and his passive Spidey sense that lets you know the printed value of any attack played against you feels underwhelming given his middling combat values. Add in the volume of involuntary draw effects in his deck that tends to be a liability in competitive play since it gets you into fatigue early, and I was left unimpressed. Peter does redeem himself pretty strongly in the co-op Adventures mode, though. There, his insane card draw is an asset, and his action efficiency due to every other card having a movement effect makes him feel like the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man I love.

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