Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume Three Review— A fitting finale

“Third time's the charm” usually implies that the first two attempts failed, but I think we all know that isn't the case here. Volume 3 is some more of that good shit that Restoration has us Unmatched fans hooked on like junkies itching for our little dudes and pretty colors. But you're not here to hear me wax poetic about the glories of Unmatched, you wanna know what makes this particular set special, so let's get into it.

In these reviews, I normally try to find a theme for the box I'm looking at, and Volume 3's was a pretty easy “I can do it myself”: of the four heroes in this box, only Blackbeard (definitely) has sidekicks. That alone is odd in a 4-box, but you probably noticed the parenthetical definitely, which I put in because Pandora's sidekicks have a nonzero chance of never showing up. Weird stuff, which would be a fitting alternate theme, too, cause we're in the deep end of non-standard character abilities.

My personal favorite, and perhaps the strangest, is Pandora, whose side-deck box of miseries places her into a push-your-luck minigame at the start of each of her turns. You flip cards from her box, gaining rewards like summoning demon sidekicks, drawing cards, or moving until you voluntarily stop like a coward or draw enough cards that you hit 3 feathers and take damage equal to the number of cards you flipped. The benefits in the box itself aren't good enough to incentivize you to keep going when you've hit 2 feathers, but factoring in a good third of her deck keying off the number of cards you flipped, the temptation is always there. No shade, but there's a nonzero amount of people who try to play this game like a serious game, and Pandora's insane peaks and valleys reinforce that Unmatched is a silly, fun game where you can make Dracula, Houdini, and a T-Rex fight the Mothman.

Blackbeard's my next favorite, and he plays kinda like an anti-Beowulf. He's got 3 doubloon tokens that shift between his and his opponent’s control in a sort of tug-of-war. He can spend one at the start of his turn to gain an extra action and loses one whenever he takes damage, but most of his cards have powerful effects that his opponent can pay doubloons to cancel (hell, even his feint is cancellable). For the most part, Blackbeard is highly interactive and a delight to play as and against, with the odd blowout because having the jackalope sprint through you and your sidekicks makes for a sad pirate.

And then there's the Chupacabra, another banger. Setting aside that I'm here for cryptids, it's the unga-bunga character that our partners that never really “got” Unmatched but wanted to play with us to not get absolutely steamrolled with. Sure, it's a bit too straightforward for those of us who want some spice, but it does what it's there for, and I'm happy for that.

Okay, we need to talk about Loki. He's a god of mischief and stuff, and that's embodied in his tricks, a decent chunk of his deck that goes into his opponent’s hand after play and clogs it up. As Loki's opponent, you have to walk a fine, not necessarily enjoyable, line between playing these cards to free up your hand again and nerfing Loki's cards that hinge on his opponent having tricks, and sitting on them to avoid the negative effects. As Loki, I felt a bit like Spider-Man. Sure, I knew what my opponent was attacking with when they dropped a trick, but his kit isn't strong enough around that to where I was having fun myself. Loki's a character that I'd shelf if I had my druthers, since he feels like a negative experience machine and that's not my jam, but Mike loves him, so to each their own.

Mapwise, Santa's workshop introduces conveyor belts that intuitively move everything on them one space every turn. The flip side, Venice, doesn't feel too spicy, but it's nice to get back to 2 maps a box because I legit don't know anyone who used the empty rings.