Designers: Rob Daviau and Justin D. Jacobson
Artist: Oliver Barrett
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- "The original six heroes were Arthur, Achilles, Yennenga, Louhi, Sun Wukong, and the mystery fighter. We decided to go down to a 4-pack and shook up the roster for variety and better name recognition [...] Louhi and the mystery fighter were in it long enough to get sculpts. [...] To answer a question I'm sure I'll get, no, we have no plans for Louhi to be in a set at this point. Closer to having the mystery fighter make an appearance I would say."
Oliver Barrett
Artistic Tidbits from Interviews with The Unmatched Historian
- Working on Unmatched is "more like working on a brand or identity system than just a series of illustrations. I really considered the project as a whole and wanted to come up with visuals that applied not only to the individual card, but to the character, the boxset, and then the gaming system.
"For example, in Sinbad’s deck, it became obvious that a ship needed to appear in the same spot in the ‘Voyage’ cards to identify them quickly and separate them from the rest of his deck.
"Another great example is how the ‘Momentus Shift’ card that appears in many character decks has a consistent composition with a fist (or foot, if you’re Bigfoot) so that the player immediately knows what that card is by visuals alone."
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- The most difficult card for Oliver to work on was "Alice’s Feint card. It was the last card to finish for Battle of Legends Vol. 1 and I had been awake for over 48 hours to meet the deadline. I remember drawing a line and then immediately questioning if I had just drawn that line or if it had already been there for 20 minutes. This happened over and over while drawing that card, to the point where I rubbed my eyes purple. Sleep is important."
** These quotes are from a previous interview done with Oliver under the label 1-2-Punchboard. You can find the full interview here.**
Alice
Designers: Rob Daviau and Justin D. Jacobson
Artist: Oliver Barrett
Source Material: Alice in Wonderland
Thematic Map: Mamoreal
Recommended Match-Ups: Beowulf, Bruce Lee, Jekyll/Hyde, Moon Knight, T-Rex
History and Fun Facts
- Alice was never intended to be a part of Battle of Legends Vol. 1; "[t]he original six heroes were Arthur, Achilles, Yennenga, Louhi, Sun Wukong, and the mystery fighter. We decided to go down to a 4-pack and shook up the roster for variety and better name recognition for the initial offering. [...] Alice and Sinbad came in later to establish literary heroes in the line."
Justin Jacobson, Discord, April 4th, 2022
- Alice's aesthetic design isn't 100% true to the source material because "often the minority characters are portrayed in a negative light. For example, female characters tend to skew toward witches, temptresses, children, etc., so we have to be clever, twisting the tales to make a more threatening Alice or Little Red."
Justin Jacobson, Discord, August 12th, 2021
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- Alice can play 11 cards (roughly 1/3rd of her deck) over the course of the game to change her form, assuming none of them get discarded or Feinted. Unlike other form flippers, this is a firm restriction for how Alice can change forms.
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- Restoration has internally given every character ability a title, even though only some character cards feature them. Justin Jacobson revealed that Alice's ability name is "Curioser and Curioser."
Summer of Legends 2022
Darkblade113 (Raptors)
vs.
Unmatchad (Alice)
Recommended Roster:
Bruised Knuckles
This character selection prioritizes characters that are beginner-friendly and relatively straightforward to pilot but don't pull any punches. With all the fighters having a Move 2, there's more encouragement to get down and dirty rather than keeping your distance.
King Arthur
Designers: Rob Daviau and Justin D. Jacobson
Artist: Oliver Barrett
Source Material: The Book of King Arthur
Thematic Map: Mamoreal
Recommended Match-Ups: Alice, Angel, Beowulf, Bullseye, Invisible Man, Little Red
History and Fun Facts
- Arthur is the only character originally slated for the preliminary roster of Battle of Legends Vol. 1 who actually made the cut.
Justin Jacobson, Discord, April 5th, 2022
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- King Arthur is infamous in the community as a character that many players feel could use some tweaking to have a more satisfying play loop, so much so that a community-made webpage of King Arthur variants has been curated by the community in the case of someone asking about it.
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- Justin Jacobson has stated that if he could go back and adjust any one character in Unmatched, "... I would tweak Arthur's ability so it didn't get discarded when it gets canceled."
Justin Jacobson, Discord, March 19th, 2023 and February 26th, 2021
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- In response to a request for official errata, often a request levied at King Arthur in particular, Brian Neff stated "[w]hen we talked about 'eratta' we decided that the community was better served by getting cool new characters. [...] In general, we don't want to change fighters after they come out, for a bunch of reasons, but most often because any change to buff/nerf characters inherently makes them more complicated. While that's great for competitive play, the name of the game is accessibility."
Brian Neff, Discord, July 28th, 2021 and March 29th, 2023
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- When asked about redesigning King Arthur in the future, Justin Jacobson responded: "Would you rather have a "Dark Arthur" deck or a deck for a new hero? There's only so much bandwidth the team has to get decks/sets through the pipeline."
Justin Jacobson, Discord, April 3rd, 2021
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- When discussing low-tier characters in relation to the meta of Unmatched, Brian Neff explained that "having low-tier characters is a feature, not a bug, especially if we test it against other characters (which we do, pretty consistently). Low-tier characters are a measuring stick that we use to 'get in the ballpark' as it were. They are hyper valuable for the health of the game, especially if we can make characters that excel against higher tier characters and have a deficit against low tier characters."
Recommended Roster:
Cancel *This*
Some characters struggle a lot against the dreaded Feint, falling over at the first sign of having a card effect canceled. This roster features strong characters that have no cancels (Yenn) or situational cancels (Little Red) and those looking to get revenge for all those years of being picked on.
Medusa
Designers: Rob Daviau and Justin D. Jacobson
Artist: Oliver Barrett
Source Material: Theogony
Thematic Map: Sarpedon
Recommended Match-Ups: Black Widow, Daredevil, Nikola Tesla, Sherlock Holmes, T-Rex
History and Fun Facts
- While Medusa wasn't initially slated to appear in Battle of Legends Vol. 1, "[w]e swapped out Medusa for Achilles who we thought was a little similar to Arthur in terms of archetype."
Justin Jacobson, Discord, April 5th 2022
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- Medusa's design is cited as being the most true to the source material of Unmatched, Star Wars Epic Duels. Her design is heavily based on that of Darth Vader, who had a card called "All Too Easy" that worked very similarly to "Gaze of Stone".
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- Medusa is one of three ranged characters in Unmatched to a Move 3 stat, alongside Genie and InGen.
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- Due to Medusa being such a powerful character in the early meta of Unmatched, the game makers, as stated by Brian Neff, have gone out of their way to design characters that can counter "The Big 3" (Sherlock, Medusa, and Bigfoot) while being susceptible to lower tier characters like King Arthur.
Brian Neff, Discord, July 28th, 2021 and March 29th 2021
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- The Restoration team has strived to maintain Medusa and Bigfoot as the power ceiling of the game to avoid power creep moving forward.
Noah Cohen, Discord, September 13th, 2021
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- Medusa has been cited as an example of why fighters in Unmatched were never given "tags" that define their role in the game: "To your point, is Medusa a “villain”? Not easy to find a good suite of tags, especially when you have to future-proof for characters you don’t even know you’re going to do."
Promo Art
Hiss and Slither by Heather Vaughan
- Heather Vaughan is a well-known lover of reptiles and, when given the options of which promo card she could illustrate, "absolutely jumped on that Medusa card as soon as I saw it was available. I'm sure literally no one involved was surprised."
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- "Art direction was left pretty open for [the promo] cards, so I went and indulged in what was basically a fun personal piece of fan art. Drawing snakes is actually difficult; the scales are a pain and it's really easy to just end up with weird-looking tube creatures, so I really enjoyed getting to sit down and work out how to draw a snake well. It was also a fun excuse to haul all my own snakes out and really look at them and take lots of photos. I personally have 11 of my own snakes and they are all different shapes and sizes, even their scales are formed differently from one to the next. So I wouldn't say I had a solid idea going in, but I absolutely knew I wanted to be extremely self-indulgent about it. Also a lot of pressure to do it well since everyone knows I'm the weirdo snake girl on the Internet. Had to put up or shut up!"
Recommended Roster:
Stalking Your Prey
With Medusa's oppressive ability to ping opposing fighters, her opponents need sneaky ways to approach her. Extra movement effects and card draw help these fighters keep this imposing gorgon on her toes.
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Sinbad
Designers: Rob Daviau and Justin D. Jacobson
Artist: Oliver Barrett
Source Material: One Thousand and One Nights
Thematic Map: Sarpedon
Recommended Match-Ups: Bruce Lee, Cloak and Dagger, Dr. Sattler, Ghost Rider, Robin Hood
History and Fun Facts
- While Sinbad wasn't initially planned to be a part of Battle of Legends Vol. 1, he was included alongside Alice "to establish literary heroes in the line."
Justin Jacobson, Discord, April 5th, 2022
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- Sinbad has 16 unique cards in his deck due to the various voyage cards having individual names and artwork. This makes him the character with the 2nd most "inconsistent" deck.
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- Restoration has internally given every character ability a title, despite them not being listed on character cards. Justin Jacobson revealed that Sinbad's ability name is "7 Voyages."
Recommended Roster:
Light On Your Feet
As the game progresses, Sinbad can eventually leap across the map, making him a difficult opponent to keep pace with. These characters look to sprint alongside the Persian prince through their core abilities, high movement values, or movement card effects.
