Although it’s a repurposing of an older game, Star Wars: Epic Duels, the Unmatched series quickly made a name for itself as the premier head-to-head skirmish board game after its release in 2019. Its formula of simple rules married to giving each character their own deck of cards, ensuring a unique feel and endlessly tweakable gameplay, shot it to the top of the charts.Since then, its success has ensured that it’s spawned a dizzying array of different sets, all of which can be mixed and matched. After all, one of the key selling points of the series is that it lets you pit anyone from its bewildering array of fantasy and franchised characters against any other, offering huge replay value.Featured in this articleThere are so many sets available that we’re focusing on in-print ones for this guide, although it’s not hard to find the older ones second-hand. But if you’re confused by where to get into this exciting universe of carnage, or how best to expand your collection, we’re here to help with a rundown of the various options. Fundamentally, however, it’s a fantastic franchise with a strong core system, so wherever you start you’re unlikely to go wrong.Unfranchised VersionsThe original Unmatched box was Battle of Legends, which featured a variety of mythical characters from across the world. Even while it’s spun off into various licensed products, the series has continued to maintain this line and, unless you’re a superfan of one of the franchised versions available, these remain the best place to start.Unmatched - Battle of Legends Vol. 1It speaks to the strength of the series as a whole that the very first set that launched it all is still the best place to start for most players. You get four characters from a diverse range of global mythology: King Arthur, Sinbad, Medusa and Alice, of wonderland fame. Each has a unique playstyle which fits their background, with Alice able to turn from small to big for different bonuses, for example, while King Arthur can sacrifice his cards for super-powerful sword attacks.Unmatched - Battle of Legends Vol. 2By the time Volume 2 came out, Unmatched as a whole had diversified strongly, so the designers had to dig deep to find some new play angles for the four included characters. The results are great, but not necessarily the best place to start out as they’re a bit off-the-wall and require some extra rules to learn. Sun Wukong, the trickster Monkey King, can create clones of himself to harass other players while urban Legend Bloody Mary gets extra actions as long as she’s holding at least three cards. It is, however, a great addition to a burgeoning collection.Unmatched - Cobble & FogWhile this might not be the best place to begin your Unmatched collection, as some of the characters take a bit of experience to handle, Cobble & Fog is probably the best box overall in the entire series. It features fighters from Victorian gothic fiction: Dracula, Dr Jekyll (and of course Mr Hyde), Sherlock Holmes and the Invisible Man. Not only is this an inspiring selection of very popular characters but they’re also well-balanced, with each bringing out their theme superbly during play, as we discussed during our review of Cobble & Fog.Unmatched - Slings and ArrowsOne of the newest sets in the series also has potentially the most surprising source, drawing as it does on the works of Shakespeare. It feels unlikely that the bard ever imagined what might happen if The Three Witches from Macbeth, Hamlet, Titania, and Shakespeare himself ever fought a pitched battle in his home base of the Globe Theatre, London, but now you can find out for yourself if you’ve a mind. It’s a really fun set but it’s also a bit too crazy for beginners, with the Witches throwing cards into brewing a potion and Shakespeare counting words on his cards to keep in iambic pentameter.Unmatched Adventures: Tales to AmazeTales to Amaze is an outlier in the Unmatched world as it’s designed as a cooperative experience, where players take a motley mix of fictional and real-world characters from a supercharged version of Nikolai Tesla to mythical flatboat captain Annie Christmas, and team up against either the Mothman or a Martian invasion. It works surprisingly well as a cooperative game thanks to tons of variety in enemy movement and minions and, as a bonus, you can also use the included characters in traditional competitive Unmatched too, although you’ll need a board from one of the other base sets to do so. It’s unusual enough that we gave Tales to Amaze a full review rundown.The WitcherThe series’ newest franchise is a biggie: the Witcher universe made famous by CD Projekt Red’s hugely popular series of video games. If you’re one of its legions of fans, these adaptations will do you proud and you can jump straight in. But since this edition contains three characters rather than the four in older sets, those previous boxes represent better value.Unmatched - The Witcher: Steel & SilverThis is the better of the two Witcher sets released so far, not least because it includes the titular Witcher, Geralt of Rivia himself, a powerful melee character who you can customize to some extent to suit your playstyle. He’s accompanied by Ciri, who can chain “source” cards to escalate effects, making for tough choices as to what order to play things in, and by The Ancient Leshen who has a terrifying card that transforms him into crows, allowing him to move anywhere on the board.Unmatched - The Witcher: Realms FallWithout Geralt, this box has to fall back on the famous sorceresses of the series, Philippa Eilhart, Triss Merigold and Yennefer of Vengerburg, except the latter two are presented as one character in a kind of double act: you can choose which is the main character and which is the sidekick. All have a varied and powerful mix of cards, as befits sorcerers from the Witcher world. Rounding out the set is the head of the Wild Hunt Eredin, a brutal close-combat fighter with powerful attacks.MarvelAs if just having the Marvel franchise wasn’t enough, these sets also change the formula of basic Unmatched by including item tokens. These are placed randomly on the board and provide minor boosts to the player that picks them up. Vanilla boards were the only weak points in the series so this is a good change, but it’s perhaps less well-suited for newcomers, especially since, again, these sets all have three characters instead of four.Unmatched: Marvel - Redemption RowThe best of the Marvel boxes is Redemption Row. Of its three heroes, Ghost Rider has hellfire-powered movement while Luke Cage is well-nigh invulnerable without some smart cardplay to get around his booster defences and Moon Knight rotates through different powers as he responds to the changing lunar phases. They’re all fun characters, well balanced out of the box and fun to pit head to head.Unmatched: Marvel - Brains and BrawnOf all the Marvel sets this one probably has the most popular selection of characters. Spider-Man uses his spider-sense to force your opponent to show their played combat cards before you respond. She-Hulk has a mass of hit points and can discard cards to damage opponents and, last but certainly not least, Doctor Strange relies on a very fun and varied deck of spell effects to mess with his enemies. Unmatched: Marvel - For King and CountryGet the Avengers assembling with this box. Black Widow has a very unusual approach that sees her playing mission cards from among her hand, with requirements she can then fulfil for an extra bonus. Black Panther’s suit lets him steal cards from other players, and the Winter Soldier has enormously powerful card effects, many of which come with a downside as a result of his tortured psyche. Unmatched: Marvel - Hell's KitchenHell’s Kitchen features some of Marvel’s shadier characters. Bullseye is a ranged monster, able to strike from an extended distance and with cards that can have extra effects when you win combat. Daredevil has a fraught and exciting push your luck element but Elektra lets the side down a bit with her resurrect mechanic: she’s still fun to play but doesn’t feel as varied or as interesting as the other two inclusions.Two-Figure SetsAlongside the bigger boxes, Unmatched also offers smaller sets that only have two fighters. In theory these should be a cheaper entry point into the system but in practice, stock shortages mean they can cost you as much as a full base game set. Unmatched - Robin Hood vs. Big FootThe cage match of the century that you never knew you wanted, both these characters are really interesting to play. Robin Hood has a unique hit and run style, supported by a band of merry men, while Bigfoot gets to draw extra cards if he’s alone in a zone at the end of the turn. This makes them good complimentary opponents but they also work well integrated into other sets.Unmatched - Sun’s OriginThis set offers two historical Japanese characters. Tomoe Gozen is a ranged and highly mobile character, who matches well against Oda Nobunaga’s ability to boost friendly melee characters. Both are hard to master so, together with the castle board and its interesting split-level setup, this is a better addition for seasoned Unmatched collectors than newcomers.Unmatched: Houdini vs. The GenieA legendary magician faces off against a very famous fake magician in this pairing. Neither is especially inspiring: Houdini is presented as a melee fighter, for some reason, who can use boost cards to pop up around the board, while the Genie can discard cards to take extra actions for some super-powered turns.