Unmatched: Cobble & Fog is the latest to come from Restoration Games Unmatched series and if you are interested in this game, it’s a very exciting expansion.  This is probably their best overall set so far, in my opinion, though I’ll have to play through a bunch of matches to solidify that opinion.

We get 4 complete new decks with some outstanding looking figures, all with familiar characters, all worthy of going up against the Medusas and Mandalorians of Unmatched.  Just as importantly is the new double-sided map.  We always need more maps.  Plus new hit point dials, sidekick disks, some fog tokens, and the Jekyll/Hyde token that you knew had to be included.

Dracula is a bad ass, as he should be.  He has low hit points but a damage dealing and hit point stealing game that totally fits him.  We had something like that going for Darth Malak, part of the EU set, but the concept fits Dracula better than Malak.  Plus Dracula has those 3 annoying sisters and their damage game.  He’s probably the toughest in this set.

Jekyll & Hyde is a great concept to explore in a deck.  It is a bit like Alice’s big/small game but more divided in that there are 11 cards at a time that Jekyll or Hyde can’t use, and the special ability results in Hyde damaging himself.  I’ll let you know about this one but I’m a tad skeptical.  I’ve seen damaging yourself in Epic Duels and it sucks, and I think it’s even worse in Unmatched with damage at more of a premium.  Hyde can be pretty fearsome though, there’s no denying that, with some big attack values.

Invisible Man is perhaps the most interesting deck so far in Unmatched.  Bultar Swan only delved into what Invisible Man does with his fog tokens.  He moves them around all the time and mixes in sneak attacks.  Plus he’s got a unique deck structure with 30 completely unique cards.

Sherlock Holmes has cards where you have to guess the attack value for rewards.  I’ve seen some cards like this in Epic Duels decks over the years.  They’re finnicky and don’t always work, and don’t work with every group.  I think they’re fun enough to include every now and then, and Holmes & Watson are the perfect character set to include this type of mechanic with.  Still, I don’t think I’d include this deck more than once in a while.

What’s exciting to me, besides all the new content, is that they’re really breaking the “rules” of making Unmatched decks to where, you can basically do what you want in terms of a mix of “basic” cards.  In the Legends set, 3 of the 4 decks had 12 basic cards, while the 4th had 13.  In this set, 2 of the 4 decks have 8 basic cards, one has 9 and one has 7 in a certain sense.  In another sense, Invisible Man doesn’t have any truly “basic” cards because I think all 30 of his cards are unique, and his is the one deck that doesn’t have FEINT — the other 3 Cobble & Fog decks all have the “standard” 3 copies each.  I say “basic” and “standard” because more and more, that’s sort of my definition and interpretation of some of these deck layouts, and others may see it differently.

So all in all, this gives some flexibility to Unmatched deck designers like myself, who simply ran out of spots for the Mandalorian’s complete bag of tricks.  This means we’ll just give him a FLAMETHROWER at the cost of 1 of his 12 “basics” and perhaps another BESKAR ARMOR at the cost of another, leaving him with only 10 “basics”.  Why not?

I’ll do a more thorough review once I’ve had a chance to play, but that may be a while.  In the meantime, I’ve got pages built out for each deck with complete breakdowns and links on the main Unmatched page if you’re interested in browsing through all of the individual cards.  Let me know what you think of each deck!