Unmatched
King Arthur
Overview
The legend of King Arthur, Excalibur, the wizard Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table have existed for over a thousand years and are among the most famous literary works ever written. The first dated mention of King Arthur was in The Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century Latin historical compilation. More recently was Disney’s 1963 animated film The Sword in the Stone, 2017’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and 2021’s The Green Knight.
The legend states that the Lady of the Lake gifted a young Arthur the sword Excalibur, which he used alongside the wizard Merlin to defeat anyone who contested his claim to the throne. In Unmatched, King Arthur uses his high attack power and Merlin’s long-range spells to deal heavy damage to all who oppose him.
King Arthur is included in Unmatched: Battle of Legends Vol. 1
Hero Stats
Health:Â 18 /Â Attack:Â Melee /Â Movement:Â 2
Special Ability
When King Arthur attacks, you may BOOST that attack. Play the BOOST card, face down, along with your attack card. If your opponent cancels the effects on your attack card, the BOOST is discarded without effect.
Sidekick: Merlin
Health:Â 7 /Â Attack: Ranged / x1
Strategies and Tips
King Arthur can be seen as a tank who has high health and some decent defensive tools. His true might is in his attack potential, which is quite devastating thanks to his special ability. He must be used carefully and thoughtfully. At first glance his ability does not seem very useful since any card that can cancel card effects can also cancel his boost, however you can use your opponent’s knowledge of that ability against them, baiting out their Feint cards until they have no way of stopping your most powerful attacks.
Primary Strengths
High attack capabilities
High health with good defense options
Powerful sidekick
Primary Weaknesses
Heroes with many ways to cancel card effects (e.g. Bigfoot)
Opponent knows when you are boosting your attack
Tip #1: Prioritize boosting attacks
It is essential that you prioritize boosting your attacks over movement; however, you want to be strategic with when and how you boost your attacks.Â
Excalibur is an attack with no ability and a value of 6. Always boost it. You may not want to out of fear of being countered with a Feint, but even if this happens Excalibur’s base 6 attack value will still deal a heavy blow of 4 damage to your opponent.Â
Additionally, King Arthur has a card in his deck called The Lady of the Lake which allows you to draw Excalibur from your deck or discard pile and return it to your hand. Never use this card unless you have used Excalibur once already. The Lady of the Lake allows you more than one use of Excalibur and you want to take full advantage.
Noble Sacrifice is an attack with a value of 2 that allows you to boost it during combat in addition to the boost granted by King Arthur’s special ability. The card ability boost is good since you can react to whatever defense your opponent played. Only boost this card with your special ability when you know your opponent has no way to cancel the card effect. Additionally, you may find it best to use this card to boost another since its boost value is 3.Â
Aid of Morgana is an attack with a value of 4 and lets you draw 2 cards after combat. The ability helps keep your hand size up to keep the threat of boosting alive, but there is only 1 of these in your deck. It is best to plan on not boosting this card so you can take advantage of the ability.
Tip #2: Bait the feint
Always keep a mental note of how many Feint cards your opponent has left in their deck. A good way to bait out Feint cards is by boosting with cards like Regroup, which has a boost value of 1.Â
Skirmish is also a great card to boost with since its effects are not that important. As a versatile card with a value of 4, it will still do decent damage against a Feint.Â
For this, and any King Arthur strategy, to work you have to make sure you keep at least 5 cards in your hand at all times. This makes drawing cards especially important to King Arthur. Play it safe with any card that has an effect that allows you to draw more cards.Â
Aid of Morgana is a King Arthur attack with a value of 4 that lets you draw 2 cards after combat. This card should never be boosted in an effort to outwit your opponent into not countering with a Feint.
Merlin also has access to Aid the Chosen One, an attack with a value of 4 that lets you draw 2 cards if you win the combat.
Tip #3: Merlin's Shield
Merlin is extremely important to King Arthur’s playstyle. In the early game, you want to use King Arthur as Merlin’s shield until he is eventually defeated. Merlin has excellent defense and scheme cards, and Arthur has enough health to tank more than a few hits.Â
Prophecy is a Merlin scheme that allows you to look at the top 4 cards of your deck, add 2 of them to your hand, and then put the other 2 back on the top of your deck in any order. Knowledge of what you are about to draw is a huge benefit, and it is a good way to recover your hand after boosting.
Command the Storms is a Merlin scheme that allows you to move each fighter up to 3 spaces, including opposing fighters. This gives you control over the battlefield and the ability to restructure everyone’s positions to your advantage.
Restless Spirits is another Merlin scheme that lets you choose a space in Merlin’s zone and deal 2 damage to each opposing fighter in that space and one adjacent space. If at least one fighter is defeated this way, draw 1 card. This is very powerful against heroes with multiple 1hp sidekicks.
Aid the Chosen One is Merlin’s only attack card, it has a value of 4, and it lets you draw 2 cards after combat if you win the combat. Since this is Merlin’s only attack card, you should prioritize using Merlin to attack with some of your ANY cards so that this card isn’t too obvious.
Bewilderment is Merlin’s only defense card, it has a value of 0, but it prevents all damage during combat and allows you to place Merlin in any space after combat. This is great for keeping Merlin alive in case your opponent slips past King Arthur to get to him.Â
This strategy may be risky, but Merlin’s schemes are extremely beneficial, and you should use him to attack enough to bait out most, if not all, of your opponent’s Feint cards by the time he is defeated. This will allow you to use King Arthur’s full attack force to take out what health your opponent has left.
Final Thoughts
Arthur is a hard character to win an Unmatched game with, but we do not believe that makes him necessarily bad. His deck and ability require the player to think ahead to try and outwit their opponent, and Merline provides invaluable support. Even if you have a hard time attacking early with King Arthur, he has enough health to keep him in the game until your attacks come online. He is not a complicated hero mechanically, but we would still recommend King Arthur to anyone who is looking for more of a challenge.
One Response
I write from Italy and my english is so and so. Very interesting analysis for this and, mostly, for other characters here on your site. I appreciate greatly the work you did about Unmatched. I like the game very much (I loved and played a lot Star Wars Epic Duels, the game that inspired Unmatched and I was a deck creator in the past for that gem of a game) and I agree with most you wrote here on your site about Unmatched characters. I find some characters a little unbalanced (I’m a balancing freak! 🙂 ), so I applied some little tweaks for some of them, but in general I’m satisfied with the work done by authors. It’s really a fantastic game.