Opening Thoughts
This review is for Unmatched: The Witcher – Steel & Silver. If you want a quick overview of the Unmatched system itself, the modularity, and the new ongoing scheme mechanic introduced in the Witcher sets, I would recommend checking out my review of Unmatched: The Witcher – Realms Fall first.
Steel & Silver is very much the companion piece to that box. Where Realms Fall leans into sorceresses, schemes, and the stranger political-magical corners of the Continent, Steel & Silver gives you the obvious headline acts: Geralt of Rivia, Ciri, and the Ancient Leshen. It is the box that most Witcher fans will probably look at first, and for good reason.
Geralt and Ciri were the main draw for me buying this set. Both characters stayed with me through high school and the early years of medical school, so there was never really a world where I saw them in Unmatched and did not immediately want to know how they played.
Opening Thoughts
This review is for Unmatched: The Witcher – Steel & Silver. If you want a quick overview of the Unmatched system itself, the modularity, and the new ongoing scheme mechanic introduced in the Witcher sets, I would recommend checking out my review of Unmatched: The Witcher – Realms Fall first.
Steel & Silver is very much the companion piece to that box. Where Realms Fall leans into sorceresses, schemes, and the stranger political-magical corners of the Continent, Steel & Silver gives you the obvious headline acts: Geralt of Rivia, Ciri, and the Ancient Leshen. It is the box that most Witcher fans will probably look at first, and for good reason.
Geralt and Ciri were the main draw for me buying this set. Both characters stayed with me through high school and the early years of medical school, so there was never really a world where I saw them in Unmatched and did not immediately want to know how they played.
And thankfully, the answer is: pretty damn well.
What Comes in the Box?
Steel & Silver comes with three fighters: Geralt of Rivia, Ciri, and the Ancient Leshen. It also includes two battlefields: Kaer Morhen and Fayrlund Forest.
That immediately gives the box a very different flavour from Realms Fall. This one feels less like magical court intrigue and more like a Witcher contract gone horribly sideways. You have the professional monster hunter, the child of destiny, and the ancient thing in the woods that should probably have been left well alone.
On paper, it is a very easy box to recommend to a Witcher fan. It has the faces of the franchise. It has the monster. It has Kaer Morhen.
But the real question, obviously, is whether they actually feel right on the table.
Geralt of Rivia: The Prepared Professional
Geralt was the character I was most excited for when I bought this set.
That was inevitable. He has always been close to my heart as a character, partly because of the dry wit, partly because of the even drier humour, and partly because there is something deeply comforting about a man who walks into horror with a bad mood, and a professional obligation.
Mechanically, Geralt’s biggest hook is his gear system. Before the game starts, after seeing your opponent, you choose which gear cards to bring into the match.
And that is peak Witcher fantasy.
You do not show up to slay a vampire without Black Blood. You do not walk into a monster hunt without the right oils, potions, and blade for whatever is about to try and bite your face off. Geralt’s gear selection captures that feeling beautifully. The fact that you choose after seeing your opponent matters a lot, because the right tools shift depending on the match-up.
I have seen Geralt placed lower on tier lists, and I understand why that happens. He does not always look explosive. But I do think he is very player-dependent. In the hands of someone who understands the matchup, chooses gear carefully, and knows when to commit, Geralt can absolutely work his magic.
He also comes with Dandelion as his sidekick. Geralt being followed into violence by a bard who has no business being there is perhaps one of the purest expressions of Witcher canon.
Geralt is not the flashiest fighter in the set. But he may be the one that most rewards preparation. Fitting, really.
Ciri: Power With a Fuse Attached
Ciri is the most exciting fighter in the box from a pure gameplay perspective.
She is also the one most likely to make someone at the table lean back and say, “Hang on, is that fair?”
Her design revolves around Source cards, which gradually unlock more of her power as they enter her discard pile. In simple terms, Ciri grows stronger as the game progresses, and this matches her theme almost perfectly. She does not begin as the finished article. She builds toward something terrifying. She is a high-reward fighter who becomes extremely dangerous later in the game, but some players consider her overtuned or very high-tier.
I would not call her impossible to deal with, though.
Ciri is vulnerable early. Pressure matters. If you let her breathe, cycle, and build toward her stronger state without punishment, then yes, she can start to feel nearly unstoppable. But that is not the same as being uncounterable. Smart positioning, early aggression, and forcing her into awkward defensive decisions can keep her on her toes.
What I like about Ciri is that she feels volatile in the correct way. She should feel like someone carrying too much power for the world around her to comfortably survive. The trick is that the player has to live long enough to become the problem.
In that sense, she is one of the best designs in the Witcher boxes. Because the arc of playing her feels right. You start with potential. You end with everyone at the table quietly regretting that they let you reach potential.
Ancient Leshen: The Forest Guardian
The Ancient Leshen is the character I underestimated the most.
That mistake has since been beaten out of me.
My close friend loves playing the Leshen, and he has smoked me enough times with it that I have developed a healthy respect for the thing. This is one of those fighters where everything matters: positioning, tempo, hand management, when to advance, when to retreat, when to attack, and when to let the board itself become unpleasant for your opponent.
The Leshen is not just a big monster lumbering forward and swinging branches at people. It has wolves. It has control tools. It has ways to pressure the board and punish carelessness. It has the ability to threaten big damage, use wolves, and create awkward board states.
There is something very satisfying about how Witcher-like the Leshen feels. In the games and stories, a monster is not just a health bar with claws. It is a local horror. A thing with territory, patterns, signs, and consequences. The Leshen captures some of that.
Against a good Leshen player, you never feel entirely safe. You may not even realise when the trap has closed until you are already inside it, being politely murdered by a forest.
Of the three fighters, Geralt is the emotional hook, Ciri is the explosive hook, but the Leshen may be the one I respect the most after repeated plays.
Maps: Kaer Morhen and Fayrlund Forest
The two maps in Steel & Silver also help sell the identity of the box.
Kaer Morhen is the obvious emotional centre. For anyone who has spent time with The Witcher, it carries weight before the game even begins. It is the old keep, the training ground, the place where Geralt and Ciri’s story has roots. A map does not need nostalgia to work, but it certainly does not hurt.
Fayrlund Forest, meanwhile, leans more into the monster-hunt atmosphere. It feels like the right home for a Leshen: dangerous, and a little too comfortable with the idea of someone disappearing between turns.
Neither map feels as strange as Naglfar from Realms Fall, which remains one of the more memorable battlefields across the two Witcher boxes for me. But that also fits the identity of Steel & Silver. This is the more direct set. Its maps do not need to be the weirdest things in the package. They need to support clean duels, thematic tension, and the feeling that swords and signs are about to become necessary.
They do that well.
Steel & Silver vs Realms Fall
This is where the comparison becomes interesting.
I gave Realms Fall a slightly higher score because I think it is the more mechanically unusual box. Yennefer/Triss has that pre-game identity choice, Philippa is wonderfully crafty, and Eredin brings a very satisfying escalation arc. That set surprised me more.
Steel & Silver, by contrast, is the crowd-pleaser.
It is more immediately recognisable, more straightforward in two of its three fighters, and much easier to recommend to someone who likes The Witcher but does not already know Unmatched. That seems to be the broad community view as well: Steel & Silver is often described as the more linear and straightforward box, while Realms Fall gets more love from players looking for stranger gameplay.
But straightforward does not mean boring.
Geralt’s gear system gives him meaningful preparation. Ciri has one of the strongest character arcs in the set, mechanically speaking. The Ancient Leshen brings a control-oriented monster style that gets more interesting the more you play it. The box may be easier to understand than Realms Fall, but it still has teeth.
If Realms Fall is the sleeper hit, Steel & Silver is the box that gets people through the door.
Weaknesses
The main weakness is the same one Realms Fall has: this is still a three-character box.
If you already own Unmatched sets, that is not a major issue. You can mix fighters freely, bring in another character, and have a proper 2v2 experience. But if Steel & Silver is your first and only set, you are getting a good taste of Unmatched rather than the full social spread of it.
The second issue is that Ciri may also frustrate some players. If she gets going, she can feel unfair. I do not think she is impossible to counter, but she does ask both players to understand the tempo of the match. Leave her alone too long and you may find yourself staring at a problem you had several turns to prevent.
Final Verdict
Unmatched: The Witcher – Steel & Silver is the obvious Witcher fan purchase, and I mean that as a compliment.
It has Geralt. It has Ciri. It has the Ancient Leshen. It has Kaer Morhen. It understands the fantasy of preparation, power, and monster-hunting well enough to make the box feel like more than a simple IP reskin.
Geralt gives you the satisfaction of preparing properly for the fight ahead. Ciri gives you a dangerous late-game arc that feels completely in character. The Leshen gives you a monster that rewards patience, and positioning.
Is it as mechanically surprising as Realms Fall? Not quite. But it is cleaner, easier to recommend, and probably the set most Witcher fans should look at first.
