Pugilist (Unarmed Attack Mastery)?

Greetings D&D Beyond and Community,

I was just reading through a few of the Pugilist Subclasses, and had a question on the Squared Circle Subclass.

Starting at the Level 1 base Pugilist, in the Fisticuffs section it states "given you mastery over combat styles that use Unarmed Strikes and Pugilist weapons, which are the following:"
(This is stating that you get Weapon Masteries with the following weapons, not with your Unarmed Strikes)

• Simple Melee Weapons
• Improvised Weapons

The 5.5e Players Handbook does not state that Unarmed Attacks have a Mastery Property, and this has been discussed in the Forums prior, like in This post.

Now to the main question...

In the Squared Circle subclass, at Level 3, you get the Groundwork feature and within it the Stop and Drop option, which states:
"When you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike and don’t use a mastery property as part of the attack, you can use both the Grapple and Shove option."

This is worded as though the character WOULD get some type of a Mastery Property with their Unarmed Strikes.

Am I missing something, or is this just saying if any part of your attack utilizes an Unarmed Strike that hits, even though you also used a weapon as well...

Example, I am a L5 Squared Circle Pugilist, so I get two attacks per Action & Bonus Action Unarmed Strike:
1st Attack: Dagger
2nd Attack: Dagger
BA Attack: Unarmed Strike

In this example, I used Daggers, but didn't use the 'Nick' Weapon Mastery Extra Attack... so I could use the Stop and Drop feature?

Am I understanding this correctly, or am I way off?

Quote from Laird_Denton >>

Greetings D&D Beyond and Community,

I was just reading through a few of the Pugilist Subclasses, and had a question on the Squared Circle Subclass.

Starting at the Level 1 base Pugilist, in the Fisticuffs section it states "given you mastery over combat styles that use Unarmed Strikes and Pugilist weapons, which are the following:"
(This is stating that you get Weapon Masteries with the following weapons, not with your Unarmed Strikes)

It is not saying that you get Weapon Masteries. The word "mastery" is being used in its general sense here. The feature provides three benefits that are listed in the following paragraph; it doesn't provide access to any weapon masteries.

Quote from Laird_Denton >>

In the Squared Circle subclass, at Level 3, you get the Groundwork feature and within it the Stop and Drop option, which states:
"When you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike and don’t use a mastery property as part of the attack, you can use both the Grapple and Shove option."

This appears to just be an error; Unarmed Strikes do not have a weapon mastery property because they are not weapons, and nothing in any of these features changes that. It seems likely that it was copied and pasted from one of the other similar abilities without taking care to clean it up. This sort of editing issue is unfortunately pretty common in third-party content that gets released on D&D Beyond.

Quote from Laird_Denton >>

 Example, I am a L5 Squared Circle Pugilist, so I get two attacks per Action & Bonus Action Unarmed Strike:
1st Attack: Dagger
2nd Attack: Dagger
BA Attack: Unarmed Strike

In this example, I used Daggers, but didn't use the 'Nick' Weapon Mastery Extra Attack... so I could use the Stop and Drop feature?

Am I understanding this correctly, or am I way off?

Yes, you can, because your Unarmed Strike didn't use a weapon mastery (because it can't). Regardless of whether you're using a weapon mastery on either of those other attacks, you didn't use one on the Unarmed Strike, which is all that matters for Stop and Drop.

Maybe they're just covering themselves in case WotC (or someone else) introduces Masteries for unarmed strikes.