Playing in a limited PTQ on Monday... Advice?
When opening your pool(assuming m14 sealed, but this is mostly applicable to all sets), sort by color first. Note your manafixing if any, and your bombs.
Second, pull out all of your unplayable cards from each color. 2/1's that don't do anything fall into this category(if you're playing coral merfolk, your deck is either terrible, or has 4 fortify...and probably still terrible). Take out all the offensive aura's as well including troll hide, shiv's embrace, and mark of the vampire. They are not good in sealed since card advantage is king and getting 2-for-1'd is the easiest way to lose game.
After doing that, cut your two weakest colors. This is likely the easiest thing to do.
From
their, if you have a splashable bomb or removal spell in one of your cut colors(say double doom blade, or primeval bounty), look at the fixing you opened up and keep that in mind when building.
EX: you have decent Red and Blue, and less good but playable green, but your green includes lay of the land and verdant haven and you have a devout invocation and a pacifism you want to play, it's probably likely that green gives you the deck with the best shot of winning. Err on the side of the more powerful deck, not the synergestic deck.
Back to looking at the three colors you can play, build each deck to give you the best chance of playing the best deck. This also lets you see decks that you can possibly side into during matches. If you're playing a r/g midrange deck and you get blown out by your opponents bomb heavy deck, it's useful to know that you can board into the UR tempo deck with 2 cancels, essence scatter and negate to answer all their bullshit.
Play your bombs and play your removal. Even if
the blue is unplayable and the mana would be shaky, splash for Jace, Memory adept because he's the best bomb in the set. You resolve it you win.
Lastly, I don't care what your deck looks like, choose to draw EVERY TIME in M14 sealed. Even if you lose a game to your opponent curving out on the play, you still want to be on the draw every game because those extra cards add up and it's sealed so 8 out of the 200 people in the tourney are going to have a reasonable chance of curving out with there deck consistently and being a card closer to your game winning bombs and removal that answers there bullshit is much more likely to win you the game then hoping you go rootwalla into baloth into sporemound on the play.
I myself am going to a sealed PTQ this weekend and I have been practicing building decks
Very good points in your post.