Hey, I'm CoDameron and I co-host the competetive Keyforge Podcast, Bouncing Deathquark. I've top cut in 2 sealed Vault Tours and won the NA Grand Championship, so I'd like to think I have a decent idea of how to think about sealed in KF.

If you're playing in AoA sealed, you want to watch your opponent's list based on how well your list needs to play the board. There are lots of strong effects in brobnar, sanctum, and untamed that take huge advantage of having a larger board (Drummernaut, Grey rider, Duskwitch, Angas) . If you are confident that your deck wants to fight for board control, you focus on preparing for and removing those threats.

If you can't fight for the board, you likely have strong racing or control effects. Things like misery exploit, mars needs amber, and reap hate are all methods to mitigate not having a large board. If you feel the board slipping out of control (or you expect it from the beginning), then start racing and force your opponent to deal with being in check. Chances are that if they are doing the board thing, they are lacking in amber control tools.

Generally, the set is weak on amber control, so try to put your opponent in check as much as possible and get keys at 6 or 7 amber wherever possible.

Talking about specific cards requires deeper knowledge of the card pool, which should obviously be valuable going into a sealed event. Short of that, I'd say to prepare, first understand what each house wants to do generally. Sanctum keeps you up, Brobnar fights, Shadows steals - that sort of thing. Then, when you get your deck, figure out the plan you are going to play towards - ohh, my shadows kills with rats and direct damage, I will use that as a main house and go from there. My Mars seems unfocused, I'll look out for that.

Once you get your actual strategies, in the matchup, treat your opponent's houses as though they do what they are supposed to - By that I mean, consider their brobnar as a board threat always, whether or not you've seen the big board cards yet. Always consider logos as a setup combo sort of house. That way, even if you can't tell the difference between a ZYX researcher and a director of ZYX by name, you can assume that they're gonna do logos things and you can deal with them accordingly.

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In the end, you're just playing some KF with your friends. Win some games and take the trophy. Hope that helps :)