Welcome back, chooms. The sealed sim just went live on the site, so before you go build a pile of your favorite cards and call it a deck, let's talk about what actually separates a good sealed pool from a good sealed deck. Spoiler: it's not (always) the pool.

I've been playing sealed formats in one card game or another for a while now, and the fundamentals don't really change. Gigs, Eddies, and a promo Nova Rare are new clothes on a skeleton that's like twenty years old. People treat sealed like it's a coin flip (which, I won't deny, really can feel like that at times). It's not. It's a skill test with a randomizer attached to it, and most people are failing the skill part.

One thing worth saying up front: sealed plays by different rules than Constructed, and it trips people up. In Constructed, your Legends' RAM gates which colors and card strengths you can even run. In sealed, none of that applies. WeirdCo has confirmed you can play up to three colors in your deck regardless of what your Legends provide, RAM numbers and all. Keep that straight or you'll build your whole pool around a restriction that doesn't exist.

Let Your Pulls Pick Your Colors, Not The Other Way Around

Forget starting with your Legends. In sealed, you crack six packs, lay everything out, and look at which colors you actually opened well. You're allowed three colors, so figure out which of your colors is weakest and cut it. Then look at your next weakest color, and make some choices. Play the rest.

Only after that do we go back and choose your three Legends, and the criteria is completely different from Constructed. Since RAM isn't restricting you, pick the Legends whose actual abilities do the most work for the Units, Gear, and Programs you're already committed to playing. A Legend that's a great RAM engine in Constructed might be a mediocre pick in sealed if its ability does nothing for your pool. Read what the card does, not what number is printed in the corner.

Prioritize Stats Over Synergy

With six packs of cards to work with, you are not going to open enough copies of any one archetype to reliably build around it. I know it's tempting when you crack two cards that combo, but building a sealed deck around a synergy you can't consistently assemble is how you lose to someone who just played bigger, cleaner stat lines than you.

Evaluate cards mostly in isolation. Does this Unit's power hold up in a fight on its own? Does this Gear or Program do something real without needing three other specific cards in play? If yes, it's playable. Synergy is a tiebreaker in sealed, not a always the strategy.

Get Your Sellable Ratio Right

To play your strongest cards, you need Eddies, and to get Eddies consistently you need to be selling a card almost every turn. That means your deck needs the right split between sellable and unsellable cards.

A good starting target is close to even, with a slight lean toward sellables. In practice that lands around 14ish Units to 16ish sellable Programs and Gear in your 30. If your deck is heavy on unsellable Units and light on sellable Gear and Programs, you'll be stuck holding strong cards you can't afford to play. Fix the ratio before you fall in love with your curve.

Power Checks Are Your Removal

This game doesn't hand you a stack of "destroy target unit" commons. Combat is power versus power, ties trade, and a Unit swinging in at 10+ power doesn't just win the fight, it steals you a second Gig for the trouble. So "removal" here means anything that lets you win a fight you'd otherwise lose, or blanks a big attacker before it connects.

Whatever your pool gives you on that front, Gear that pumps a blocker, a Program that answers a big body, a Unit that just outsizes what your opponent's likely running, treat it like premium removal in any other card game. Always play it. "I hope they don't open a bomb" has never been a strategy anywhere, and it's not one here either.

You're Racing To Seven, Not Just Building The Bigger Board

The win condition is six Gigs held into your next turn, or seven at any point, full stop. That should change how you sequence every single turn.

Sitting comfortably at five feels safe. It isn't. One clean steal, especially from a Unit big enough to grab two at once, ends the game before you get a say in it. Decks that only know how to attack are exposed to exactly that. Run a couple of Units built to hold the line, not just ones built to push damage. If you've played any recent Riftbound, the concept of point tempo is still sort of the same here.

Play The Minimum, Not More

Your sealed deck needs a minimum of 30 cards, and nothing stops you from running more if your kit gives you the depth. Don't. This is one of those rules that's true in basically every sealed format ever made: every card you add past your best cards dilutes your deck with something weaker. Cut down to your 30 best, not your 34 pretty good.

Don't Sleep On Decking Yourself Out

Zero cards left in your deck means you lose, immediately, no exceptions. Sealed games run long more often than you'd think, especially two grindy builds staring each other down over Gig dice. If your pool has extra draw or filtering, do the math before you fire it off late in a close game. It's a rare way to lose. It's also a completely avoidable one, and I've watched it happen to someone who should have known better.

Go Test It

Everything above is easier to learn by doing than by reading me rant about it. That's the whole point of the sim. Open some packs, cut down to your best three colors, check your sellable ratio, and run it back with a different Legend combo. Get your bad reps out of the way now instead of at the table.

See you in Night City.