I've only been playing since like NML month 4, so I've never done sealed in my entire life ever for anything. I'm super excited for Fear Itself, but I'm also worried that if I can't preconstruct I' going to flounder. Any advice so I'm not going in blind?

Sealed is building blind. It challenges players in a different way - making lemonade out of lemons, sometimes.

Sealed advice:

A) Mobility and good use of actions is a good thing.

B) Try and shoot for 4 figures on a team unless you pull something that has sicko stats.

C) Gravitate towards figure-types you are used to using.

Recently I played in a sealed and had A & B covered. My mistake - C. I had a fairly heavy range team and I am much more effective with close-combat. The one game where I got to play "my way" was the only one I won.

D) Read your opponent's cards. Even if you think you know what the character does, read it. In the tourney I mentioned, I was facing a guy using Cyborg. I assumed he worked like Strange and Prof X - count range as if... Nope. Turns out Cyborg needs to be within 7 of an object to count range from that object. So Cyborg was chilling in his starting area blasting the heck out of me and I didn't even know he couldn't do that.

A few thoughts, anyway...

Also, as much as possible, try to familiarize yourself with all the figures in the set before going in. With all the previews, most, if not all the dials are revealed beforehand. Anonym0use does some great Marquee Primer articles in the week before sealed games start. All these will help you to make educated choices.

You can't be expected to memorize all the dials, but if you can remember that Character A hulks up when hit, while Character B's stats drops like a stone and Character C has a dial that changes mid-way from ranged combat oriented to close, it'll help you to know who to use, and who on your opponent's team you should target and who you should leave alone.

I've yet to play a sealed game but you guys gave some great advice for me as well.

It amazes me how some guys at my venue memorize the dials of their clix. I have a hard time even memorizing my favorites! I'm going to try and do better at this because I know it is a game-changer.

Good points! That Cyborg is wicked because he doesn't need to draw line of fire to those objects either. They simply need to be within his range.

You absolutely need to roll through the entire dial several times when selecting figures in sealed. You may not be able to memorize it before the game, but you should have some idea what they look like down the dial.

A lot of people never even bother looking past the top click in sealed and it can get you in trouble. Also when looking at dials, I anticipate getting hit so I can decide how well or poorly the potential figures will work together midway through the game.

Hadn't thought of that. Definitely keeping it in mind for next weekends tournament.

My advice is to read over your cards and spin through the dials several times. Try to aim for some support figures. I always try to get one perplex/one outwit/one prob on my teams. After that, I try to get 1-2 main attackers depending on the point total. I also try to play to team abilities when I can, like if you get characters that are wildcards, try to pair them with a Batman ally, mystic, or TT.

This has been my experience with sealed events...really driven home by the ASM set: If you can have a means of Probability Control that does not cripple your offense, you should try to include it.

In a set like ASM, PC is somewhat plentiful, with many offensive figures bringing their own PC. In a set like Teen Titans there is an inexpensive PC figure (Jinx) but it is more likely that you can build a theme team that can take a theme re-roll action token.

If it isn't obvious, having PC helps your attacks to hit while helping your opponent's attacks miss. This can be all the difference in a sealed game.